Cascadia Rising Tide — a grassroots network of activists that, “take direct action to confront the roots causes of climate change and promote local, community-based solutions to the climate crisis” — will lead a ride next week exploring areas of North Portland that will be impacted by the Columbia River Crossing (CRC) project.
Calling the CRC “our region’s biggest threat to bicycles and the people that love them,” Rising Tide has decided to do the ride during Shift’s Pedalpalooza event (which kicks off Thursday).
(Photos © J. Maus)
The ride is also planned to meet up with a “surprise non-violent direct action also in opposition to the CRC.” My guess is that direct action will come from the same, Joe “Metal Cowboy” Kurmaskie-led crew that put on the Waterfront Park rally and the CRC spoof videos on YouTube.
Organizers say the ride will be a display of non-violent civil disobedience against the CRC project. Rising Tide is opposed to the currently proposed project because they say it will enable a 30% increase in single occupancy vehicle traffic, which will lead to global warming and increased pollution in the I-5 corridor and will be accompanied by increased rates of chronic health diseases like obesity and asthma.
While regional politicians, project staff and consultants continue to meet and discuss the CRC (the issue of tolls and bridge design are hot right now), there remains very little in the way of financial commitments. The Oregon legislature left money for a new I-5 bridge out of its recently passed, $960 million package of highway spending, Congressional leaders called for a smaller, less expensive bridge, and the Portland Business Journal recently reported that, “Supporters of a new Columbia River Interstate 5 bridge face huge funding hurdles.”
our Mayor.” Graffiti spotted on
N. Williams Ave.
Mayor Sam Adams, who has received a lot of criticism from Portlanders about his compromise deal with Vancouver to allow a bridge that could be built to “accomodate up to 12 lanes”, has now started to flex some muscle in design discussions.
Even with a growing lack of enthusiasm to fund the project, the fact that it still has support from every regional transportation agency and and nearly all regional politicians means the CRC will continue to move forward. With no major non-profit organizations stepping up, grassroots groups like Rising Tide feel like they’re the only ones left to voice opposition to the project.
- Pedalpalooza Bike Ride to Protest I-5 Bridge Expansion
Ride meets at 3pm on Sunday, June 14th and departs at 3:30 pm
Peninsula Park (N Ainsworth & Albina)
More info here
Thanks for reading.
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yawn.
non-violent civil disobedience?
right..until all the little hipsters put their black bandannas over their faces and start acting stupid…
if you want to fight this thing, do it through legal channels.
the bridge doesn’t affect 99% of people that ride/commute in this town…and to think that a bridge is some sort of bottleneck or controlling device to urban growth in this town or Vancouver is ill thought and emotionally biased.
its growing…with or without a bridge.
its a city,a popular one, and y’all need to learn to share.
Bauheh-
Love that attitude. If everyone had that attitude back in the ’70s, we’d have the Mt. Hood Freeway.
Even though I’m pro-bike for inner city areas, this is one issue in which expansion for cars make sense. As a primary route for commerce, it would be silly to not accommodate an economic necessity for bikers and non-bikers alike.
Through-town commerce takes I-205. If commerce really is the problem, just give “commerce” one of the existing lanes.
There is nothing wrong with the current bridge (in an engineering sense). The whole CRC is a bad idea being shoved down our throats based on antiquated mentality.
This bridge will negatively affect most residents of the city of portland, especially north, northeast, and even SE and downtown. Just say NO !
I think the CRC is a terrible idea.
I also think that saying things like this is both naive and just plain ignorant-
“..they say it will enable a 30% increase in single occupancy vehicle traffic, which will lead to global warming and increased pollution in the I-5 corridor and will be accompanied by increased rates of chronic health diseases like obesity and asthma.”
What utter nonsense. The CRC project is a livability issue. It has nothing to do with climate change. The carbon output of the region(or the country and world!) is not suddenly going to ramp up because we have a wider bridge. Nor will it decrease and lead to some utopian, bikey nirvana if the bridge is halted. Statements like this make environmentalists seem like spoiled, uninformed children.
Reality is way more profound and inspiring than dogmatic hyperbole.
Does anybody honestly think anything “shovel ready” will happen before 2018?
Shawn..sorry you have problems with reality…that reality it is.
a large majority of bridge users want a new, larger one (hell, even an additional lane or two leading up to the bridge to alleviate onflow traffic would be great….but I supposed you don’t spend a lot of time in your car driving I-5N at 5:30pm most nights…
Steve…I agree. spouting off unsupported “facts” and trying to spread them around as gospel only serves to make this group look absolutely ridiculous and retain zero credibility to the people they’re trying to persuade..
RyNo Dan…if you’ve ever driven I-5N during rush hour, you’d know damn well that “commerce” (in the form of large shipping trucks) use both I-5N and S and are, in deed, not routed through I-205.
Trying to convince me and others that my ride 5 mile commute through SE PDX each morning will be affected by a bridge 10 miles away isn’t going to work. Sorry.
define “negatively affect”…you want us to believe that the current bridge is some bottleneck, some migitating control to a lifestyle and sense of community that will be utterly destroyed when a new bridge is built? honestly?
root cause of climate change? try going vegan
The protesters ‘green-ness’ expectation of the City of Portland through its actions seems a bit forgetful … when the City’s Parks department owns PIR! (I would think that there could be more gained in the short term in focusing on this issue within the City now vs. the future bridge expansion.)
How many US parks and recreation departments promote car races and the regional traffic volumes they attract from I-5? This race day traffic plus the Expo Center event traffic causes mini gridlocks on I-5 each open weekend.
Plus motorsport raceway vehicles have very very little in the way of emission or noise control devices. I would think a racetrack would be managed by the EPA as a point source polluter – if it were not a ‘transportation facility’.
baheuh said: “but I supposed you don’t spend a lot of time in your car driving I-5N at 5:30pm most nights..”
Um, no. I live in Portland. And work in Portland. Silly, huh?
And regarding “reality”: The “reality” in the early ’70s was that the Mount Hood Freeway was going to happen. Inevitable. No way around it. Just accept the “reality.” Yet thirty-odd years later, I don’t see a Mount Hood Freeway, no? That’s because some people were not afraid to challenge that reality. (Or maybe they were just plain crazy? I wouldn’t say that. Maybe you would.) And I am forever grateful to them for that.
Mt Hood freeway is not exactly an accurate comparison since the CRC isn’t taking out a large swath of existing neighborhood.
bahueh
looks like a good reason to add bike lanes and a proper Max extension on the bridge, keep the current amount of lanes. Less people will have to sit in traffic since they have alternatives to driving their cars to Portland.
Some controlled growth, density, and jobs in the region these people actually “live in”…that would not be a bad idea either.
steve,
Where are you getting the suggestion of a sudden “ramp up” of carbon emissions if the CRC is built? And I don’t see where anyone’s saying a “bikey nirvana” will arise should the CRC be halted. I mean, *if* they were saying that, you’d have cause to criticize, but that seems like a stretch, like a straw dog.
I think the passage you quote could, at worst, be misinterpreted as saying: should the CRC get built, then bam, we’ll have global warming, when before there was no global warmin. But I don’t think anyone is suggesting such a thing.
I read it as saying: we already have climate change, because of stuff like the CRC. Let’s not make the problem worse.
Increased auto traffic will increase carbon emissions, asthma, and obesity. It’s not that wild a notion.
Let’s see. California’s hyper-liberal, leftist politics have, over the last 30 years, buried that state in brown-skinned third-world chaos. The guilt ridden, brainwashed and thoroughly beguiled, privileged, affluent whites from that state, out fear for their lives, have staged an exodus. They’ve overran rural communities in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, and Colorado. In addition to bullying their way into these communities, Californians have permeated every metro area in the region with a mixture of stereotypical California excess and superficiality, first homogenizing, then utterly eradicating local culture, and traditions.
Everywhere within these states Californians are despised. Not only that, in typical insurgent fashion, Californians immediately turn the conflict on it’s ear, and decry encroachment once settled and in a position to affect population density expansion.
So now, after nothing less than an invasion, and subsequent occupation by a completely foreign, and totally out-of-touch element from down south, these same people are going to turn around and prevent the construction of infrastructure necessitated by their very own presence here.
Priceless.
Let us not forget that the whole reason the I-5 bridge is even being discussed right now, the whole reason for there being a project on the table in the first place, is the direct result of environmentalists from California (Green Peace and Earth First, just to name a couple.) pointing at the dilapidated bridge and complaining about the very environmentally toxic pieces of it falling off into the Columbia River. Since that time a very expensive series of repairs have been effected to address this. A band-aid that is wearing thin while the religious zealots from the California Church of Green, and the People’s Party of the Nanny State, fight about completely abstract, utterly irrational, non-existant problems with building a much needed bridge.
Your way of life around that bridge is going to get the same treatment my own neighborhoods, and way of life, have gotten for over two decades. Your whining about it is very gratifying and I hope beyond all hope that the so-called livability of your neighborhoods is completely demolished.
Perhaps from that new perspective some of you may be able to develop some empathy, and sense of community.
Now, onto Minnesota, Michigan, Reed College and what we’re going to do with YOU people.
Now quick, censor me Maus, so that your sycophants can take their pot-shots risk-free. I know how sensitive Californians are.
— Vance, why would I “censor” you. You haven’t said anything offensive or insulting. Jonathan
Ya I have, and the pot-shots haven’t ensued yet. Disambiguating my own insults is a fairly thin-veil I presumed you’d see right through. Should you choose not to censor, then you have that much more of my respect. As usual, my vitriol is aimed at some of the asinine comments here, not your article.
Much mind-reading. Much generalization. Much passion and indignation. Resentment, jealousy… I realize, but the fact of the matter is I’m fairly observant and I stand tall and proud behind my pointing finger.
I just want space between my chosen mode of transportation and the ideology of people I don’t know, and feel are completely, and totally insane. Get the Green off my bike, I don’t subscribe. Furthermore, since I actually ride mine, all the time, I’m the one taking beer-bottles to the head. Not mouthy little California Girls.
Are you aware that some Californians are PUSHED OUT of their communities? That a great deal more people are moving into CA than leaving as well?
Those areas do not know the 1st thing about invasion. Try being a teacher making under 50k and buying a home for 600k, or a condo for 400k.
Some find the excess you mentioned less than desirable and want OUT. Many cannot afford to live in their hometowns and they left. Many are far from privileged and do not fit the mold you state.
The ones that received a hand me down home that the parents bought int he 60’s for 70 grand and sold them for 700k…there the ones that might fit the mold. But, that is not the majority of the populous.
Besides, it has been discovered census wise that more people move into OR from other states, and more people move from OR to CA by a staggering amount.
It is where the jobs are (or maybe I should say “were”;). The jobs those people want and can do…at least.
I hope they can create a more balanced environment in CA. Now it is just miserable. Fast pace. Excessive. Miserable and impersonal. It is sad really…
Looking forward to coming out in solidarity with the NO CRC mission.
I anticipate much more resistance to this all summer long!
In my dream world, we would allocate the ridiculous amount of money to replace the bridge and instead:
~ invest in overhauling our rail bridge
~ earthquake retro-fit the current I-5 bridge
~ repair the Sellwood & other bridges needing work
~ create a more user friendly bike/ pedestrian option for the I-5 and I-205 bridges.
Perhaps I’m mistaken, but I sincerely believe that the reason the bridge was put on the table in the first place was because of an interest (read: $) to maintain and expand a reliable and direct route through North America to capitalize on free trade. This system is entirely dependent on gasoline & has screwed everyone south of the U.S.
See ya on Sunday! Let’s discuss more!
I’ll be there.
Also Vance Longwell: You *should* be censored on here. That was one of the most off-base, myopic and hateful rants I’ve read on here.
“Trying to convince me and others that my ride 5 mile commute through SE PDX each morning will be affected by a bridge 10 miles away isn’t going to work.”
Oh, no. A rally that I don’t have to go to. Whatever will I do?
seriously folks? seems some here just want to complain about whatever they can…
WHEW, so many comments i have to ignore.
This is a great time to show your support for:
* less dependence on terror inducing fluids
* clean air and water
* radical bike fun
There are many reasons to compare this to the would be Mt Hoodfreeway – Its a big boondoggle of a stupid idea forced upon the little guy by powerfully annoying jerks.
The CRC is wrong for so many reasons, please learn everything you can about it!
http://smarterbridge.blogspot.com/2009/04/understanding-complexity.html
jonathan, is the 1st link of the story broken?