CRC labeled as “The Mt. Hood Freeway of this year’s mayoral race”

Yes. Yes. Yes. A million times yes! Roberts is correct. A mayor needs to do the detailed stuff, but also needs to show leadership in making the right decisions. Jefferson is doing that.

This single issue (the CRC) was the biggest factor in my decision to vote for Smith.

One parallel between the two projects that stands out: Mount Hood Expressway : Gresham voters :: CRC : Vancouver voters. That is; the natural constituency for both these projects was/is outside of Portland. Those seeking citywide office should heed that political reality. I believe there was a mayoral candidate during the Mt Hood Expressway era who put up billboards that said (and I paraphrase) “If you voted for me, you’d be home by now.” His problem was that the people that sign appealed to were not able to vote for him. The people whose neighborhoods that project would have destroyed certainly voted against him.

For the neighborhoods along I-5, most of the damage is already done, but the added capacity could make life even worse for them. The people there will not likely vote for a pro-CRC candidate, and Hales is aware of this. He doesn’t want to get on the wrong side of the pro-CRC establishment, however, because they have the Oregonian in their pocket.

As far as I can tell, the only difference between the two is that Jefferson has put a blurb on his website about it, and said he likes some specific alternatives. Charlie meanwhile has said he doesn’t think it’s buildable as is, but hasn’t offered his own alternative. Which I think speaks to why I like Charlie a little better – he seems to get that the mayor doesn’t get to do things like design bridges and dictate urban planning. The mayor’s job is to work the political machine and try to get the right people to the table who CAN design a buildable project. Especially in Portland where an ambitious but under-whelming mayor like Sam can quickly irritate the wrong people and find themselves locked out.

Politically speaking, Roberts may be right.

But it’s asinine to put the projects in the same category. Even if the CRC goes through, it will do an order of magnitude less damage to the region than the Mt. Hood Freeway would have. What it will do is cost lots of money and increase traffic on I-5. A combination of replacing an antique bridge (good), greatly improving transit/bike/ped access (very good) and widening a freeway (bad) is not in the same ballpark as bulldozing an entire central-city neighborhood to build a freeway.

The CRC is handily as ugly in terms of irreversible damage as compared to the Mt Hood Freeway. My vote will be determined by a number of factors but the CRC is a leading one. I appreciate a *leader* who *leads* versus just is a gear in the system. I’d rather see a few things stood up for and lost while maintaining a particular ethos versus being very flexible such that their actual viewpoint is obscured by political game.

Of course the mayor doesn’t exactly get to decide everything. Seattle elected Mike McGinn as mayor, yet the Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement juggernaut/boondoggle is still happening. After the infamous Seattle Process rejected every possible option that might have been less expensive, they’re going to get that platinum-plated tunnel reamed through their downtown no matter what.

Of course Seattle’s agony could be our gain, since that $4.2 Billion project (that’s the estimate – mark my words, the final tally will break $7B) is a giant black hole sucking every potential Washington state dollar away from the CRC.

Could Portland really be on the cusp of another Mt. Hood Freeway moment? I haven’t held out too much hope until now, but given the financial predicaments of the two states and the federal DOT, maybe the stars are aligning …

A lot has changed since 1974

When it comes to the CRC I wish more had changed since then. Notwithstanding Zach’s attempt to differentiate the damage the two would (have) caused, I’m inclined to think the CRC is every bit as bad if not worse in the grand scheme of things. This is in no way to minimize the social cost of having gone through with the Mt. Hood Freeway, but rather to suggest that the CRC as I understand it is as bad for our times (climate change, Peak Oil, recession) as the Mt Hood Freeway would have been for the Portland almost forty years ago.

What hasn’t apparently changed is the powerful interests that keep pushing for these Cold War era infrastructure projects. I hope Smith prevails and the economic floor drops out from underneath this and we will have (only) lost the $130M so far spent on studies.

This is really cool to see.

One big difference between what happened with the Mt. Hood Freeway and the CRC could be the way in which popular opinion might be thing that brings down the CRC. Whereas with the Mt Hood Freeway, while there was definitely some citizen opposition to it, from what I understand it actually wasn’t all that unpopular. I read somewhere that had the Mt Hood Freeway been put to popular vote it probably would have been approved, so it was left to political leaders to stop the Mt Hood Freeway from bulldozing a path through SE Portland. With the CRC, it might actually end up being popular sentiment that puts on the brakes. While our less inspired leaders keep plodding along on the assumption that it’s a done deal and simply too big to dare oppose, the public – the same voting public that gave Jefferson Smith such a big boost in the polls – might end up being the force that calls for a halt to that massively wasteful and risky project. A project that, as you suggest, bears little resemblance to, “the values that the citizens of Portland hold near and dear.”

It’s heartening to see popular opinion leading the leaders in the right direction. I hope it happens with the CRC.

The CRC is a nightmare, come ride in solidarity against this disaster on June 24th: http://www.facebook.com/events/208117899308961/

Zach wrote:
“Even if the CRC goes through, it will do an order of magnitude less damage to the region than the Mt. Hood Freeway would have. What it will do is cost lots of money and increase traffic on I-5. ”

The CRC, if built as planned, will cause tremendous damage to N/NE neighborhoods.

2 lanes of the 5 lane freeway will be diverted onto surface streets.

I-5 will be jammed from I-405 to Marine Drive, southbound, for the entire morning.

Greeley, Interstate, MLK and Vancouver/Williams will absorb those two lanes of freeway traffic.

This is dramatically different than the Mt. Hood Freeway, which would have removed commuter traffic from surface streets like Powell, Division and Foster.

Ted Buehler

I live in SW Vantucky, and all I care about it getting Max across the river. Well, that and an artillery bridge. Leave everything else as is. The problem is that this is about politics and labor jobs rather than what is best for the community. You can see the 5 step alternative here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPB1jtmHVkk&feature=relmfu

I see more differences than similarities between the Mt Hood Freeway and the CRC projgect. The MHF would have opened up a whole new corridor and connected lots of east Multnomah County to Portland. It would have displaced hundreds if not thousands of people. It made no provisions for transit or non-motorized traffic. In fact, the MHF’s cancellation led directly to the MAX line connecting Gresham to Portland.

The CRC project improves an existing corridor with some increased capacity for autos, but also deals with severe safety problems (I’ve personally seen plenty of fender benders on I-5 near the bridge). More importantly, the CRC project extends the MAX to downtown Vancouver and beyond and I improves what can only be described as an awful, scary, shared bicycle-pedestrian facility (and, yes, I do ride it many times per week).

The CRC will also implement tolls; the MHF had no provision for tolls.

I think Roberts’ description was not the physical similarities of the projects, but the positioning of the candidates on an issue.

I agree with StevetotheKizzo. Besides Max, Oregon needs an artillery bridge to Hayden Island, so we can get our howitzers out there to defend our northern border! 🙂

We are broke and we have two serviceable (and very attrractive) bridges already in place.

Want to reduce traffic? How about we take a 21st century approach to the problem and encourage/enable tele-commuting. …Or smaller personal vehicles? …Or a more comprehensive/robust public transportation option to serve sites across the river?

Bottom line is that there are several low-cost things we could be doing if we had leadership that had spine enough to shake off the election-cycle myopia that most politicians are stricken with. Spending buckets of borrowed money on (the eyesore that is the proposed) CRC is not the answer to anything that ails us. …Our priorities are effed up!!!