(Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)
Ryan Packer is our special correspondent for the Interstate Bridge Replacement project. See their past coverage here.
“We’re in a really critical moment with this project.”
— Brett Morgan, 1000 Friends of Oregon
As a small number of Portland-area elected officials push a design option for I-5 over the Columbia River that doesn’t expand the highway to ten lanes, a broad group of environmental and sustainable transportation organizations have signed a letter that supports them. At the same time, an advisory committee at Metro has unanimously supported an additional $71 million to continue planning the project, teeing up a major showdown next month.
The letter (PDF), signed by sixteen orgs including Oregon League of Conservation Voters, Climate Solutions, the Street Trust, and Oregon Walks, sent to the Interstate Bridge Replacement (IBR) project team on Monday, spells out that a climate-forward project means “[t]he IBR must not expand the number of vehicle travel lanes, including auxiliary lanes”, and pushes for updated models before moving forward with a set number of design options.
“The IBR project must prioritize the efficient movement of goods and people: by moving more people across the bridge, via transit and safe and accessible active transportation options, while moving the same or fewer cars (via pricing) and providing freight priority,” the letter states.
This letter follows one sent on October 21 (PDF) signed by Portland Transportation Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty and Metro President Lynn Peterson that gets in writing the request that those two elected officials made of the IBR project team during their last Executive Steering Group meeting. “We need to see analysis that looks at what is possible if we fully invest in transit capacity and access and integrate equitable congestion pricing,” the letter states.
That Hardesty/Pederson letter notes that “some significant base assumptions have not been adequately revisited” from the CRC project a decade ago, and notes concerns “that under the current work plan, elements will only be analyzed individually as if they do not influence each other (i.e., highway design, tolling, and transit options).”
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“We’re in a really critical moment with this project,” 1000 Friends of Oregon Policy Manager Brett Morgan, a signatory and primary force behind the sign-on letter released Monday, told BikePortland. With the MTIP project selection and funding process proceeding at Metro, he said, “there are more reasons to have more attention on this project than ever.” Morgan added that the letter represents a “common ground for partners to become more engaged on the project” as details around the project have become increasingly clear.
Statewide land-use nonprofit 1000 Friends of Oregon has also published their own thoughts on the project via a blog post titled “The Interstate Bridge Replacement Project is an equity and climate disaster”, and they are not alone in asking the Metro Council to put the brakes on the IBR project. Today, No More Freeways launched a new campaign asking Metro to withhold funding until the project team presents a more climate-friendly version of the project.
Right now, momentum is with the project. At their November 5th meeting, the Metro Transportation Policy Alternatives Committee (TPAC) voted unanimously to release an additional $71 million in planning and engineering funds for the IBR ($36 million from Oregon, $35 from Washington). Metro does not have a voting member on that board, and Portland’s representative, PBOT regional planner Eric Hesse, was not present. That vote is the first approval on its way to a full vote of the Metro Council on December 2. During the TPAC meeting, multiple committee members framed a vote to release funds for engineering as necessary to determine answers to key questions that remain about the project.
“What we are trying to do is… keep traffic moving through to limit greenhouse gas from inefficient idling due to being stalled in traffic.”
— Raymond Maybe, ODOT
ODOT Deputy IBR Program Administrator Raymond Maybe told TPAC in a presentation prior to their vote that, “This [$71 million] covers the work to answer a lot of questions that our partners are asking… these funds help will help us work forward to address the questions and answers and address those concerns as we move forward.” Maybe also acknowledged that the project is looking to reconfigure seven interchanges across a five-mile section of I-5 and that one of the goals is to, “Keep traffic moving through to limit greenhouse gases from inefficient idling due to being stalled in traffic.” (This idea is controversial to say the least, but it’s a fundamental principle at ODOT that’s been espoused by Director Kris Strickler and Oregon Senator and Joint Transportation Committee Co-chair Lee Beyer.)
The IBR program has already spent millions on PR and outreach, but it remains to be seen how much that outreach process is operating in good faith. A central piece of their community engagement strategy are advisory boards, like the Community Advisory Group (CAG) and the Equity Advisory Group. But elected leaders on the Executive Steering Group saw the “universe” of design options before either advisory group did, and when the CAG was briefed on the design options last week, the request from Hardesty and Peterson for an additional option based on transit and congestion pricing was not brought up.
Program Administrator Greg Johnson told the CAG at their most recent meeting that elected leaders had not removed any options for their consideration, even as he omitted issues raised by those elected officials. “They wanted you to see everything, all the work that was done…you will be seeing all that work in total”, he told the group. Also at the meeting, Diana Nunez of the Oregon Environmental Council asked about data around impact of tolling and demand management. “In 2022 we’ll have a lot more information about tolling’s effect on the corridor and what that means,” was the response from Brad Philips of the IBR design team, but it’s not clear that any options with fewer than ten lanes will be advanced to the screening stage without all advisory boards pushing for it.
“While there are focus groups and engagement committees, the process that IBR project leadership has defined is confusing, and makes it hard for stakeholders to understand where meaningful opportunities to engage are and how their input will be integrated in the bridge,” the letter from advocacy groups noted.
With so many groups coming together to note where the project is falling short, this represents a key moment so far in the history of the CRC 2.0. What remains to be seen next is whether these voices for change are any match for the institutional inertia behind this mega-project.
Thanks for reading.
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Dear Raymond Maybe: Greenhouse gas emissions stem mainly from people STARTING and RUNNING cars and trucks, not from IDLING.
New motto for ODOT: “We need you NOT to make that car trip.”
It is annoying how often this myth gets repeated, so I appreciate Jonathon linking to the City Observatory article when mentioning it (which itself links to the academic literature).
Just how successful have you been in persuading people (say, your family or your neighbors) to “not make that car trip,” and how would you suggest that ODOT or any agency make that moto successful?
Heck, we have one-third of the people in this country refusing to get vaccinated against a killer virus even when the evidence is clear about the benefits and the deaths are occurring every day. Do you really think “don’t take the car trip” will prove more successful when the cause/effect relationship is less direct and less immediate?
That’s why we have congestion pricing.
That’s a boring run-of-the-mill 1960s era highway toll and looks nothing like congestion pricing (both geographically and distributionally).
A questionable claim. Cars get far better mileage on the highway than in stop/go traffic, or in city driving where they constantly stop and take off at intersections. For the lowest emissions you need enough lanes to keep traffic moving without stop and go.
Also, many cars today stop the engine when not moving (idiotic in my opinion), so in stop and go traffic they’d be STARTING (your word) constantly, indicating that more lanes will likely result in lower GHG emissions.
I see you missed my post or the link in the article that shows that this really isn’t a questionable claim.
The fatal flaw in your reasoning is the assumption that you have a fixed number of vehicles traveling in too few lanes, and that adding more would simply allow that same number of vehicles easier passage, resulting in less emissions per vehicle. In reality, more lanes simply induce more vehicles, which is actually the number one factor in total emissions (far greater a factor than the performance of individual vehicles).
More lanes = more vehicles = more emissions. This is well observed at this point. Please read the City Observatory article linked in this one, and the linked academic literature linked there if you still need convincing.
Unrelated side note: I realize in my earlier post I credited Jonathon for linking that City Observatory article, but this BikePortland article was written by Ryan – so credit to him!
I don’t know anyone that believes there is a “fixed number of vehicles traveling in too few lanes.” Most people know that the population in the region continues to grow and that the number of cars on the road continues to increase. I would think by now the number of cars is above and beyond the original capacity that it was designed for.
I’ll have to reread the articles on induced demand. It doesn’t seem like they take increased population and number of people driving into account. How much is actually induced demand versus an increasing population?
Fortunately congestion pricing should keep shorter trips within the city off the highway and on city streets and leave the highway to intercity/interstate trips.
Obviously, like all community based committees, the outreach is completely performative and it was always going to be. The freight/commerce industry owns ODOT and the truly truly don’t care what some environmental commies think about this project.
That being said, fighting about lanes is, in my opinion, a waste of time. ODOT/WDOT has a larger plan of expanding I5 through “fixing” bottlenecks. We can see evidence at the Rose Quarter and at I5BR. After they’ve expanded the Rose Quarter and I5B, they will identify a new bottleneck on I5 that needs to be fixed and then like a miracle traffic will flow freely!
My point of view is that fighting ten-lanes is politically difficult. Road expansion is popular in general even though it doesn’t achieve anything. The I5B replacement wont actually get traffic flowing faster, as we all know, because those ten lanes will have to merge down into the six existing lanes on I5 in Oregon. The merge-crush will probably make traffic worse. That’s when ODOT will propose “fixing” that section of I5 with a road expansion and that’s where pro-environmental/pro-public health activist should make a stand because it will require the destruction of green space including public parks, homes, and businesses which is going to carry way more value to the public that needs to buy in towards the opposition.
The focus should be securing a design that is bikeable/walkable AND has light rail. I’m generally an opponent of light rail, favoring BRT for it’s cheapness, but this is one application where we need to secure the ability to have high-capacity rail now because if we don’t we wont get it ever.
Is light rail really the best transit option? A fully loaded 2-car MAX train has a capacity of about 350 people. A freeway lane can carry about 2,000 cars per hour. So you would need, roughly, 6 MAX trains every hour to provide the throughput that a freeway lane would provide.
Assume that when these trains cross the river they are completely full. No one (or very few) people in North Portland can get on. Can we just run more trains? I don’t think that’s possible; in fact I think 6 yellow line trains per hour is already too many to cross the bottleneck at the Steel Bridge, where 4 lines converge.
So, the transit dependent population that hasn’t been gentrified out of North Portland is hung out to dry in favor of bedroom commuters from Vancouver? What does that look like through an equity lens?
Greater system capacity seems like a prerequisite to making MAX a viable option for people from Clark County. I don’t pretend to have the answers but I do know that retrofitting the entire MAX system to accommodate longer trains, including a downtown tunnel, would make the IBR look cheap.
So you don’t build light rail and you keep your 2,000 car/hour lane. Where do they all go to? What other roads do those extra cars now clog up? Who pays for their wear and tear on the roadway system? Where do all those cars park?
There may be other limitations/bottlenecks in the light rail system, but you’ve got to start somewhere. Light rail on the bridge is a start, it can only get better from there.
It is unlikely that light rail could ever be expanded outside of downtown Vancouver due to Clark County politics and the fact that CTRAN board of directors is made up of local city council members. (As opposed to TRIMET which is appointed by the governor) The community has compromised by building BRT. Construction has started on a second BRT line and planning on a third.
I don’t know what the benefit of light rail would be to the community other than it runs every 15 minutes throughout the day. Busses running down I-5 should continue to be faster than light rail, especially if variable priced tolls improve traffic as much as has been suggested.
You could build a light rail & bus only lane like on the Tillikum Bridge and that would have a lot of people moving capacity.
Correct me if I’m wrong, we’d still have the freeway, correct? Is the goal of transit to fully replace private vehicles? That’s not my understanding.
Why would we do that?
I’m not sure, its a strawman that you made up that doesn’t make sense or seem realistic to me.
The question is building light rail in lieu of more freeway expansion. So the concept of throughput (number of people transported) for light rail vs a new freeway lane is fundamental to any objective discussion about this project.
“Is the goal of transit to fully replace private vehicles?”
Of course not. No one, including you, read what I wrote and thought that was the point I was making.
“Why would we do that?”
For the sake of argument? You seem to really like arguing. So why did you sidestep the question of what happens to the people who ride MAX today if capacity constraints suddenly leave anyone south of Delta Park standing on the platform during the morning rush hour? If we truly value equity, especially given the history of light rail and gentrification in North Portland, that is a real concern. Or is your point that the trains won’t be full during the peak? If so, is it worth the billion or 2 it will cost if hardly anyone in Clark Co rides it?
MAX has a fundamental capacity limitation that this project lays bare.
The I5BR wont increase throughout of cars regardless. Make it twenty lanes, it doesn’t matter because you still have six lanes in Oregon.
Light rail is the highest capacity transit system you could add to the I5BR to increase throughput.
It’s hard to tell what point you were trying to make because you built an unrealistic scenario and then started asking questions about your unrealistic scenario.
Are you asking what happens if the light rail is successful? You expand it. Just like the freeways that you love. Do you think that the yellow-line is operating at anywhere near capacity today? Do you think light rail would operate at capacity the day it opened if it went to Vancouver?
I prefer to focus on the real world rather than focusing on unrealistic hypotheticals. I wasn’t sidestepping your hypothetical, it just wasn’t worth the time to answer. You made up the strawman, so you should answer it.
This would only be a concern for concern trolls who are anti-transit.
I5 will never be expanded through the Minnesota freeway area. It’s not going to happen. Light rail wont cost a “billion or 2”, and even if it did, it would be worth it because it’s the only real solution to alleviating congestion along the I5 corridor.
My question to you is, do you have a better solution? We are going to waste a billion or more incrementally widening I5 through the Rose quarter. Shifting 10,000 trips to light rail would be well worth it at twice that.
Re: “The I5BR wont increase throughout of cars regardless. Make it twenty lanes, it doesn’t matter because you still have six lanes in Oregon.”
Right! There is no point in building additional through lanes into Oregon’s three-lane system. And, as you note further down in your comment, I5 will never be widened through the Minnesota freeway area. The four extra lanes of the 10-lane total are designed to make ramp-to-ramp/interchange-to-interchange connections. They are seen by the engineers as improving efficiency through the project area. The are the aux lanes of the IBR project.
The yellow line can run 6 trains per hour with the Steel Bridge as-is. This is likely more than enough capacity for the SW Washington demand. If more capacity is needed in the future, we have options. One would be to truncate the Green line at the Rose Quarter (turnback/layover track already exists). A forced transfer here is not ideal, but it would enable 6-minute headways on the yellow line (3,500 passengers per hour).
More importantly, I think it’s worth noting that we likely will never see 2,000 vehicles per hour on a rebuilt CRC. I-5 through north Portland will become the new choke point southbound, and this is really going to jam things up south of the river.
“I-5 through north Portland will become the new choke point southbound, and this is really going to jam things up south of the river.”
Are you aware that a substantial percentage of the southbound traffic in the AM peak actually gets off I-5 at the first three southbound ramps? There are a bunch of Vancouver/Clark County residents who work in the Columbia Corridor and in North Portland.
I am aware. Is it 40% of the traffic, though? Because 40% of the lanes will drop once you hit Oregon. That is a bottleneck.
The Yellow Line has a designed capacity of 8 trains per hour per direction (and that is what TriMet promised with the original CRC proposal). Maximum capacity of the line would be 2,880 passengers per hour per direction.
Which infrastructure is driving 7.5 minute maximum headways on the yellow line? You may be confusing planned capacity vs. maximum capacity. This is a double-tracked line for the entire length. Trimet runs 5 minute headways on the trunk line between Rose Quarter and Gateway using the same signalling system.
I think Sigma asks an important question about Yellow Line capacity, one that the IBRP has ignored, at least in public. I worked in TriMet’s scheduling department at the time the Green Line opened. At that time, the Yellow line service was cut back from five trains per hour per direction to four, because of the capacity bottle neck (to use a favorite ODOT phrase) at the Steel Bridge. This cutback was publicly blamed on the 2008 recession, because TriMet had refused to honestly deal with the Steel Bridge capacity constraints.
All regular MAX vehicle trips must cross the Steel Bridge in the current route configuration. Of course the theoretical capacity of the Steel Bridge may be greater than today’s service level, but practically, it is at the limit. If any route were to be stubbed on the east side, it should be the Red Line, at Gateway, which would allow for future additional service to east Multnomah County and Clackamas County, but I still don’t see where there is adequate additional Yellow Line capacity to meet any reasonable increase in MAX ridership that we would want from a significant investment in the IBRP.
And let me be clear: I am not arguing against light rail across the Columbia River, merely against a poor or fraudulent implementation. It is time for some real facts on this issue, not speculation or willful ignorance.
Sigma,
I think your “equity lens”’is blurry. Sounds like you are exerting your Portland privilege.
Really nice article, Ryan. Good job at pulling the curtain back on the policy process of this complicated issue.
FYI BP readers…
The Interstate Bridge Replacement board has a community open house [Washington State focused] on Zoom beginning at 6 pm tonight. And vote for the IBR to do LRT over BRT!
https://www.interstatebridge.org/get-involved-folder/calendar/community-briefing-11-10/
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Join the meeting by registering for the Zoom webinar here: https://ibr.news/CB-1110 Opens in new window
Free, temporary internet access is available throughout Washington for those who do not have broadband service. To find the nearest Drive-In WiFi Hotspot visit: http://www.commerce.wa.gov/building-infrastructure/washington-state-drive-in-wifi-hotspots-location-finder/ Opens in new window
Join us in learning about the Interstate Bridge Replacement (IBR) program.
Your feedback matters! Combined with stakeholder, advisory groups and partner input, your suggestions will contribute to identifying a new, multimodal bridge replacement solution that meets the transportation needs of the region – now and for future generations.
This community briefing will provide an update on the progress of the IBR program. We will be looking at preliminary design options, draft equity and climate frameworks, steps to get to an IBR solution, and ways for you to stay informed and get involved along the way. Event participants will have the opportunity to ask questions and engage with program staff. We look forward to this conversation!
There is a VERY interesting new design option one that we (as staff supporting the CRC1) were not able to develop during the last go around: The “No Interchange Option” which would likley allow for improved regional traffic safety AND reduced congestion/ regional travel time AND thus the fewest interstate lanes. Vote for it!
Check it out and do the survey:
https://www.interstatebridge.org/media/xs5flvyu/communitybriefing_november2021_remediated.pdf
Yes. On I-5 N lane capacity is reduced by merging vehicles from many on-ramps, vehicles maneuvering from right lane to left (including CTRAN buses that have no other route to Vancouver) and people changing lanes repeatedly out of impatience.
It’s bizarre that Hayden Island is reachable only by a maxed-out Interstate Highway bridge.
If long distance travel is important, engineer a route that clearly favors that use.
If freight is important, designate a route to optimize that use and cut cars out of it.
Penalize excessive lane changing. Ticketing isn’t possible? Splat the offender’s roof with paintballs from a drone. Post the video. Let them sue.
Tolling is fine with me, my business will just pass the cost on through. Point is, we should exhaust every other option before we start building stuff. Bridge replacement is an ODOT hall pass for freeway expansion, just as wildfire has become a hall pass for clear cuts.
Sonny Bunch was right. Environmentalists make good movie villains because they want to make your life worse.
Back to reality: In 2008, Washington DC also had a congested 6 lane bridge. They widened it to 10 lanes with space for 12. That 66% increase in capacity resulted in… a 25% increase in traffic between 2001 and 2019. In that time, the population of the DC area rose by 28%.
And this widening is only a disaster for equity if you think minorities don’t own cars.
Enjoy your tolls.
We will ‘enjoy our tolls’…Washington State DOT has very deep and contemporary experience collecting tolls to fund roadways. [Plus bridge tolls worked well for my parents and grand parents and great grand parents when they needed to finance a community transportation facility locally.]
So I just have never understood why “we” in the Portland region are so special now…since the 1970s to go toll less?!
PS. And highway tolls don’t scare Texans when they need a roadway built. They are about as libertarian small government as one gets.
https://www.txdot.gov/inside-txdot/division/toll-operations.html
We need a smooth flow to goods and people for economic prosperity. Economic prosperity will give us the money to make improvements in pollution control and education for those with lower incomes. Just saying no so we can have traffic jams and chaos does nothing to help us except keep us stuck in the status quo. Go ODOT!
Hi Xavier R… No one is “just saying no”. Folks are saying, “no to more driving and cars because it’s cooking the planet, destroying our communities, and killing our friends and family with toxic air and violent crashes”. And we can have much more “smooth flow of goods” if we moved people more efficiently and did more to discourage one person/one car.
Jonathan,
People still need to get from Point A to Point B. Goods still need to get from Point A to Point B. We are a growing population and therefore need more transportation throughput. Just saying no is not an acceptable answer. High speed rail sure, electric vehicle charging infrastructure sure. Sitting in traffic thinking your are helping the planet…not so much.
This absolutely true. People who choose to drive when they have other options are killing our economy and making it hard for working-class folks to do their jobs.
We need to heavily disincentivize motorist from making unnecessary trips and inefficient trips.
I’m sure you’ll agree that the best way to increase throughput is to make that throughput that already exits more efficient. If we were digging a hole with shovels, would you rather get another shovel or go rent a bobcat?
The fastest and most efficient way that we can reduce congestion for goods is to clear inefficient single-occupant vehicle trips out of their away!
Economic prosperity via freeway widening will lead to more housing taking over farmland in Clark County, more driving, and more consumption. But sure, go ahead and believe that this will magically reduce pollution and increase education for poor people (????)
Considering that it’s illegal to build apartment buildings in most of Portland this finger pointing about sprawl is comical.
See Chris I’s comment “…in Clark County…”
And this is why a Multco person complaining about Clark Country is pure hypocrisy. Get your own racist and classist anti-density house in order before pointing fingers.
Moi? I like to choose my environmental battles wisely. I don’t get too upset about infrastructure improvements like roads. I do get upset about population growth. The indisputable fact is that every human being creates adverse environmental impacts, no matter how green their lifestyle.
I sure hope that tolls, with the fee varying dynamically in response to traffic volumes in real time, will get an honest look and trial.
More public transit options, such as more buses, needs to be part of the plan for this to work. People who don’t want to pay the higher tolls will be able to find alternatives, and that’s exactly what is needed in the dire big picture we find ourselves in.
We can achieve a flowing freeway, especially with a dedicated bus lane, and congestion pricing is how it is done. Seems like common sense, and aren’t there studies and literature already showing it works??
Very similar in concept to variable parking fees, where the goal is to assure that there are 1 or 2 parking spaces available on a given block at all times – raise the price till you get there. So simple – the answer is right in front of us!!
It has been proven so many times that adding lanes alone leads to induced demand, and utter failure. We absolutely can’t afford such failure this time around.
…I am still wading through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act…the IBRP will now have to include bikeshare [& scooters] and secure bike parking in its transit and parking hub planning and construction [the CRC project did not]:
“Section 5302 (1) ASSOCIATED TRANSIT IMPROVEMENT (E) bicycle access, including bicycle storage shelters and parking facilities and the installation, the installation of equipment for transporting bicycles on public transportation vehicles, charging stations and docks for electric micromobility devices, and bikeshare projects;” pg 1010
Thank you and the coalition for your work on this monstrosity. This is the most important environmental and government waste/abuse issue in Oregon, by far.
Oh by the way…since we are talking about Columbia River bridge replacement…its a 113th “Happy Birthday” for the BNSF Columbia River “Bridge 9.6”!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burlington_Northern_Railroad_Bridge_9.6
Fortunately that one is privately owned so we don’t have to worry about it.
It carries intercity rail and could potentially carry commuter rail between Vancouver and Portland (10 minute travel time by rail). ODOT could be working with BNSF to re-build this bridge with 4 tracks, but they only care about freeway expansion.
If people really “want” it, simply roll the actual cost of it to be paid off in 10 years. Then continue to roll the continued cost over the years. Will people actually pay the toll? No, of
Course not.
There is a perfectly good “free”way down the way and guess what, it clogs. Often. What will end up happening is that this will clog too. No surprise there at all. But this is not about logic. This is about dollars being transferred from people to construction companies.
Now If they started from the perspective of making an awesome rail, biking and walking bridge, then adding on toll lanes, I could get behind that. Three “free” car lanes, and two new “toll” lanes. That’s basically how Colorado is doing it… yes lots of complaints. But nice to bypass traffic when wants too.
See a great movie about the history of how Seattle succeeded in stopping several major freeway projects at https://vimeo.com/361862625