It's simply dishonest for Rex to say, right here on Blue Oregon, that "by doing this we will have less cars traveling and less carbon impact than if we don't do it," in reference to the CRC.

The work done by the consultants, for which Rex is the leading spokesperson on the Oregon side, doesn't plan for ANY "induced travel" from building a big new bridge. That is, the traffic modeling done for the big new bridge says that 20 years from now, the traffic across the bridge, and the resulting land-use, will be the same with or without a big, new bridge. Yet,land-use maps show more than 5,000 acres of land near I-5 in Clark County is zoned for housing but un-developed as of today. One need only look at the Glenn Jackson Bridge across the Columbia, built in 1982, to see the fallacy with this thinking. The projected travel across the bridge for 20 and 30 years later had the same kind of land-use modeling, with no induced travel projected, but trips across that bridge are today 50% greater than projected prior to construction. What happened, of course, is that people made decisions to sprawl across East Clark County and Camas and travel across the bridge. This traffic modeling is a fatal flaw under the National Environmental Protection Act, and, if plans proceed with the bridge, lawsuits under NEPA will cause considerable delay and, in the opinion of many, will stop the project altogether.

This is only one of the many problems with the CRC planning work, for which Rex has been and is the mouthpiece. In the air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions analysis, the consultants said that air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions will be LESS as a result of the project, because cars will be sped up through the bridge impact area, and with higher speeds and less congestion, cars will emit less air pollutants and carbon. This is nothing but a canard. It totally ignores net cumulative congestion impacts in the region from the big, new bridge, impacts that will occur on surrounding highways, on arterials and exits to and from the freeway, and on I-5 itself where it narrows, including where it connects with the Portland Freeway Loop and I-84 at the Rose Garden.
For Rex to continue to stand behind this planning work, which he does with his false statement on Blue Oregon, demonstrates a quality of mendacity which we don't need in our Metro President. He knows that the City and Metro both asked, when they approved the big 10-to-12 lane bridge as the Locally Preferred Alternative, for the traffic modeling and the carbon impacts to be redone, but that the state highway departments and their consultants have refused to make the corrections because it will undermine the big new bridge. Rex is motivated to get a big new bridge, and tie it to his campaign, because its a good money-raising strategy with developers and the auto-oil-highway construction lobby. He's hanging in there, supporting a huge multi-billion-dollar project even though he knows, by now, that this project can't be financed at the size and scale which he is proposing, that Clark County won't support tolls (which are needed to build the bridge) and that Clark County doesn't want light rail transit enough to pay for it, and won't pass it when it comes up for a required vote under Washington State Law. Rex knows better than to try to greenwash the big, new bridge, but he's doing it anyway. He does not deserve your support.

Some interesting thoughts. The I-5 corridor bottlenecks in Portland. regionally and nationally that will not be allowed to remain a problem. How BEST to route traffic AND meet urban sprawl and monetary concerns will be interesting to watch play out.

I wouldn't trust any ODOT cost estimates. For example, google I-5 south Medford interchange, ODOT. The cost ballooned over the past 5 years and even today is $20MM over the inflated estimates.

It is important to emphasize the point about Rex's patently false claim recognized above.

By doing this we will have fewer cars traveling and less carbon impact than if we don't do it.

The analysis that came to that conclusion was both faulty and deceptive. Mayor Adams used to quote from it - but no linger do we hear that.

Excluding the emissions from the induced demand created by the 12 lane capacity is just plain disingenuous in trying to determine comparative impacts between projects.

But even worse, the study's measurement area extends only from just before the ramps in WA to just after the ramps in OR. By doing this, the analysis multiplies the effect of congestion on the bridge while entirely discounting the congestion guaranteed to be created everywhere else in the system, unless we double that capacity also.

Lets be clear, Metro and Portland Councils both voted to make their support of the CRC 12 lane recommendation dependent on further CO2 analysis of the Big Bridge.

Rex knows this. I want a Metro President whose word can be trusted. If Rex comes clean on the bridge, I am ready to consider supporting him.

Thanks!

Same here Jim. This is a great acid test to have during the election cycle!

From this post, the takeaway is that there is no policy downside to voting for Bob Stacey. On the upside, he has much broader experience at the local, state, and national level than Rex, and has worked in the non-profit, for-profit, and public sectors with a record of effectiveness.

Regarding the CRC, Rex's bungling of his representation of Metro on the CRC, and his subsequent unwillingness to fess up, disqualifies him from being elevated to the Metro Presidency. With both Bob and Rex on the Metro Council, at least we would have good voices for farmland protection.

Balance, equity and financial justice are still missing from the CRC project –all of which have not been part of an open public discussion.

It appears as if the only cost cutting targeted to reduce the price tag is on the highway portions of the project. At the same time, the only tolling proposals currently being discussed are to charge cars and trucks. The camel’s hump in the middle of the bridge keeps getting bigger and bigger from a group of self-proclaimed social engineers whom continue to want their choice of alternative transport preferences to be paid for by somebody other than the users of those specific modes

While deadbeat bicyclists are seeking a freeloading joy ride with overly-wide, super-sized, lavish and even extravagantly unnecessary bicycle facilities full of frills that include costly turnouts so the pedal pushers can stop and view Mt. Hood; transit advocates are utilizing their own brand of extortion techniques to control and hijack the process including proposing a form of fraud whereby they expect the state and local funding - including motorist tolling – of the highway portions of the project to become the local match dollars for light rail. The CRC is becoming farther and farther out of balance with frills for the freeloaders trumping the necessary functionality of I-5 and the roadway portions of the crossing.

To provide balance and equity to the project, cuts must made across the board including to both the bicycle infrastructure and light rail segments of the project. All the unnecessary recreational bicycle trails that have hitched a ride to this project need to be eliminated along with the frills such as the needless viewpoint turnouts. The bicycle infrastructure on the crossing is also excessively wide and needs to be narrowed for an additional cost savings. Likewise, there are undoubtedly some light rail design features and artsy add-ons that can be eliminated.

Redistribution of wealth is specifically constrained in the US Constitution. The US Constitution is considered the supreme law of the land. Motorists are already paying gas taxes, registration and license fees that pay for roadways, I-5 and this bridge. The reality check is that tolls may be necessary to pay for any new crossing. The surveys on the subject of tolling so far have been extremely one-sided and incomplete. No questions were ever asked to the public about tolling all the users of the crossing so the funding base could be broadened and tolls for motor vehicles could then be kept at a minimum, and therefore be less of a negative impact on local economies.

To bring financial justice to the project, either there must be no tolls for at all, or an equity stipulation is needed whereby the users of ALL modes of transport must be charged a reasonable fee to cross the bridge. That includes bicyclists and light rail passengers. Moreover, if there are user fees imposed (such as tolling for both motorists and bicyclists, and surcharges on transit fares), then the dollars collected must only apply to help pay for the transport mode from which the money is being collected with any fees or tolling removed once that specific mode portion of the project is paid for. Each mode of transport must pencil out as financially self-sustainable with no cross subsidies whereby the users of one mode of transport subsidize another. Additionally, any motorist paid tolling must not be used to subsidize transit operations.

This is both a regional and a West Coast travel corridor bridge project that is supposed to better connect together the communities on the two sides of the river, eliminate a bottleneck on a highway system used for interstate and international commerce, and in reality, a part of our national defense system. It is NOT a project specifically to satisfy the social engineers of Portland and their cronies. Therefore, instead of making cuts to the project that are leading to a roadway deficient designed bridge socially engineered by alternative transport advocates; all three candidates need to openly discuss and receive feedback to making cuts to the amount of bicycle infrastructure and the light rail segments of the project instead of just roadway cuts, and all three candidates need to openly discuss and receive feedback on charging fees to all who use the crossing instead of just drivers - then work for all users to design this bridge as the horse it was meant to be, a replacement bridge that is functionally as dependable for highway users as other modes while requiring the financial responsibility to be equitably split between the users of all the modes of transport that will be accommodated on the crossing.

Thanks Carla for focusing on this race. I'm relieved to see people actually interested in Metro! Only good can come from this discussion. I've been following closely myself over the past few months and thought I'd add my own two cents.

The urban reserves and CRC pieces are important, but there's so much more to Metro and this race will have many far reaching effects for the region. I've seen studies that show almost 70% of our state's economy comes from output in Portland and the immediate surrounding areas. What about forests and farms? Job creation? Climate change? These are all equally important issues and should be discussed in context with one another. I think we do voters and all of the candidates a disservice by treating Metro as though it's limited to bridge building.

Right now I'm personally leaning towards Rex Burkholder, mostly because he's represented my district in Metro for years and is clearly the most knowledgeable. I've interacted with him in the past also because of his work with the Bicycle Transportation Alliance also, but it was only in passing. It seems to me that there are a limitless supply of "plans" out there for individual challenges and areas of the area, but no overarching strategy for the region as a whole. Metro seems to be the governing body in the best position to have a direct impact on the major challenges facing us, and I think Rex's history of solving problems and consistently delivering results expanding transit choices like light rail, bike lanes, and saving open spaces from development puts him in the best position to tackle the important challenges of the future.

For what it's worth, I found a lot of good info on Rex's website, www.rex4metro.com. Hopefully the media attention on this race will be sustained until the election so that everyone's voices can be heard clearly on election day!

When are the bicyclists going to provide more than just lip service to the CRC discussion? Just look at where the money comes from. Obviously not from deadbeat bicyclists who want all this super-sized, overly-wide, mega-bicycle infrastructure that is full of frills on the crossing as long as somebody else pays for it - the funding comes from motorist paid Federal state and local taxes and fees. Transit advocates aren’t much better about self-funding their demands either when they poach motorist paid Federal Highway Trust Fund dollars to build and capitalize transit, and then set fares that cover less then 25 percent of the operating expenses. As I previously posted: this is a redistribution of wealth specifically restrained in the US Constitution – a violation of our liberties. And just for the record, this is not the wealth of the rich, but a taking from working class people. When the freeloading pedal pushers are willing to pay hefty license and registration fees on their bicycles, and agree to tolling the bicycle infrastructure on a new Columbia River Crossing to pay for the bicycle infrastructure components, only then should then should they be listened to. In other words, bicyclists need to pay to play, and not on somebody else’s dollar, or quit the belly aching.

Thanks to Carla for putting this important, though non-partisan, race on the radar of Blue Oregon readers. Who is the next Metro President will be the most critical choice voters will make in the May election. Almost half of all Oregonians live in the Metro district. Something like 70% of Oregon’s economic output is produced here and the whole state depends on our tax revenues to keep schools open and roads paved.

While the issues Carla raised in her post about where we grow in the future (urban reserves) and the Columbia River Crossing are important, they are just pieces of a bigger discussion on how this region will prosper and develop. Complicating this discussion are the major changes happening globally: an economic meltdown, globalization and the loss of manufacturing in this country, a tightening petroleum supply, strapped local and state government, climate change legislation and growing income disparity.

What is the right economic development model for the future? Is it going to be based on continued, low density urban expansion like the last century or will our cities become denser and more compact like European cities? Will local manufacturing (and food production) become more important as rising petroleum prices and competition for commodities make it cheaper to do it at home rather than import?

Answers to these questions have real implications to people’s lives. For example, the average family spends 50% of their income on housing and transportation combined. Being able to get by with one car rather than two, saves a family almost $700 a month. This is easy in the compact, denser parts of our region but almost impossible elsewhere.

These and other complicated questions all go into the decisions I face as Metro Councilor this coming year, including how much land to bring into the urban growth boundary, what transportation projects should be funded or which planning projects to fund. One thing that is true is that the world has changed dramatically and so must our strategies if we are to survive.

In the process of putting together the Climate Prosperity Project I’ve discovered that we lack a comprehensive economic strategy for the region. In fact, it’s worse than that: we have too many strategies--public, private, urban, suburban—all competing for attention and dollars. There has been resistance in the past to Metro being involved in economic development but times are too dire to let petty parochialism trump smart, collaborative efforts to create greater prosperity in our region.