Historically it’s been WA that shoots down Interstate Bridge replacements (Check out the history of this bridge, various Washington State governments have torpedoed OR-WA upgrade partnerships like a dozen times throughout history, they even backed out of the original construction and left the city of Portland to step in and cover costs, imagine if the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey was exclusively funded by New York), but this time around it will probably be ODOT that fucks it up by insisting against all local opposition and traffic wisdom that the bridge work be arbitrarily packaged with an expansion of I-5 for miles south of the bridge. This proposed extra work has balloned the expected ODOT budget to the point where taxes have to go up, triggering a tax revolt by Republicans down in the state capitol. But it’s not just rural Republicans who don’t like it, urban Democrats don’t want more highway lanes polluting their neighborhoods. The upgrade won’t happen because ODOTs singlular need to build more highway lanes undermines it all.
It would be stupid to build it without the light rail. It would be a band-aid that would be in need of improvements by the time it was finished.
Yeah but odot kinda hates transit.
It’s more like Vancouver hates transit. I seem to recall they were the loudest objectors the last time this was proposed.
I assure you, odot also hates transit. Also though, it is TriMet not C-Tran facing a budgetary crisis because of lack of funding from their constituents, Vancouver sucks but it’s hard to blame them for being leery of a MAX line considering the state of TriMet use enforcement.
“the state of TriMet use enforcement” can you elaborate?
Trimet trains/busses/shelters are theoretically supposed to be for transit use only, by paying customers, who don’t eat, drink, smoke, do drugs, litter, harass, commit crimes etc while on Trimet property (including shelters except for the eating part). It also even still has increasingly lax rules about bringing giant wagons and carts onboard that often delay transit, and often occupy space needed by transit riders with disabilities. In practice this is all unenforced to the point that the rules are essentially voided, rules are only rules if they’re enforced. I have trouble blaming the Vancouver nimbys for not wanting it. This exert from an OPB article illustrates it fairly colorfully
"Nancy Miranda of Yacolt, Washington, described her safety concerns when riding TriMet light rail in Portland.
“People urinating, pan handling, even physical abuse. Many times, I’ve felt threatened,” Miranda said.
“Light rail is perceived by many, because police aren’t always on there, as a high-speed way to import mentally ill drug addicts and criminals from Portland to Vancouver,” warned Gary Gaskill. “Whether that’s true or not, it is a perception many people have.” "
Yeah, this panic over the imagination of trains exporting cars full of unwashed masses into your social flight suburb is a tension in literally every regional rail rollout in the west, or at least in North America. The facts of the matter is that TriMet does already police Max ridership (I’d know, they’ve ticketed me), and commuting either by car on a traffic jammed highway over a century-old earthquake-vulnerable bridge or by rail while sitting across a passenger car from a potentially homeless person is a decision that remains securely in the hands of Washingtonian suburbanites, they need not fear that decision being taken from them and they will ultimately get whichever choice they deserve.
But for the time being, Washington is importing thousands of gas belching lifted pickup trucks into my Portland neighborhood every weekday morning, and I don’t personally get much of a say in that matter.
Do you think someone who’s acting weird on a MAX train deserves to get to where they need to go? Do you think they deserve shelter and dignity?
Yes. Some alternate questions for you. Do you think people who live and work in the Portland metro area have a right to have access to safe and reliable public transit. Do you think a bus or train is a cost effective way to provide shelter for someone too dysfunctional to use existing shelters? Do you recognize that road congestion is worse than ever yet transit use is down in Portland and people do die on our roads. Two things can be true, doing nothing and shoving the problem onto TriMet is not working.
It’s not necessarily that they hate transit, it’s that they have a mypopic and outdated department mission. They can only build and maintain highways. The state desperately needs to tweak the department’s priorities.
Now Vancouver city government… There’s an institution that genuinely hates and fears transit.
It’s an easy scapegoat but again, C-Tran is doing much better in both ridership metrics and funding than TriMet. And ODOT has been vocally against bus lanes as well.
Well then let’s invite them to run a C-Tran train over the bridge to the Expo Center, whatever gets us local rail over the Columbia. Also we shouldn’t confuse county and city up there, same as we shouldn’t down here.
Why does the bridge skip right over the whole state of Washington? Are Canadians that much better than Washingtonians?
Vancouver, WA
Well, that’s confusing. Who’s gonna change their name?
It was part of the invasion of '27 you should have had covered in 5th grade history class.
Yes.
Quoting the 2022 “$5-$7.5 billion” price tag for the whole bridge project is laughable. I’m expecting over $15 billion, assuming one gets built.
They’ve been talking about building this bridge for as long as I can remember.
