Do You Support The I-5 Bridge Project?

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I'm fine with any road project as long as it is paid for by the users. Making it a toll bridge seems to be the most logical.
 
maxiep said:
I'm fine with any road project as long as it is paid for by the users. Making it a toll bridge seems to be the most logical.
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At first blush, it makes sense. However it would divert so much traffic to I-84 & I-205 that the result coould be chaos there. And while I have no doubt there will be some sort of toll if the entire cost (not counting what the feds put in) is paid for by a toll, it'd be well over $50 each way in order to pay off the debt in any sort of reasonable timeframe.
 
BLAZER PROPHET said:
At first blush, it makes sense. However it would divert so much traffic to I-84 & I-205 that the result coould be chaos there. And while I have no doubt there will be some sort of toll if the entire cost (not counting what the feds put in) is paid for by a toll, it'd be well over $50 each way in order to pay off the debt in any sort of reasonable timeframe.
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Exactly. If you wanted to cross for free, you would be stuck in traffic for an hour or so to get across the 205 bridge. If you wanted to pay, you'd get across in a heartbeat.

And you would pay off the debt over the life of the bridge, which makes the payment reasonable. It wouldn't be anywhere near $50.

All in all, it would hurt the Southern Washington economy as real estate costs would plummet followed by service businesses being hurt by depopulation. Portland would be the big winner.
 
maxiep said:
Exactly. If you wanted to cross for free, you would be stuck in traffic for an hour or so to get across the 205 bridge. If you wanted to pay, you'd get across in a heartbeat.

And you would pay off the debt over the life of the bridge, which makes the payment reasonable. It wouldn't be anywhere near $50.

All in all, it would hurt the Southern Washington economy as real estate costs would plummet followed by service businesses being hurt by depopulation. Portland would be the big winner.
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And your point is?
 
BLAZER PROPHET said:
But why do we "need" a new bridge? Studies show it won't lessen gridlock. Oregon has no idea how it will pay for it. All it does is allow for Max to cross over into Vancouver. Does that justify the costs?
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I thought one reason a new bridge is needed is because the current one does not meet very high earthquake standards. A modest earthquake where the West Hills fault meets the Columbia, or a Cascadia Subduction quake in the ocean and the bridge will be out of service.

Looks like I found a link to confirm:

http://www.columbian.com/news/2011/jan/26/I-5-Bridge-safety-earthquakes/

A seismic vulnerability study conducted for the crossing project in 2006 identifies two major sources of especially worrisome earth movement for the I-5 Bridge. One involves the offshore Juan de Fuca tectonic plate slipping suddenly beneath the North American plate in a monster quake that last occurred on Jan. 26, 1700. This Cascadia subduction zone quake could generate a magnitude of up to 9.0, resulting in several minutes of strong shaking in the Portland-Vancouver area. The other concern would be major quake on a fault zone along Portland’s West Hills, which could generate a magnitude-6.8 earthquake.
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Masbee said:
I thought one reason a new bridge is needed is because the current one does not meet very high earthquake standards. A modest earthquake where the West Hills fault meets the Columbia, or a Cascadia Subduction quake in the ocean and the bridge will be out of service.

Looks like I found a link to confirm:

http://www.columbian.com/news/2011/jan/26/I-5-Bridge-safety-earthquakes/
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I have seen that a well, the existing bridge could be up fitted fo a fraction of what the replacement cost will be. If "bridge safety " is the real issue, almost all of the existing ones ons in state would also fail..this just happens to be the one they wantt o stick a light rail on....
 
DaLincolnJones said:
I have seen that a well, the existing bridge could be up fitted fo a fraction of what the replacement cost will be. If "bridge safety " is the real issue, almost all of the existing ones ons in state would also fail..this just happens to be the one they wantt o stick a light rail on....
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Sure the project has become a frankenstein. And sure, the project is dominated by those in Oregon who have a particular "vision" for how public transportation and development occurs. But, their side won decades ago, and nothing has changed in the intervening years.

As far as retrofitting a bridge where the foundation is not on bedrock - call me a skeptic. I very much doubt that putting money into a very old bridge with a crappy foundation is worth the money.
 
bigbailes said:
As I've heard, because the Glenn Jackson (205) was built with federal money, it cannot be tolled. Can you imagine the gridlock on 84 everyday though if this passes? That thing is already crazy at rush hour!
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yeah, I don't look forward to that idea, since I basically do that commute of 205 to 5. =\
 
Portland needs to install some toll ways to pay for this stuff. It's really not that hard. The amount of people are certainly different. but here in Houston the city makes 1 million dollars a day from tolls.
 
Mediocre Man said:
Portland needs to install some toll ways to pay for this stuff. It's really not that hard. The amount of people are certainly different. but here in Houston the city makes 1 million dollars a day from tolls.
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Maybe so, but with the I-205 bridge it makes the idea DOA.
 
The tolls are not going to cover the bond payments. The states are using traffic projects from over 10 years ago. Many experts have publicly said this including a study done by PSU.

There is no approved design for this bridge. No final cost. The design that they have now is too low. They didn't take into account the businesses upriver that build very large things and ship them down river including windmills and oil drilling rigs for Alaska. One of the businesses is bidding for a $500 million contract to build giant ocean wave electricity generators. The Coast Guard has rejected the plans for the bridge as not being tall enough, no lift span and considers it a hazard to navigation.

Neither state nor the feds will cover cost overruns but there is no tally on what these costs will end up being.
 
Mediocre Man said:
Do it for both, or do it on bridges going into downtown? Have the toll bill written so the tolls went away after the project was paid for.
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Although it has been proven (in theory) to be untrue, one of the main reasons for this project was to lessen gridlock. Can you imagine the gridlock on any bridge where a toll has to be taken? I mean, I realize the thought behind paying for the thing but to indice maybe the single worst gridlock in the nation for a toll for a generally worthless project seems idiotic.
 
When is the new bridge downtown supposed to be finished?
 
gs61brid108-02jpg-1f06f7864439ec04.jpg
 
The current I-5 bridge offers just 40 feet of clearance at normal water levels. But raising the drawbridge increases the vertical clearance to 178 feet.

That puts the existing bridge in the same league with the Astoria-Megler Bridge (193 feet) the Longview, Wash. span (187 feet) and Interstate 205 bridge (144 feet).

The proposed I-5 bridge height - 95ft.

The Army Corps of Engineers' dredge is 116 feet high, too tall to clear the CRC's bridge.



11141160-large.jpg

A barge carrying an enormous oil drilling rig bound for the North Slope of Alaska inches under the I-5 bridge, which had to be raised to its maximum height -- 178 feet -- in order for the cargo to clear. Thompson Metal Fab and Greenberry, companies that jointly built the oil rig, claim the Columbia River Crossing's planned replacement I-5 bridge -- 95-feet with no lift span -- will devastate their businesses. The U.S. Coast Guard has said it will reject the CRC's 95-foot bridge as an unacceptable hazard to navigation.
 
I think the Oregon policitians mantra is "build it now, skim off over costs, worry about its functionaility and paying for it later and blame others".
 
BLAZER PROPHET said:
Although it has been proven (in theory) to be untrue, one of the main reasons for this project was to lessen gridlock. Can you imagine the gridlock on any bridge where a toll has to be taken? I mean, I realize the thought behind paying for the thing but to indice maybe the single worst gridlock in the nation for a toll for a generally worthless project seems idiotic.
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Not toll booths. Here in Houston we buy stickers they go on the car and a camera flashes as we go underneath it. It then deducts the .25 cents and no traffic issues occur. If you have no sticker or no money on the sticker you get a ticket
 
Mediocre Man said:
Not toll booths. Here in Houston we buy stickers they go on the car and a camera flashes as we go underneath it. It then deducts the .25 cents and no traffic issues occur. If you have no sticker or no money on the sticker you get a ticket
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Yeah, there are a few different systems for those who routinely use the bridge. But many are not so. They have to stop somewhere and pay. And merge off & back on. That creates gridlock. There's no getting around it.

I'd like to see this a ballot measure: To Oregonians... we do not know much it will cost. Some will be paid for by the feds. At $321 million per mile Max will be forced on Vancouver. We will have to siphon off general funds for all Oregon counties currently used for children, teachers, schools, the elderly... to fund a large part of it and the cost overruns will be a minimum of 50%.

Think that would pass? Maybe, but I think it deserves a vote.
 
The bridge is at risk from a big subduction zone earthquake. Secondly, it's not a matter of if, but when such a subduction earthquake will occur, most recent studies done by DOGAMI and other regional geologists suggest a 40% to 50% of that happening in the next 50 to 100 years for a magnitude 9+ earthquake. If that happens the I-5 bridge is probably going to fail.

So yes, we need a new bridge to account for that, and they probably need to build in the capacity for light rail, as projections for the next fifty years suggest Clark County will continue to grow putting an even bigger burden on existing transportation infrastructure.

Build it with bonds and available federal transportation funds, repay it with tolls (on it and the I-205 bridge with discounted monthly commuter rates for people who have to go back and forth every day) and pay the thing off in 20 or 30 years via the people who use it.

It worked just fine in the bay area and it will work just fine here.
 
And for those people bitching about light rail, I use it every day to commute to work and it's fucking awesome. Why are some of you so opposed to park and ride?
 
BLAZER PROPHET said:
Yeah, there are a few different systems for those who routinely use the bridge. But many are not so. They have to stop somewhere and pay. And merge off & back on. That creates gridlock. There's no getting around it.

I'd like to see this a ballot measure: To Oregonians... we do not know much it will cost. Some will be paid for by the feds. At $321 million per mile Max will be forced on Vancouver. We will have to siphon off general funds for all Oregon counties currently used for children, teachers, schools, the elderly... to fund a large part of it and the cost overruns will be a minimum of 50%.

Think that would pass? Maybe, but I think it deserves a vote.
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you mean there might be traffic on the commute from washington into oregon?
 
Nikolokolus said:
And for those people bitching about light rail, I use it every day to commute to work and it's fucking awesome. Why are some of you so opposed to park and ride?
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I used to use light rail. It was darn annoying but it beats driving.
 
BLAZER PROPHET said:
I used to use light rail. It was darn annoying but it beats driving.
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Nothing is perfect, but there's a lot of advantages. My company subsidizes yearly Trimet passes for its employees, so it's free for me, I walk a mile to and from the train station every day which gets me just a little bit of extra exercise, I don't have to pay the $450/yr fee to park in the garage (or the $1000/yr it would cost me to park on the street) and after timing it, it takes me about 30 minutes to get from my front door to my desk every day compared to the 20 to 25 it takes me to drive and find a parking space.

Sure there's plenty of weirdos on the train, but there's a reason somebody invented ear buds and audio books.
 
Nikolokolus said:
Nothing is perfect, but there's a lot of advantages. My company subsidizes yearly Trimet passes for its employees, so it's free for me, I walk a mile to and from the train station every day which gets me just a little bit of extra exercise, I don't have to pay the $450/yr fee to park in the garage (or the $1000/yr it would cost me to park on the street) and after timing it, it takes me about 30 minutes to get from my front door to my desk every day compared to the 20 to 25 it takes me to drive and find a parking space.

Sure there's plenty of weirdos on the train, but there's a reason somebody invented ear buds and audio books.
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I wish I lived in Portland! :(
 
Nikolokolus said:
The bridge is at risk from a big subduction zone earthquake. Secondly, it's not a matter of if, but when such a subduction earthquake will occur, most recent studies done by DOGAMI and other regional geologists suggest a 40% to 50% of that happening in the next 50 to 100 years for a magnitude 9+ earthquake. If that happens the I-5 bridge is probably going to fail.

So yes, we need a new bridge to account for that, and they probably need to build in the capacity for light rail, as projections for the next fifty years suggest Clark County will continue to grow putting an even bigger burden on existing transportation infrastructure.

Build it with bonds and available federal transportation funds, repay it with tolls (on it and the I-205 bridge with discounted monthly commuter rates for people who have to go back and forth every day) and pay the thing off in 20 or 30 years via the people who use it.

It worked just fine in the bay area and it will work just fine here.
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To be frank, I wouldn't have a problem with no bridge--keep Tonya Harding on that side of the river.
 
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