For whom the tolls bell

[Chief]

http://www.oregonlive.com/editorials/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/editorial/1212022530123320.xml&coll=7

Three Metro councilors ring exactly the wrong note about the future of the Columbia River Crossing
Thursday, May 29, 2008

Oregon is gearing up to build the biggest public works project in its history. Maybe.

The state will make up its mind soon. Promise.

For at least a dozen years, it's been clear to everyone with a car and an appointment worth keeping that gridlock threatens to overwhelm the Interstate Bridge.

The solution seems obvious: a new bridge.

One bigger than the one before.

But in the brave new world of multimodal, environmentally sensitive transportation planning -- where carbon credits have almost as much value as concrete -- the obvious solution isn't always the smart one.

In city after city, from Bend to Bangkok, experience suggests it is all but impossible to build one's way out of congestion. Add fresh lanes to a freeway and what do drivers do? They fill 'em. Fast.

Highway engineers have a polite term for this phenomenon. They call it "induced demand."

What this means is that the more lanes you add to a freeway, the more -- not less -- crowded that freeway becomes.

(Memo to doubting Thomases: Just because something's counterintuitive doesn't mean it's not true.)

Right here in our own backyard, what this means is that as transportation authorities on both sides of the Columbia River wrestle with potential solutions to the gridlock problem, all sorts of silly ideas are surfacing. The silliest -- so far -- came this week from three Metro councilors.

Instead of articulating a series of archly crafted questions -- an approach we would have welcomed -- Carlotta Collette, Carl Hosticka and Robert Liberty reached deep into their grab-bag of stalling tactics. Their suggestion: Toll the old Interstate Bridge now, then muse for a few more years about doing something else later.

We can hardly imagine a more politically tone-deaf proposal.

The Oregon Constitution prohibits using toll revenues for mass transit. Yet everyone agrees that trains or buses must be part of any long-term effort to efficiently get Clark County commuters to and from Oregon. So the only way this tolling proposal could work would be for Metro to order Washingtonians to start levying them tomorrow with a promise that the regional government would get back to them later with the vegetable part of the carrot-and-stick equation.

This is more than an insult to your potential partner. It's bringing your divorce lawyer to the wedding.

Oregonians have a long and distinguished history of distrusting tolls. That doesn't mean we fail to recognize that we will one day need to embrace them. It means we think we'll embrace them when they see immediate, and tangible, benefits.

Three of the Metro councilors had an opportunity this week to be part of the solution. Instead, they jumped at the chance to stay part of the problem.


Notice how deftly they never mentioned Clark County??

cewl

[Waterbuffalo]

Yeah, I know. They seem to feel that the River still divides our two states and cities though regionally we're as one. And the solution from these people who seem to be Johnny-come-lately's who have not done the background homework, multiple hours upon hours of reading the DEIS and commenting on a three year process that has costs multiple millions of dollars for both states, federal and local governments have participated in.

I'll agree with you on your point Chief, why did not post in their commentary with no reference to Clark County? They cover a lot of our news over here, yet the Op-Ed does not reflect this? With no tone, idea or subject matter?

This type of thinking reminds me of the 1970/80's thinking of Portland and Clark county governments. The river divides us, so when can massively ignore the obvious of what is going on from our decision to build monumental amounts of housing, businesses and mini-economies here but not seem to put the regional, federal and local street and transportation links in place to feed it.

Or cover in our Op_Ed piece that this is a multiple town region and we swing and swim together whether we like it or not.

To say that one can just "ADD" light rail into this corridor, toll congestion into oblivion or that building a bridge without any or the above shows such a lack of consciousness and ineptitude, it boggles my mind.

I may not agree with a lot of people in Vancouver, Portland or any other place about what is best for our communities. Heck, I have not always agreed with Steve Stuart, Rex Burkholder OR Royce Pollard's comments during the task force meetings but one thing I have NEVER done or seen done by any one until this very point was to through a monkey wrench into the process and feign ignorance with Gobal warming consquences, carbon neutral credits or many other comments of its type.

This process has gone on too long and the "can-do nothing attitude" to slow down or kill this process is just plain unthinkable to me. There have been YEARS of meetings at multiple levels these candidates could have come to and aired this dirty secret if they had it or any of a multitude of concerns OR they could have expressed it to Rex and had him ask about it.

I doubt Rex would have put in this much time, effort, personal and political capital for the excuses that have been in the Oregonian over the past two weeks.