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Posts by Adron

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by Adron

Forces Against the CRC, Fight for People: Families, Kids & Livability!

A great article was posted by the Cascade Bicycle Club. Along with every bike group, transit group & almost every single other citizen group in the Portland Metropolitan area the citizens stand against the corporations & Government entities working against the people of the region. Check out this image in the article too, just look at everything near the I-5 corridor, just in that small distance that will be wiped out. More is coming out everyday about how poorly this project has been run and how bad it will be for the area.

…it’s time to stop it, any day now and work on other solutions. There are so many small fixes to so many of the big issues that I-5 causes we’re wasting time and money with this CRC nonsense. Call your representatives today and tell them to get their act together and look at real alternatives to serve traffic and work for the citizens of this area.

by Adron

For Truly Good Business, Better Communities, You Go After Bike Traffic NOT Auto Traffic

Bike Corrals

Bike Corrals

Of course if you’re in the Suburbs, you’d need a parking space the size of Wal-mart to get a decent stream of patrons. With a bike Corral you merely need one or two regular size parking spaces. Toss the cars, step into the future where people matter, get a bike corral.

by Adron

The Bridge Rises Above the Willamette

It’s looking good. Real good.

The new bridge going up.

The new bridge going up.

Whatever your view is on the politics of it, go check it out anyway because it is an impressive piece of architecture!

 

by Adron

Washington Passes $8.4 Billion Transportation Bill

Here’s a quick blurb on this transportation package in Washington. It looks like, sounds like, reads like the Washington Democrats have voted in to throw down $450 million match for the I5 Columbia River Crossing in spite of heavy local contention on the Portland and Vancouver sides of the bridge. It appears that the politicians in both Oregon and Washington give no care to those residents in these cities.

The CRC wreck continues to move forward. It’s starting to get to the point of, who’s going to pay for the massive overruns that are starting to take shape. Remember the bridge needs redesigned to meet Coast Guard height restrictions, it’s going to limit overall height which will close down businesses along the Columbia up river. Beyond those two immediate things Oregon has not established an actual funding source for the bridge or setup actual bonds or other mechanisms. In other words, the politicians in Oregon have spent money they don’t have in any budget, the politicians in Washington have completely disregarded Vancovuerites and of course have no vested interest in Portland form this perspective.

None of them seem to be paying attention to the future, nor the fact that traffic hasn’t increased on this stretch of interstate or the fact that 70% of traffic congestion is caused by local traffic. In other words, EVERY logical solution to this is to build an arterial bridge and let local traffic travel on it instead of being forced to funnel into the I-5 corridor.

Why is this simple solution such an insanely hard thing for these politicians to wrap their head around? It seems someone with some deep pockets and serious intent to build the bridge – broke as it is – keeps pulling the strings of the politician puppets. Just sad.  😦

My Two Cents of What’s Happening

The Republicans are in favor of just paving a massive bridge across the Columbia River. A few of them have even suggested BRT, albeit they know how BRT works out (i.e. it usually doesn’t get funded and when it does it’s shoved into traffic anyway).

What this is starting to shape up like, in a twist of irony, is Oregon is supporting the bridge to get light rail and Washington is supporting it to get light rail, in spite of and against the will of the sprawling areas’ Vancouver citizens. The irony is that Vancouver’s state – Washington – is in favor of light rail, the biggest sticking point for Vancouverites.

In Oregon, we’ve actually got a number of the features we demanded were must haves; safer and better pedestrian and bike access, light rail into downtown Vancouver and on to the College, reduced overall lanes and slowly decreased scope to fix all these other ingress points on the Interstate.

Overall, Portland and Oregon as a whole have gained a lot of things we wanted. However the biggest problem is that it is still unwanted by the overall communities it affects the most, it doesn’t actually provide real traffic congestion relief (and even if it did, induced demand would fix that in short order). The bridge is largely unfinanced which will fall on the backs of our children. The trend is also AGAINST increased car ownership, it’s actually dropping, and Portland is a leader in that dropping demand. Building this thing is against the trend that is occurring.

Overall, it seems like Oregon and Washington politicians are blinded by the desire to get light rail built and find it acceptable to sink us into massive debt by building an Interstate that is entirely unfunded, even with the tolls for Washington Commuters coming into Portland.

Overall, things are whack for the CRC.

by Adron

The Ongoing CRC Cluster Failure

So I was reading through some articles and somehow I’ve missed this one. It appears the politicians haven’t paid any attention to the state treasurer. The House & Senate didn’t say a thing to the state treasurer who testified that many problems still exist. To quote Wheeler,

“The project costs haven’t been nailed down,” Wheeler said. “There are a lot of question marks, including whether the federal funds will materialize. We’re concerned about the governance model if the tolls don’t pan out. The Coast Guard hasn’t signed off on the height yet, so we don’t know what revisions will be necessary.”

When asked if he’s given a seal of approval to the bridge,

“No, we have not.”

So it really makes me wonder what nonsense the pro-CRC crowd keeps chirping on about. They must seriously be well funded to have pro-CRC people shilling out on a Facebook Page and other presence points on the Internet (when obviously the PEOPLE of the area don’t want the thing).

To throw in another quote about the legislature, they seem to be aiming for union & business support, they’re obviously not asking the citizenry (who until recently has found it odd that this thing was still alive as a project).

“The Oregon Treasury deals in investment-grade analysis, the Legislature in superficial votes that curry favor with unions and the project’s supporters in the business community.”

Then in regards to the Governor. It just keeps becoming an even larger political boondoggle.

“The governor? He’s in bed with the wrong crowd.”

Then later on, a real summary quote,

“Let’s be glad the Legislature, so easily cowed or bought off, has moved on, clearing the way for a more aggressive review in Washington state and more thorough analysis by the Oregon Treasury.”

“When it comes to doing our job,” Wheeler said, “so that if we issue bonds, we have certainty that the bondholders will be paid back and the taxpayers won’t be at risk, that requires a deeper analysis than what the legislative process prescribes.”

So I guess Wheeler is looking out for the state. The political leaders recently elected to the legislature in Oregon sure as hell aren’t paying attention to those they represent.