CRC staff claims the new bridge will cut greenhouse gas emissions. Traffic will flow more freely with the additional lanes, cutting the smog idling cars emit during the hours-long traffic jams that clog the current bridge daily. But green groups say that building a bigger bridge will lead to more cars on the road.
“This bridge as designed will lead to low density sprawling development, which isn’t conducive to active transportation at all,” said Mara Gross, policy director of Coalition for a Livable Future. “We’re going to have more people living in communities where they can’t bike.”
Current Vancouver to Portland bike commuters Leah Jackson and her 15-year-old son Stuart, would welcome the bike path improvements. Leah runs an art gallery in downtown Vancouver (and the city’s first wine bar!) and rides over the bridge a couple times a month.
“It’s really hard for people to hear your bell,” Leah said. “The noise of the traffic is so loud. Often you come right up to someone before they can hear you.” She often stops riding to avoid pedestrians and other cyclists.
Stuart tries to convince his high school friends to bike into Portland in the summer, but it’s hard to get them out of their cars.
“Most of my friends are getting their permits, they want to drive,” Stuart said. “They say biking, first of all, would be too much work. Secondly, biking over the bridge would be too freaky.”
Construction was supposed to start this year, but the project will not break ground until 2012 at the earliest. Leaders of the project are split on basic design ideas. The number of car lanes, the size of its bike path and tolling on the bridge are still up for debate.
The CRC’s local bigwig-leadership group, the Project Sponsors Council, is split on whether the current 10-lane, $2.6-$3.6 billion plan should even move forward. Four of the council’s members (including Portland Mayor Sam Adams and Vancouver Mayor Tim Leavitt) penned a letter to the Oregon and Washington governors this past January saying the design will have “unacceptable impacts” on communities and “cannibalize funding” for other important transportation projects in the region.
The council, supported by 14 regional environmental, cycling and public health groups, wants an independent review of the I-5 corridor. They hope to find a solution other than building a bigger freeway for the issues of the current Interstate connection.
Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski and Washington Governor Christine Gregoire are gung-ho about the current design however, and believe that breaking ground as soon as possible is key to creating construction jobs in the depressed states.
As for Vilhauer, the cyclist who crashed on the bridge, he kept off the bridge for two weeks but is now back to riding into Portland for work. “It kinda gave me the willies, my first time back on the bridge,” he said. Regardless of the controversy, Vilhauer welcomes the project. “That bike path seems nice and wide.”
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