Comments on: Controversial Portland Columbia River Crossing Under Pressure to Move Forward, Despite Flaws

By: Asheville DUI lawyer

Asheville DUI lawyer — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 18:35:15 +0000

Obviously Alaska is not the only area with enough lobby “pull” to get “bridges to nowhere” approved.

By: Matthew

Matthew — Fri, 06 May 2011 15:26:17 +0000

@ John. Stone age? This is Portland. We’ve always been in the forefront of protecting against negative impact in our environment. This is just going to cause more problems in that direct area. I’m not just talking about road rage. Imagine what the traffic in that immediate area will to to our environment.

By: John

John — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 06:23:17 +0000

success and modernization comes with a price such as this one or else there will be traffic jam left and right, if that happens business will die, its better to accept some negative impacts in environment rather than living back to stone-age like

By: Simon Wes

Simon Wes — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 04:25:45 +0000

Many Portland commuters defiantly avoid rush our since the lanes are so bottle necked. I have found many alternative routes to address some issue with traffic. But many are unavoidable like the I-5 north or south.

3.6 billion seems like a lot to spend for the tax payers right now considering the economic conditions. Plus not to mention if all the ecological data has not been presented in favor of both sides the we have to as Oregonians look at this issue deeper. The light rail is a whole separate issue they are mixing together unnecessarily. I cant image that many will choose this method unless you work downtown and cant afford parking.

By: Gerald

Gerald — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 15:21:11 +0000

If only us poor fools in Florida could have “ecologically aware” Governors. Rick Scott just vetoed years of work, and billions in Federal monies to build a high speed rail between Tampa and Orlando. Sam Adams, can you please consider moving to Florida and running in the next Governors race?

By: Mitchel Katz

Mitchel Katz — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 00:46:29 +0000

Yea, I’m from LA too and definitely agree with Matt M. I also travel quite a bit and you see this same problem all over the country. It’s never the number of lanes, it’s when the number of lanes changes that cause the problems. Kind of like airspace. It’s not the lack of airspace, It’s the lack of runways (I think that’s a good analogy?)

By: Matt M

Matt M — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 22:32:47 +0000

I spent most of my driving years in LA. This same principle is used out n many of the overpass. The problem isn’t the connections, the problem is when all the traffic converge from the many lanes on the overpass. Good luck Portland. Your not solving a problem, you’re creating a larger problem and trafic jam closer to your city.

By: Drewski

Drewski — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 17:44:35 +0000

HOV lanes or no, those existing express buses will hit the same jam-up as all the other traffic…unless someone had the bright idea of building elevated HOV lanes to the Rose Quarter, or just running on surface streets. ALL traffic will be gummed up, because this bridge is planned to cross the river with ten lanes, then suddenly and magically merge both through and downtown-bound traffic to move at the same speed on only six lanes in northern Portland. Also, Tri-Met is like nearly every other transit operator–it’s not going to be willing to see bus service directly parallel to a rail line, unless there’s a very compelling argument. As this project stands now, I wonder if it wouldn’t force C-Tran to focus more on connections over the 205 bridge. Over $3 billion for something that creates a new set of problems? That’s irresponsible. The local/express concept is sounding better, so long as those local lanes are steered as far as possible from the 5 corridor as soon as the Columbia is crossed.

By: Michael Andersen

Michael Andersen — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 07:41:43 +0000

This analysis is generally top-notch, Yonah, but the biggest flaw is your assumption that light rail use is underestimating trips to downtown. That job is done very well now by C-Tran, the Clark County transit agency, which runs a fleet of very fast and popular express buses straight to downtown from several transit hubs in Clark County. A 40-minute light rail ride across the bridge would be ridiculous to many downtown workers as long as the buses are available. The virtue of a rail extension, therefore, would be for non-commute trips and shorter trips to jobs and homes outside Portland’s downtown core.

By: Michael Andersen

Michael Andersen — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 07:35:56 +0000

It is inaccurate to say that people who live in Washington are dodging taxes. It’s just the opposite; in my experience, people who live in Clark County do so because the schools are better and property is relatively cheaper. In fact, Clark County is the 8th largest contributor to Oregon’s income taxes, because Washington residents who work in Oregon are liable for Washington’s relatively higher property taxes, Washington’s sales taxes and Oregon’s highest-in-the-nation income taxes.

I live in Portland, where I moved from Clark County because I prefer higher taxes and urban life. But I’m just sayin’.