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Crossing the Columbia
by Kennedy Smith
01/11/2007
It’s a project that will either make or break Vancouver – at least according to the city’s mayor.
The proposed Columbia River Crossing, now in its planning and public feedback stages, is an attempt to improve traffic flow on Interstate 5 from Portland to Vancouver.
The current bridge is actually two separate bridges, built in 1917 and 1958, with the 1958 bridge allowing northbound traffic to come directly into downtown Vancouver, causing traffic headaches for commuters during peak hours. And, Vancouverites say, construction of the second bridge essentially split downtown in two.
“The concern for me and the community is that we have an opportunity to heal and reconstruct what was destroyed when they first put Interstate 5 through Vancouver,” said Vancouver Mayor Royce Pollard. “We’re booming and we don’t want to do anything to harm that. This bridge is about the future economic viability of the region, and we ought to heal some of the things done in the past.”
The Columbia River Crossing is definitely on the radar of Vancouver businesses and residents, Pollard said, especially those residing or located near where the interstate spills directly into downtown, causing congestion during peak traffic hours. The Columbia River Crossing Task Force estimates daily traffic demand over the I-5 bridge will increase by more than 40 percent in 20 years, from 125,000 vehicles in 2000 to 180,000 in 2020.
With home buyers flocking to Clark County – the RMLS reported new home listings in Southwest Washington were up 13.1 percent from November 2005 to November 2006, with nearly 8,000 new homes sold by the end of the year – traffic is bound to increase exponentially.
Further, Vancouver has experienced a surge in development in the last three years, with more mixed-use office/retail and condominium buildings rising near the center of downtown. Development includes the new Hilton Vancouver Washington and Vancouver Convention Center, a revamped Esther Short Park on the waterfront and a mixed-use headquarters for The Columbian newspaper now under construction. Plus, downtown has a newly available site, the former Boise Cascade Lumber paper mill.
“Downtown Vancouver is a hotbed of development opportunity right now because of the successful development of Esther Short Park and because of the new Boise Cascade 25-acre site on the river that’s right next to the park blocks,” said Steve Campbell, publisher of The Columbian.
Campbell and Gerding Edlen Development Co. are in the process of building a $27 million, six-story headquarters across the street from Esther Short Park that will house the newspaper along with ground-floor retail and office space for lease.
“With all that potential, I hope nobody would put something in that would jeopardize development prospects,” Campbell said.
City’s economic fate rests with crossing
Vancouver’s economic stability lies with the project, said Steve Burdick, the city’s economic development director.
“Depending upon the design for I-5 after the north bridge landing, the widening of I-5 between about Sixth Street and Evergreen could cause the demolition of businesses such as the City Center 12 theaters (at Eighth and C streets),” he said. “These theaters are a major attraction in the downtown, and we are likely to be very opposed to any design that would affect them.”
Those on the task force say would-be developers and existing business owners in downtown Vancouver have little to worry about.
“There have been concerns expressed about how the project could impact development in Vancouver and throughout Clark County,” said Henry Hewitt, co-chairman of the Columbia River Crossing Task Force and a lawyer with the Portland office of Stoel Rives. “As a result, we’re looking at mid-level bridge alternatives and a couple different mass-transit alternatives that are now out for public comment. All of those are outcomes that would be consistent with a vibrant development of the Vancouver community.”
Mid-level means the bridge would be at a fixed height with no lifts along its span.
Hewitt said the task force has eliminated any bridge alternatives that would have required southbound drivers to yield the right-of-way when entering I-5.
However, the details of each plan are “far out in the future,” Hewitt said. “We don’t know how or where it would come into Vancouver. What I think I’ve heard is anxiety that how that might be negative to downtown.”
The task force has set an early 2008 date for choosing an alternative and late 2008 date for federal agencies to approve the decision.
It is still too early to say whether the bridge would be built in the same place as the current I-5 bridge or up- or downstream.
Bridge alternatives include taking no action, building a replacement bridge with bus access and bus rapid transit, and building a replacement bridge with light-rail transit and bus service.
Columbia River Crossing staff said additional strategies to reduce congestion would be added to the alternatives this year.
“Certainly, resolving the debate on light rail versus bus rapid transit is an important issue,” Burdick said. “Whether the ultimate choice is light rail or bus rapid transit, the way in which high-capacity transit interfaces with properties along its route will be critical to the continued viability of our downtown.”
Pollard said he doesn’t want to see ramps along the west side of the current bridge, where it would encroach, he said, on current development near Esther Short Park. Alternatively, he doesn’t think putting an off-ramp on the east side – in Vancouver’s historic area – would work either.
However, he said, it’s too early to say where the best place for a Vancouver off-ramp would be.
Burdick said a freeway lid is in order. Covering sections of freeway between Sixth and Evergreen streets to allow through traffic would be a positive attribute of the new system for two reasons, he said: “First it would greatly offset the negative sound, light and fume effects of the freeway. Second, the freeway split apart the downtown from the historic reserve, and a lid would reunite this historic tie.
“We need solutions that would cause the city to be supportive and allow us to embrace a new bridge,” he said. “We can’t afford to have our region come to a standstill because of the bottleneck. We’ll be watching it very closely and pushing what we think is right on our side while supporting people on the other side of the river.”
Upcoming Columbia River Crossing
open-house events
Wednesday
5:30 to 7:30 p.m.
Battle Ground Police
Department
507 S.W. First Street
Battle Ground, Wash.
Jan. 20
9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Lincoln Elementary School
4200 N.W. Daniels St.
Vancouver
Jan. 25
4:30 to 7:30 p.m.
Oregon Association of Minority
Entrepreneurs
4134 N. Vancouver Ave.
Portland
Jan. 30
6:30 to 8:30 p.m.
Hayden Island Yacht Club
12050 N. Jantzen Drive
Portland
http://www.djc-or.com/viewStory.cfm?...28703&userID=1