Rep. John Ley says high capacity transit not needed for federal dollars as Brent Spence Bridge shows
John Ley
for Clark County Today
There is not enough vehicle capacity, not enough lanes and transportation corridors in the Portland metro area to handle all the cars and trucks. That is why Portland has had the 8th worst traffic congestion in the nation at times over the past decade. Portland has a dozen bridges over the Willamette River; we need more than two bridges over the Columbia River. Yet Interstate Bridge Replacement Program (IBR) Administrator Greg Johnson says he can’t build his way out of congestion. You certainly can’t if you’re not willing to try.
The IBR has options, where they could have added multiple auxiliary lanes to the 5-mile project corridor. They could have built an express freeway bridge (or tunnel) and repurposed the current bridges as a “local” connection. This would improve travel times and provide redundancy in the event of traffic accidents or incidents.
Instead they will allocate 54 percent of the significantly wider bridge space to bikes, pedestrians, and transit. They will destroy the current safe, but old bridges. The project, if approved, will leave I-5 with three through lanes, plus a single auxiliary lane.
At the June C-TRAN Board of Directors meeting, Johnson provided an “update” regarding the $7.5 billion project proposal. The program expects to release updated transit ridership projections later this summer and updated costs later this fall. This will include “the number” regarding transit operations costs that must be covered by local entities.
Numerous statements made by Johnson are worthy of further exploration and consideration. This is a response to Johnson’s pitch to the Board.
• 1 – “We cannot pay for operations,” Johnson said. “That has to come from local sources.” Note that he did not say local sources must split all the costs. “TriMet will pay for their portion and Washington will make decisions on who pays their side of it.” Our “side” should only be responsible for the bus service we’ve been paying for over the past four decades.
As Clark County Today Editor Ken Vance noted, this would let the C-TRAN Board off the hook for any discussions related to paying anything towards TriMet Operations and Maintenance (O&M) costs. TriMet should pay the full cost of the 1.83-mile MAX light rail extension.
• 2 – Johnson mentioned the Brent Spence Bridge, connecting Cincinnati with northern Kentucky over the Ohio River. What he didn’t tell the C-TRAN Board is that the project does not have a “high capacity transit” component. He also failed to mention that it will be toll free.
It did receive $1.6 billion of federal funding in part because it is part of I-71/I-75 as it travels through downtown Cincinnati. Ohio is expected to contribute $400 million more than Kentucky.
The project reports “The goal… remains unchanged” – that is, “to improve safety and ease congestion by providing additional capacity that separates local and through traffic.” The new bridge adds five lanes of traffic in each direction, in addition to the four on the current bridge. The project repurposes the existing bridge as a local connection.
While in need of maintenance, the current Brent Spence Bridge remains structurally sound. One critic notes it is “functionally obsolete” – local officials’ long-touted rationale for the project – simply means it currently carries more traffic than it was originally designed to carry.”
• 3 – “You have to project what the future will look like,“ Johnson said. He further stated: “You cannot build your way out of the congestion we are seeing in this corridor.” Apparently he can’t fix the main problem 72 percent of people on both sides of the river want resolved.
Solving traffic congestion
This is easily refuted, if Johnson were to simply look for examples in this community.
Example A: SR-14 was hugely congested between 164th Ave and I-205 for years. WSDOT built a new lane in each direction on SR-14 and the traffic congestion is gone. WSDOT looked into the future and also built a “drive on the shoulder” lane in the westbound direction, to handle additional vehicles at some point in the future. But for now it’s not needed. We built our way out of traffic congestion, for about $28 million.
Prior to the completion of the SR-14 lane addition project, morning westbound traffic averaged about 32 mph between 6 and 9 a.m. A year later, average vehicle speeds were 23 mph faster – about 55 mph at 7:30 a.m. Building a new lane in each direction worked!
Example B: Before I-205 and the Glenn Jackson Bridge was built and the freeway opened in Dec. 1982, the I-5 corridor was congested. Once a new bridge and transportation corridor was built, the congestion problem was solved. It took a decade (with growing population and travel demand) for I-5 traffic levels to reach the level of 1982 before the bridge opened.
Traffic congestion was eliminated for a decade. Note the “plan” was for the two states to immediately begin building a westside bridge and transportation corridor, to be completed by 1990. The two states abandoned that plan when Oregon began creating MAX light rail instead. The western bypass would have relieved I-5 congestion, once again.
Example C: I-205 in Clackamas County, between the Abernethy Bridge and Stafford Road. The Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) projected the addition of one lane in each direction on I-205 between the Abernethy Bridge and Stafford Road would eliminate 12 hours of traffic congestion.
Interstate 205 near Oregon City and West Linn is currently congested six and three quarters hours a day. The Abernethy Bridge is part of the only two-lane section of I-205 in Oregon.
By 2045, ODOT and its consultants expect traffic congestion to double to 14 hours daily, if nothing is done.
“The analysis found that drivers could see a 50 percent decrease in afternoon travel time and a 25 percent decrease in the morning,” ODOT officials said. “In addition, travel times would become more reliable, and the number of crashes would shrink, improving efficiency and safety.” Note ODOT was using WSP, the same consultant firm Greg Johnson came from and is using for the IBR.
The best improvements by completing the project were in afternoon travel times. The northbound I-205 travel was 15 minutes faster, and southbound 7 minutes faster. Those time savings were measured from I-5 to the 82nd Drive exit in Gladstone. The best morning commute improvement was 4 minutes.
That 7-mile I-205 lane extension project is now on hold due to ODOT running out of money for this and other transportation projects. But Oregon showed you can reduce traffic congestion significantly.
Other Examples: The JBLM project (Joint Base Lewis McChord) will widen seven miles of I-5 in Pierce County, from DuPont to Lakewood, adding an HOV lane in each direction. The proposed changes will reduce chronic traffic congestion through the JBLM corridor. The $233.3 million project is scheduled to be completed in 2026.
The addition of a new general purpose lane plus a new HOV lane on I-5 near Tacoma was labeled “magical” for the elimination of traffic congestion three years ago. “It was as if the Washington Department of Transportation (WSDOT) just snapped its fingers or waved a magic wand,” said one news report. “As soon as the new northbound lanes opened on June 26, the traffic just vanished.”
“There has been virtually no congestion from the corner by Highway 16 to Port of Tacoma Road ever since, and that includes a drive-through there Tuesday, July 5, in the middle of the afternoon,” reported KIRO’s Chris Sullivan. “I was shocked. I did not get below freeway speed on the day after a holiday when I would have normally been in a three-and-a-half mile, bumper-to-bumper mess.”
Johnson seems to have forgotten that his own surveys show 72 percent of people want the project to save time and reduce traffic congestion. That’s the people’s top priority. It’s also one of the six components of the Purpose and Need statement, the IBR is supposed to fix. Instead, the current proposal will cause morning travel times to double from 29 minutes to 60 minutes.
Planning for the Future
Johnson told the C-TRAN Board “You have to project what the future will look like.” He said there will be 170,000 to 180,000 vehicles on the I-5 corridor in 2045 and that a “future adaptive” system was needed. There will be 30,000 to 40,000 more vehicles on I-5 in 20 years than there are today.
The IBR reported in 2019, 46 percent of vehicles were traveling at freeway speeds. Doing nothing, (and saving $7.5 billion), would result in 27 percent of vehicles traveling at freeway speeds in 2045. They project that after 10-15 years of construction and the expenditure of $7.5 billion, plus people paying tolls, 27 percent of vehicles would be traveling at freeway speeds. There’s no difference.
Looked at differently, 28 percent of rush hour traffic is going zero to 20 mph in 2019. Doing nothing would result in 52 percent of vehicles stuck going zero to 20 mph. The Johnson proposal results in 50 percent of rush hour vehicles in stop and go traffic during rush hour in 2045.
Clearly, replacing a three-lane bridge with another three-through lane bridge is not “future adaptive.” Allocating 54 percent of the bridge surface to pedestrians, bikes and transit only guarantees worse traffic congestion.
WSDOT has shown that adding new vehicle capacity did “build their way out of congestion” on SR-14. Adding both a through lane plus an HOV lane eliminated I-5 traffic congestion in Tacoma. And Johnson’s WSP consulting friends in conjunction with ODOT showed the addition of a 7 mile lane on I-205 would eliminate 12 hours of traffic congestion. It would save time compared to current conditions, not make them worse.
Johnson closed out his remarks to the C-TRAN Board by saying “transit dollars are key to moving traffic in this corridor” in this “high commuter corridor.” Yet his own projections show the expenditure of $7.5 billion doesn’t move any more vehicles through the corridor. It simply moves them at a much slower speed as they remain stuck in traffic congestion.
Also read:
- Opinion: Neighbors for a Better Crossing calls for a current seismic study for $7.5 Billion Interstate Bridge project
Neighbors for a Better Crossing is urging a new seismic study before construction proceeds on the $7.5 billion IBR project, raising transparency concerns and proposing an immersed tube tunnel alternative. - Rep. John Ley supports C-TRAN Bus Rapid Transit to save Washington moneyRep. John Ley praised C-TRAN’s new BRT line as a faster, lower-cost alternative to light rail, urging support for transit options that save taxpayers money and improve service.
- C-TRAN, WSU Vancouver celebrates groundbreaking for The Vine on Highway 99C-TRAN and WSU Vancouver broke ground on the Vine’s Highway 99 route, a 9-mile bus rapid transit line connecting the university to downtown Vancouver and the Waterfront, set to open in 2027.
- C-TRAN board again postpones vote on light rail operations and maintenance costs
The C-TRAN board again postponed a vote on language regarding operations and maintenance costs tied to light rail expansion, with pending lawsuits involving Michelle Belkot continuing to impact board actions. - Opinion: ‘The Interstate Bridge project lacks billions in funding from both Oregon and Washington’Lars Larson criticizes Oregon’s funding decisions, highlighting the billions missing from both states for the Interstate Bridge replacement project and calling it a dead-end effort lacking Coast Guard approval.
I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and commuted from the East Bay to Downtown San Francisco for many years. The nay-sayers always said, you can’t “build your way out of congestion” — but each time improvements were made, traffic flow improved for months or years. The “anti-car crowd” continually advocated and installed various “traffic calming” features — basically facilities that would purposely create congestion. The anti-car crowd also fought long planned upgrades (such as adding lanes to I-80 or installing a third bore at the Caldecott Tunnel in the East Bay Hills. Constant lawsuits were filed that delayed projects for up to 10 years and caused other proposed projects to be cancelled. The result is that some of the worst traffic in the U.S. is in the SF Bay Area.
It comes as no surprise that a similar anti-car crowd has too much influence in the Portland Metro Area. Congestion is used as a “feature” not a problem to be solved. Round-a-bouts are being installed as “traffic calming” features (admittedly saving the cost of traffic lights). Instead of trying to speed traffic along and reduce congestion, the “philosophy” of the “urban planners” is to maximize the inconvenience of traveling to/from work and “discourage” use of automobiles. Expensive “light rail” transit is preferred (as it creates large numbers of expensive unionized workers and allows for considerable questionable movements of cash between favored entities). In the SF Bay Area, BART has (1) failed to fulfill any of the promises made when it was planned and (2) does not serve the areas where many workplaces developed (particularly after San Francisco established “payroll taxes” on employers who responded by moving “back office” operations out of the central city in the suburbs). Tri-Met, likewise, has not provided either the quality of transit nor the cost-savings claimed during its initial development and the “as exists” situation today. This is not to say that both BART and Tri-Met have not shown some benefit to as “transit solutions” but that are not nearly as efficient as alternatives of building new or increasing capacity of existing highways/bridges. In Portland, the anti-freeway crowd has blocked lane additions that would relive bottle necks, and (more importantly) have also blocked the west-side freeway that was in the original plans made in the 1960s and 1970s that was intended to create a “ring” freeway around central Portland so that through traffic could avoid going through the central city. (San Francisco did the same thing, using the excuse of BART to block building a “southern crossing” of the SF Bay from (roughly) Alameda to South San Francisco (near the SF Airport) that would have diverted considerable traffic away from having to pass through San Francisco to reach the peninsula.)