Portland mayor-elect: New bridge must have light rail

Portland Mayor-elect Sam Adams insisted Wednesday that a new Interstate 5 Bridge must meet his city's goals, including reducing automobile travel, or it won't get built.

Adams, who represented Portland for three years on the Columbia River Crossing Task Force, laid down some strong conditions during the start of the Portland City Council's deliberations on whether to support a project that could cost $3.5 billion or more.

"It must be the right kind of a new bridge, and it must be a bridge that Portland can be proud of," he said. "It must, in my view, reduce automobile reliance."

Portland is one of the eight sponsors for the Columbia River Crossing project, which is proposing an expensive package of bridge, highway and transit improvement to ease chronic congestion on I-5 between Washington and Oregon.

All eight sponsors will need to support the project's core tenets, namely a replacement bridge with light rail, if the crossing will have much chance of securing more than $1 billion in federal transit and highway dollars.

Adams, during his initial comments, advocated placing tolls on both the I-5 and I-205 bridges and collecting the money for perpetuity. He also embraced congestion toll pricing, which charges higher tolls during rush hour, to encourage Clark County commuters to ride light rail.

And the commissioner drew a clear line when it comes to extending light rail into Vancouver.

"It must include light rail or there will be no new crossing," he said.

Vancouver Councilman Tim Leavitt, chairman of the C-Tran board of directors, objected to Adams threatening to "kill" the crossing project.

"Hundreds of thousands of residents in the Metro region, as well as important businesses that utilize the I-5 corridor, are trusting their elected officials to work cooperatively and productively," he said. "Threats to waste scarce tax dollars are irresponsible and neither cooperative or productive. I'm certain Mayor-elect Adams isn't sincerely advocating for such a course of action."

But Adams, a Portland commissioner for almost four years, said he would rather miss out on a round of federal funding and live with a crossing that is unsafe and antiquated than "have a bridge built poorly that will punish Portland for the next hundred years."

The City Council spent hours listening to testimony from both supporters and opponents of building a new bridge.

So far, four agencies — cities of Vancouver and Portland, C-Tran and Trivet — have endorsed the crossing projects. The Southwest Washington Regional Transportation Council and Metro are scheduled to take action in the next two weeks.

The other two project sponsors are the agency leading the crossing study, the Washington and Oregon transportation departments.