A
Bridge to the
Twentieth Century: Megaproject Technocracy and the Columbia River
Crossing
Local
Activism
It is interesting to see how environmental critiques of the planning
process and of the suggested final form of the bridge approach the
issue from wildly different perspectives. Traditional environmental
advocacy groups have stated their opposition to the project under the
auspices of how it detriments the ecologically
fragile Columbia River; more progressive organizations, such
as the Coalition for a
Livable Future, have included in their critique a charge of
environmental racism in that the reduction of air quality and presence
of extra congestion along the Portland stretch of the I5 corridor will disproportionally
impact the region’s only African American communities in North Portland.
Organizations that are looking at the land-use implications of the
facility note that the bridge will only encourage further
suburbanization of northern Clark County; while Oregon has progressive,
strict laws on urban growth, the lack of an urban growth boundary on
the northern side of the river has enabled significant suburban sprawl
north of Vancouver, and groups such as the 1000 Friends of Oregon have
noted that the DEIS does not include a discussion of how a twelve lane
interstate bridge will encourage further low-density development on the
periphery and essentially subsidize Vancouver commuters interested in
working but not living (or paying property taxes) in the city of
Portland.
Many organizations are attacking the transportation planners for what
they see as an unwillingness to plan for the state-mandated reductions
in carbon emissions. Oregon and Washington have stated commitments to
cut carbon reductions to 75 and 50% of 1990 levels, respectively, and
yet a transportation project that serves to predominantly increase
automobile use and will affect transportation options for the next
century doesn’t
seem to fit these stated goals.
A certain group of environmentalists are attempting to change the
discourse of the construction of the megaproject by reappropriating and
reframking the arguments made by ODOT and WashDOT. Economists
such as Joe
Cortright have been glaring critical of the fallacies of the
assumptions inherent in spending over $4 billion on a facility that
hinders the region’s ability to adapt to the likely future of limited
supply of cheap oil.
For our purposes of understanding how science is appropriated
by various actors to support their causes, this represents an
interesting situation; this articulation attempts to “fight fire with
fire” by not just proposing alternative perspectives that should be
consulted through the construction of this megaproject but by explicitly finding flaws in the very
assertions made about why this bridge is necessary.
This explicitly-environmental critique of economic discourse provides
contrast to the Portland Business Alliance’s assertion and others that
the construction of this bridge is the only economically sensible
method of addressing this problem.
“If [the CRC were] to go ahead, you would be placing all your bets on a
descending paradigm and ignoring the ascending paradigm…we are now well
into what’s called peak oil. The era of cheap energy is coming to an
end. We’re trying to figure out how to make our cities operate on a
more sustainable basis, with a different kind of environmental
footprint, and how we move around our cities is absolutely front and
center. And to have, essentially, a mid twentieth century solution as
we enter the second decade of the twenty first century, especially in
this community, is really surprising.” (Robert Campbell, PDXplore Event)
These groups and other citizen activists have numerous critiques of the
current DEIS. Many have noted that the spatial scope of study
has been significantly limited to the corridor itself, with little to
no research about possible solutions involving a bridge
downstream. The DEIS has been criticized as well for the
assumptions inherent in the assumed relationship between traffic demand
and this facility; the projected traffic on the new facility for the
next fifty years assumes that gasoline will continue to cost no more
than $1.50 a gallon as it did upon the time of study in 2001. Others
note that increasing the traffic capacity at the bridge will only
encourage more people to use their automobile to get between the two
cities and create significant traffic bottlenecks throughout the rest
of the transportation system, particularly in parts of North Portland
where I5 can’t be widened without the use of eminent domain. Notably
absent from any of the studies is the possibility that congestion
tolling may be able to disincentivize travel across the bridge during
peak hours and thus lower both carbon emissions and the need for a new
facility. While politically unfeasible, especially to the large number
of residents in Vancouver who depend on the city of Portland for
employment, shopping and entertainment, it is astonishing that such a
gigantic project could be undertaken to attempt to solve congestion
along the corridor without suggesting that the solution may be in the
alteration of behavioral patterns rather than physical infrastructure.
Some activists have pointed out the need to really understand the
origins and destinations of individuals who use the facility; one study
suggests that the construction of a smaller, additional bridge
downstream serving local traffic networks could ease concerns about
freight shipping and local trips by connecting a handful of important
destinations and avoid the need to expand the interstate bridge to such
an enormous size.
It is amazing to see that citizens, who have the least funding,
least spare time and theoretically least knowledge about traffic
engineering, have been able to specifically articulate ways in which
the the problems the CRC attempts to address can be solved in ways that
are much cheaper and much less harmful to the surrounding community.
I'm not sure whether this stands as an affirmation of
the principles underlying our democracy, that the collective voice
of the common man can be trusted to make important decisions, or of a
harsh critique of the ability for technocratic transportation engineers
to meet the needs of the 21st century city. Either way, equipped with
the technological capability to not only produce counter-CRC proposals
but to publish them to a mainstream audience,
local advocates attempting to take on the mighty Departments of
Transportation have pushed back against the dominant discourse about
the necessity of the project and the ways in which it was politically
implemented.
"...And to have, essentially, a mid twentieth century solution as we
enter
the second decade of the twenty first century, especially in this
community, is really surprising.”
Last updated: 3rd May 2010
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