A
Bridge to the
Twentieth Century: Megaproject Technocracy and the Columbia River
Crossing
Steamrolling:
ODOT and WashDOT leading the charge
The
planning and design of this project has largely been a joint product of
Oregon and Washington’s Departments of Transportation (ODOT and
WashDOT, respectively). In 2001, the historically noncooperative
agencies founded the I-5 Transportation and Trade Partnership to begin
studying possible solutions to alleviate congestion along the
corridor. The Partnership organized a 39-member task force in
2005 to specifically address possible solutions for the congestion of
the stretch of interstate across the Columbia River. While the task
force included a handful of members who were specifically appointed to
voice the concerns of active transportation and light rail facilities
on the new facility, the committee was largely staffed with individuals
advocating for the tangible construction of a new facility that would
allow for increased traffic flow across the river. This is observable
in the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS)
released in 2008;
the committee recommended the construction of a twelve-lane replacement
span complete with light rail and bicycle facilities over other
alternatives such as the construction of a smaller, local-traffic
facility and the “build-nothing” option. The methods through which the
five possible alternatives were evaluated in the DEIS (and the types of
solutions that are studied) speaks loudly to not only to how the
problem is understood by the transportation planners but also to the
limited ability for citizens to get involved with the process.
The
four alternatives and the federally mandated build-nothing scenario all
rest on the assumption that the main concerns for the current facility
are based on the need to allow traffic to flow as efficiently as
possible between the two metros, and that the only way to address this
problem is to construct as many as twelve lanes of interstate or
provide a public transportation link. While the DEIS pays a modicum of
lip service to the importance of local collaboration on some of the
minor specifics of the project and the importance of building a
facility that “meets the regions needs,” the document in essence
promotes a false choice because of its assumption that the solution is
a physical, tangible product. As architectural critic Robert Campbell
noted at a recent discussion on the plans hosted by PDXplore:
“What
did I see?..I saw an engineering project. That was trying through
purely engineering needs to solve an enormous range of problems on a
very narrow strip of land…the problem had been very narrowly defined.
That only one kind of expertise was being applied, and that was civil
and structural engineering and only one site was permissible to look at
to solve some of those problems….I also saw a bunch of concerned
people.” – (Robert Campbell, PDXplore event)
The
application of what Campbell calls “civil and structural engineering”
to the facility suggest that the current official ways in which this
project has been conceptualized have rested heavily on the traditional
model of transportation planning which narrowly assumes all
transportation projects must be designed for the efficient movement of
automobiles. As another panelist at the PDXplore event at PNCA
noted,
“who
should be doing this?...when you have a department of transportation in
charge, they do what they do. They are not necessarily about city
building, they are about building transportation facilities, and they
have a vested interest in trying to limit their contractual
responsibilities to that narrow function.” (Maurice Cox, PDXplore event)
ODOT and WashDOT need to be properly situated as the chief drivers of
this highway project; both transportation agencies have been given
significant encouragement to pursue this project by Oregon Governor
Kulongoski and Washington Governor Gregoire. Kulongoski, a Democrat
with strong ties to labor interests who actively support the
construction of a large bridge because of the jobs it promises, has
been particularly active as of late, urging local activists to give
input but avoid potentially delaying the construction of this project.
Politicians have an inherent interest in attending ribbon-cutting
events and being able to take credit for megaprojects; Kulongoski noted in 2009 at a press
conference for the new bridge
that “…the aesthetics should not be driving this
conversation.
The economy should – and the thousands and thousands of family wage
jobs for this region that will be created when we start construction of
this new bridge.”
The
degree to which this project is currently being pushed by Kulongoski
and other state-level government agencies is reflected by the
governor’s insistence on the inclusion of an extra $30 million of
funding for studying the corridor that was intentionally dropped by the Oregon
Congress’s transportation bill in 2009.
This backdoor maneuver by the governor is only the latest in a series
of appropriations largely aimed at keeping the political justification
for this megaproject on target; every planning document and statement
of support for the CRC is inherently political and intended to silence
criticism so that the project appears worthy of the federal funds
necessary to see the project through to completion. Over $100 million
has already been allocated toward the study of the project, and many activists have grumbled
that these funds have been used less for actually studying the project
but rather toward developing policy briefs and models that can be fed
to a well-oiled publicity machine that promotes the state-sponsored
ideas for the project.
