There are various projects in Washington that TCC is involved with, including the Alaskan Way Viaduct and the 520 Lake Washington Bridge. Another large project that we will be getting move involved in over the next few years is the Columbia River Crossing, new I-5 Bridge from Clark County to Oregon. The project website is http://www.columbiarivercrossing.org/
Demonstrating the statewide significance of this project, The Columbia River Crossing recently got some blog/press coverage from the other corner of the State in the Bellingham Herald's "Traffic Talk".
The current design for the bridge has a light rail and pedestrian element which is great news. It also calls for 12 lanes of traffic, on face value this appears to be an excessive and expensive capacity expansion for the corridor especially considering light rail will be coming across the river. That said, we will continue to track this project, engage local leaders in Clark County and keep you informed of its progress.
I love the transit/bike-ped addition to the capacity, but I don't get the need for twelve traffic lanes. I-5 ROW on the Oregon side seems pretty constrained and consists of three lanes in each direction. While the Washington side could grow laterally, what's the point of a twelve lane bridge for a six lane highway? Nevermind all of the land-use and greenhouse gas implications for enabling increased SOV capacity.
ReplyDeleteMy understanding is the extra lanes are needed because of the large number of on and off ramps on either side of the bridge. I don't know if I quite buy that, but I do know the current ramp configuration is rather dangerous and causes a ton of congestion.
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