I-5 Columbia River Crossing (OR/WA)

[Alps]

Induced demand happens but it never accounts for 100% of demand. But it's part new trips, splitting existing trips, or rerouting existing vehicles. And is a red herring if it comes up in every discussion so let's please focus on the bridge (:

[The Ghostbuster]

One of the blogs I frequent (The Antiplanner) had a post about induced demand on roads: http://ti.org/antiplanner/?p=20084#more-20084. Let me know what all of you think of the post. Ironically, the Antiplanner (Randal O'Toole) is a life-long resident of the state of Oregon.

[kernals12]

One of the blogs I frequent (The Antiplanner) had a post about induced demand on roads: http://ti.org/antiplanner/?p=20084#more-20084. Let me know what all of you think of the post. Ironically, the Antiplanner (Randal O'Toole) is a life-long resident of the state of Oregon.

That guy redpilled me. He does an epic job of debunking urbanists

[Sub-Urbanite]

One of the blogs I frequent (The Antiplanner) had a post about induced demand on roads: http://ti.org/antiplanner/?p=20084#more-20084. Let me know what all of you think of the post. Ironically, the Antiplanner (Randal O'Toole) is a life-long resident of the state of Oregon.

That guy redpilled me. He does an epic job of debunking urbanists

Sometimes. Sometimes he's nuts, like when he blames the price of housing in Portland on the urban growth boundary despite, you know, the fact that lots of cities without UGBs cost more and others like Phoenix have seen prices just soar.

[Plutonic Panda]

One of the blogs I frequent (The Antiplanner) had a post about induced demand on roads: http://ti.org/antiplanner/?p=20084#more-20084. Let me know what all of you think of the post. Ironically, the Antiplanner (Randal O'Toole) is a life-long resident of the state of Oregon.

That guy redpilled me. He does an epic job of debunking urbanists

Sometimes. Sometimes he's nuts, like when he blames the price of housing in Portland on the urban growth boundary despite, you know, the fact that lots of cities without UGBs cost more and others like Phoenix have seen prices just soar.

Portlands housing prices absolutely has to do with the urban growth boundary. Has Phoenix even grown into its urban growth boundaries? I don't think it's fair to compare the two cities anyways but Phoenix has much more land available for development than Portland metro does.

[kkt]

Right, so the question is not why housing prices in Portland have soared, the question is why in a pro-growth state like Arizona Phoenix housing prices have soared.  Is something else preventing lots of new housing from being built in Phoenix to meet demand?

[Plutonic Panda]

Right, so the question is not why housing prices in Portland have soared, the question is why in a pro-growth state like Arizona Phoenix housing prices have soared.  Is something else preventing lots of new housing from being built in Phoenix to meet demand?

Prices are soaring everywhere now. Even in Oklahoma City it's starting to get bad. This isn't just happening in major cities like Phoenix. Phoenix was blessed to have such low housing prices as long as it did. Austin only recently got batshit insane in the 2010s.

Honest question: when did portlands housing prices start to skyrocket? Did it coincide with the gentrification of the city and growth as did Austin's?

For the devils advocate argument, I've always been skeptical that geographical boundaries are solely to blame for housing prices. But Portland metro seems to be more strict. It also doesn't help they are so anti freeway traffic literally starts to choke out growth further out. People are only willing to spend so much time commuting.

Then you have cities like Denver that people think has little room to grow but has a near unlimited amount of land to the east. All they'd have to do is build freeways and expand existing ones or build HSR or a little of both. But the city and state leaders seem to have no desire to support anymore sprawl. You also have developers that only seem to be interested in build luxury units and charging an arm and a leg for any new housing built in urban areas.

The government needs to subsidize the cost of housing through new infrastructure like large freeways or directly to the people through payments. The other alternative is growing housing prices. New land isn't going to be made. Climate change is only making this issue worse.

[Bruce]

Urban growth boundaries on their own don't contribute to higher real estate prices. But combined with restrictive zoning, there's not enough supply to keep up with demand. Loosening the absurd amount of SFH-only zoning in Portland proper and the suburbs would help, though there's other factors preventing the construction of affordable housing from being desirable for developers.

Adding more sprawl that requires more driving would not help anyone. Homes would be just as expensive, commutes would be longer, more forestland would be forever gone, and the effects of extreme weather would be intensified.

[kernals12]

Urban growth boundaries on their own don't contribute to higher real estate prices. But combined with restrictive zoning, there's not enough supply to keep up with demand. Loosening the absurd amount of SFH-only zoning in Portland proper and the suburbs would help, though there's other factors preventing the construction of affordable housing from being desirable for developers.

Adding more sprawl that requires more driving would not help anyone. Homes would be just as expensive, commutes would be longer, more forestland would be forever gone, and the effects of extreme weather would be intensified.

More outward sprawl means less congestion, noise, and pollution in existing neighborhoods. And I don't know what you mean about extreme weather, less density reduces the urban heat island effect.

[Plutonic Panda]

Adding more sprawl that requires more driving would not help anyone. Homes would be just as expensive, commutes would be longer, more forestland would be forever gone, and the effects of extreme weather would be intensified.

But yet housing in cities like OKC that are more sprawled out than most cities are the cheapest.

[jakeroot]

And I don't know what you mean about extreme weather, less density reduces the urban heat island effect.

Generally speaking, impervious surfaces are not helpful in extreme rainfall events. This goes for both urban and suburban areas, of course.

[kernals12]

And I don't know what you mean about extreme weather, less density reduces the urban heat island effect.

Generally speaking, impervious surfaces are not helpful in extreme rainfall events. This goes for both urban and suburban areas, of course.

Denser areas have a larger impervious percentage of land area.

[hotdogPi]

A lot of pavement is parking lots. These are found more in suburbs.

That said, the back rows don't get used often – maybe use a different material that isn't impervious but isn't a problem if it doesn't last as long in terms of number of vehicles used?

Here's a really bad example of three adjacent (and unconnected!) parking lots with that are empty in Google Satellite View – four if you include the Home Depot.

https://www.google.com/maps/@42.3954114,-71.26583,299m/data=!3m1!1e3

[Scott5114]

Adding more sprawl that requires more driving would not help anyone. Homes would be just as expensive, commutes would be longer, more forestland would be forever gone, and the effects of extreme weather would be intensified.

But yet housing in cities like OKC that are more sprawled out than most cities are the cheapest.

Housing (and everything) in OKC is cheap because of low demand relative to other cities.

[Plutonic Panda]

Update:

The final design is scheduled for mid-2025, with construction beginning by the end of 2025. Construction is expected to take five to seven years to complete.

- https://www.columbian.com/news/2022/jul/14/initial-i-5-bridge-plan-earns-final-votes-of-endorsement/

[brad2971]

Right, so the question is not why housing prices in Portland have soared, the question is why in a pro-growth state like Arizona Phoenix housing prices have soared.  Is something else preventing lots of new housing from being built in Phoenix to meet demand?

Prices are soaring everywhere now. Even in Oklahoma City it's starting to get bad. This isn't just happening in major cities like Phoenix. Phoenix was blessed to have such low housing prices as long as it did. Austin only recently got batshit insane in the 2010s.

Honest question: when did portlands housing prices start to skyrocket? Did it coincide with the gentrification of the city and growth as did Austin's?

For the devils advocate argument, I've always been skeptical that geographical boundaries are solely to blame for housing prices. But Portland metro seems to be more strict. It also doesn't help they are so anti freeway traffic literally starts to choke out growth further out. People are only willing to spend so much time commuting.

Then you have cities like Denver that people think has little room to grow but has a near unlimited amount of land to the east. All they'd have to do is build freeways and expand existing ones or build HSR or a little of both. But the city and state leaders seem to have no desire to support anymore sprawl. You also have developers that only seem to be interested in build luxury units and charging an arm and a leg for any new housing built in urban areas.

The government needs to subsidize the cost of housing through new infrastructure like large freeways or directly to the people through payments. The other alternative is growing housing prices. New land isn't going to be made. Climate change is only making this issue worse.

The notion that city and state leaders in Denver and Colorado have no desire to support sprawl is not even close to accurate. The city of Aurora is happily supporting sprawl development along the E-470 corridor from at least 64th Avenue to Smoky Hill Road. There's so much available land along that corridor that it's going to be well into the 2040s before it looks like I-225.

[Plutonic Panda]

^^^^ but they don't seem to be keen on planning for any road meaningful freeway expansion to keep up with it or facilitate its growth. If the Denver area were really building so many new houses then when are the home prices absolutely nuts?

[zzcarp]

Right, so the question is not why housing prices in Portland have soared, the question is why in a pro-growth state like Arizona Phoenix housing prices have soared.  Is something else preventing lots of new housing from being built in Phoenix to meet demand?

Prices are soaring everywhere now. Even in Oklahoma City it's starting to get bad. This isn't just happening in major cities like Phoenix. Phoenix was blessed to have such low housing prices as long as it did. Austin only recently got batshit insane in the 2010s.

Honest question: when did portlands housing prices start to skyrocket? Did it coincide with the gentrification of the city and growth as did Austin's?

For the devils advocate argument, I've always been skeptical that geographical boundaries are solely to blame for housing prices. But Portland metro seems to be more strict. It also doesn't help they are so anti freeway traffic literally starts to choke out growth further out. People are only willing to spend so much time commuting.

Then you have cities like Denver that people think has little room to grow but has a near unlimited amount of land to the east. All they'd have to do is build freeways and expand existing ones or build HSR or a little of both. But the city and state leaders seem to have no desire to support anymore sprawl. You also have developers that only seem to be interested in build luxury units and charging an arm and a leg for any new housing built in urban areas.

The government needs to subsidize the cost of housing through new infrastructure like large freeways or directly to the people through payments. The other alternative is growing housing prices. New land isn't going to be made. Climate change is only making this issue worse.

The notion that city and state leaders in Denver and Colorado have no desire to support sprawl is not even close to accurate. The city of Aurora is happily supporting sprawl development along the E-470 corridor from at least 64th Avenue to Smoky Hill Road. There's so much available land along that corridor that it's going to be well into the 2040s before it looks like I-225.

^^^^ but they don't seem to be keen on planning for any road meaningful freeway expansion to keep up with it or facilitate its growth. If the Denver area were really building so many new houses then when are the home prices absolutely nuts?

Supply and demand is one reason, although it may be slowing slightly, we still have a housing deficit from when builders stopped building in the 2008 downturn.

Another is that condos cannot be built due to our attorney-friendly construction defects laws. So no starter homes, just expensive apartments being constructed.

While some "sprawl" can happen within Aurora, most places within the 470 beltway are near buildout. Density will be the only way out, but there's a lot of good single-family properties that people aren't going to sell and redevelop into apartments. More like the Denver infill where they scrape a Denver square house and build two or three 16-foot wide townhomes on the lot.

Then, there's the water issue. We live in a high-plains desert. Much of our water comes from the western slope, and water rights are mostly spoken for. Places like Parker built new reservoirs to support their growth. Aurora did the same. Denver water fought for years just to get a minor expansion of Gross Reservoir. To have the dense future many dream of, we need a new water source and new reservoirs and there is little to no political capital to be spent for that.

I also acknowledge that none of this has anything to do with Portland which is the subject of the thread.

[Plutonic Panda]

^^^^ thanks for the info. It just seems like Denver, or rather the metro, has tons of land even though that may sound ridiculous given the Rocky Mountains being in the backyard. All it takes is infrastructure to access it.

The water issue is understandable I don't known what the solution is there other than more water runoff collection facilities and those can run into the billions of dollars. The attorney thing is interesting but is that not a problem everywhere? It's the same thing in LA it seems like. They keep denying large scale single family home developments(claiming fire reasons which is a cop out) but constantly approving urban apartments costing well north of 3k per month at minimum. It does nothing to solve the housing problem no matter how many units they build.

I'd imagine Portland has the same issues given their urban growth boundaries.

[brad2971]

^^^^ but they don't seem to be keen on planning for any road meaningful freeway expansion to keep up with it or facilitate its growth. If the Denver area were really building so many new houses then when are the home prices absolutely nuts?

The E-470 Public Highway Authority just completed, last year, an expansion to six lanes of the tollway from Quincy Ave to I-70. This summer, the authority's contractor will begin expansion to six lanes of the tollway from I-70 north to 104th Ave. This includes the interchange with Pena Blvd.

Housing prices are nuts for mostly the same reasons housing prices are nuts in nearly every major or medium sized metro area: People with significant amounts of cash/equity+heavy millenial demand+Baby Boomers hanging onto their homes by their fingernails.

[Plutonic Panda]

^^^^ but they don't seem to be keen on planning for any road meaningful freeway expansion to keep up with it or facilitate its growth. If the Denver area were really building so many new houses then when are the home prices absolutely nuts?

The E-470 Public Highway Authority just completed, last year, an expansion to six lanes of the tollway from Quincy Ave to I-70. This summer, the authority's contractor will begin expansion to six lanes of the tollway from I-70 north to 104th Ave. This includes the interchange with Pena Blvd.

Right but at minimum it should have been 8 lanes. Personally I'd prefer 10, 3 free and 2 toll each way. I'd still be more than happy with 3GP+1HOV or HO/T making it 8 lanes. Almost every time I'm one that road it is bumper to bumper traffic. I'm sure 6 will help with off peak traffic but it'll still be the same parking lot just with another lane. Induced and latent demand need to be factored in which when completed might bring new traffic onto that road which currently uses other routes to avoid it. Same thing with I-270 which I've been meaning to make a thread about.

[Bruce]

Can we stay on-topic here?

[Plutonic Panda]

Update:

The Center Square) — The pursuit of federal funding continues for a planned multi-billion dollar bistate project to replace the aging Interstate 5 bridge over the Columbia River between Vancouver, Washington and Portland, Oregon.

According to the Washington State Department of Transportation, the current span is to be replaced "with a modern, seismically resilient, multimodal structure that provides improved mobility for people, goods and services"  in Washington and Oregon.

The project has an estimated price tag between $3.2 billion and $4.8 billion that is to be funded by Washington, Oregon, and the federal government.

Washington and Oregon's state governments are each expected to contribute $1 billion to the project.

The Washington State Legislature this year passed the nearly $17 billion, 16-year transportation packaged dubbed "Move Ahead Washington,"  which includes said funding for a new I-5 bridge. Roughly another third of the project cost would come from tolling revenue.

Ray Mabey, assistant program administrator for the Interstate Bridge Replacement Program and a state bridge engineer for the Oregon Department of Transportation, updated the Joint Oregon-Washington Legislative Action Committee on efforts to secure federal funding for the mega project during a Monday morning virtual work session.

"Federal funding is one those key pieces,"  he told the committee.

Mabey pointed to a recent success in acquiring federal dollars in the form of being awarded a $1 million Bridge Investment Program Planning Grant to carry out a planned ground-improvement study in the program area.

The ODOT and WSDOT submitted a joint application for the grant request, Mabey explained, with ODOT leading the process.

Both agencies have jointly applied for a $750 million construction grant for the project, Mabey added, and expect to hear back from the federal government at the end of next year or early next year.

Federal money is also being pursued via the U.S. Department of Transportation's Mega Program in support of large, complex projects, as well as the Federal Transit Authority's Capital Investment Grants Program to fund transit capital projects.

"All told, these three grants could reach $2.5 billion, and so we'll be pursuing as much as we can out of those grants,"  Mabey said.

Other federal grant opportunities are being explored as well.

"We'll be looking to see if we can expand the federal dollars in the program as much as possible,"  he said.

Mabey is confident the Interstate Bridge Replacement Program is a good match for federal funding.

"As these programs were developed, it does seem that they are well suited for a program of our size and attributes,"  he said.

Mabey cited the fact the project is multi-modal, connects communities, and is a dual state endeavor.

"The attributes of our program seem to match these fairly well and seem well aligned,"  he said.

In 2013, the Columbia River Crossing, as the project was known at the time, was done in by the Washington State Senate's failure to advance a $450 million transportation package that was expected to contribute to the project. Oregon had already signed off on the project, but Washington's support was required to make it happen.

Earlier this year, eight government boards endorsed a project concept that includes a bridge over the river with three through-traffic lanes, an additional auxiliary merge lane in each direction, a light-rail link to Vancouver, and a separate bridge for local traffic from North Portland to Hayden Island, one of four major islands in the Portland metro area.

- https://www.thecentersquare.com/washington/billions-in-federal-funds-sought-for-columbia-river-bridge-replacement-mega-project/article_37356d5e-5a38-11ed-912d-a77063955f71.html

- https://www.thecentersquare.com/washington/billions-in-federal-funds-sought-for-columbia-river-bridge-replacement-mega-project/article_37356d5e-5a38-11ed-912d-a77063955f71.html

So 3 lanes each way with an auxiliary lane, a two way LRT track, and an additional small bridge somewhere I know nothing about as it isn't my area. So next steps are to secure funding, EIS/public hearings, and then groundbreaking? It would be nice to see it get underway by 2026/27.

[Bruce]

This is the latest version of the Locally Preferred Alternative (forwarded in July): https://www.interstatebridge.org/about-folder/modified-lpa-next-steps/

The light rail option they chose (hugging I-5) was the less costly but also less appealing of the three presented. I think Vancouver is going to fight for a better alignment that actually serves their downtown, so expect a planning delay there.

The "additional bridge" is basically the southern approach that connects Hayden Island (where the Interstate Bridge ends) to the rest of Portland. It's in good shape, having been rebuilt in 1987, but I guess ODOT really wants to suck up as much federal funding as possible to fit more lanes in. The new design would also eliminate half the ramps to Hayden Island and its very popular shopping center (where Washingtonians go to shop for sales tax-free items) and replace it with a local crossing to reach the southern ramps, so that might cause controversy (and delays).

[stevashe]

The "additional bridge" is basically the southern approach that connects Hayden Island (where the Interstate Bridge ends) to the rest of Portland. It's in good shape, having been rebuilt in 1987, but I guess ODOT really wants to suck up as much federal funding as possible to fit more lanes in. The new design would also eliminate half the ramps to Hayden Island and its very popular shopping center (where Washingtonians go to shop for sales tax-free items) and replace it with a local crossing to reach the southern ramps, so that might cause controversy (and delays).

Actually I believe the additional bridge being referred to here is a local street connection to Hayden Island from North Portland. This is being added so Oregonians can still access Hayden Island, as the partial interchange to be built there includes only the ramps to/from Washington, probably for the reasons you state above.

It does look like the I-5 southern approach will be rebuilt also, but if I had to guess, it looks like the actual reason is that the existing bridge can't be properly tied into the new main bridge at its higher elevation (and besides, that bridge already has auxiliary lanes!).