Bipartisan Group Forms to Oppose Columbia River Crossing Project

By NIGEL JAQUISS

Politics does indeed make for strange bedfellows.

On the heels of yesterday's first hearing on House Bill 2800, the proposal to provide Oregon's $450 million down-payment to the proposed $3.5 billion Columbia River Crossing project, several groups who normally would not agree to be in the same zip code are coming together to oppose the project.

The new group calls itself "Stop the CRC: A Bipartisan Coalition for a Responsible Solution."

From the left, the umbrella group Coalition for a Livable Future, whose members include more than 100 environmental, labor and social services organizations and the Northeast Coalition of Neighborhoods, are joining a conservative groups, including the Oregon Taxpayer Association, Americans for Prosperity-Oregon and the Cascade Policy Institute.

Portland economist Joe Cortright, whose criticism of many of the assumptions and projections that project sponsors made about traffic and tolling revenue has proven prescient, will provide technical advice to the coalition.

Groups on the left don't like the CRC, they say, because it is a 1950s-style freeway project that will harm the environment without solving congestion problems. Groups on the right object to the CRC's massive cost and shaky financial assumptions.

Here's a statement from the new group:


WWeek 2015

Willamette Week’s reporting has concrete impacts that change laws, force action from civic leaders, and drive compromised politicians from public office. Support WW's journalism today.