EDITORIAL

preview from February street edition

[Original draft of the Golden Gate Bridge pictured right]

CRC needs a more modest scale and grander vision.

The political and economic ground that the Columbia River Crossing project has been built on is turning into quicksand. The process of trying to appease, and build consensus around a project this large and important has turned into a fools’ errand, as factions retreat into the safety of their core interests.

This paper has been an unswerving advocate for a new bridge across the Columbia – but one that does more than simply move people and freight. What we have in mind is a bridge that will become an icon for the region and the nation. 

 The CRC’s architectural design has always been regarded as the “last step” in this process. Thus, the look and feel of a bridge that will serve as the gateway to two states is cobbled together after government agencies, highway planners and special interests have been appeased. With that “process forward” strategy appearing to fail, we suggest (as we have all along) that a radical step be taken to save the project: Go back to the drawing board (literally) and lead with design! 

 Up until now the five-year, $65 million planning process has led to a muddled boondoggle of a project. Beyond the 12 lanes across the river it contains 21 lanes of traffic and bridges on Hayden Island. This is an outlandish suburban-highway style project for a bridge located in a relatively urban area. But it’s unreasonable – and incredibly costly – to put those standards into practice in North Portland. 

 The CRC, as now designed, is like a freeway interchange built on the sprawling edges of Phoenix or Houston – and then air-dropped into the middle of the our region’s largest metropolitan area and the Pacific Northwest’s most iconic natural gateway. Few cities other than Vancouver, B.C. and San Francisco have such a monumental natural waterway at their city’s entrance. Yet rather than complement nature’s beauty with an iconic structure, the CRC’s squabbling advocates and adversaries have treated the bridge as an engineering problem and political nuisance.  It’s like health care, only with concrete!

 The politicians have had time to scale back, but that time may be ending soon. The obtuse and inverted requirements of special interests, federal and state agencies, and local political will should now realize that this project is at the point of no return. Out of this collapse, there is still time for a clear and salient vision to arise.

Give us a vision for a real bridge, not a freeway. Give us something to root for, rather than something to oppose – or, at best, to settle for.

In other words, the thing we need is an architect.  When we go back to the drawing board for the Columbia River Crossing, let the architects lead the way.