They didn’t sing “Kumbaya,” and no baked goods were shared, but for the first time in years, a bipartisan group of Oregon and Washington lawmakers met Tuesday afternoon in North Portland to talk about the Interstate Bridge.
Seven Washington lawmakers and five guests from the Oregon Legislature sat at the same long table in a conference room near Delta Park for more than two hours. By the end of the meeting, the lawmakers had agreed to continue talking about discussing how to replace the aging span over the Columbia River.
That’s about all they agreed on, but the meeting was the latest signal that, five years after a small group of Washington lawmakers prevented that state from funding its share of the controversial Columbia River Crossing project, the states are taking baby steps toward reviving potentially serious talks to tackle the bridge project once again.
From some lawmakers, there was a thinly veiled “hold your nose and bear it” element to the meeting.
“If we don’t start something, it’s never going to happen,” said Rep. Caddy McKeown, D-Coos Bay. “And something needs to happen, we all agree on that.”
The public meeting wasn’t without strong words from Oregon’s representatives.
Sen. Cliff Bentz, R-Ontario, who co-chaired the failed effort to approve the previous bridge project, said he was “not enthusiastic” about going through the Interstate Bridge talks all over again. “I’m wondering if you guys can convince us that you’re for real,” he said to Washington legislators, adding he was curious if the state was at a point “where they can get their act together.”
Other lawmakers struck a conciliatory tone, but the meeting included an undercurrent that both sides hadn’t forgotten the amount of effort that went into the previous attempt to build a bridge, which included a light-rail extension to Clark College in Vancouver.
Sen. Ann Rivers, R-La Center, said while she opposed that project, there was no “grave-dancing” after it died.
“Please know how deeply indebted I am to you,” she said to Oregon’s delegation, for agreeing to attend the meeting.
The meeting included a detailed accounting from the Washington Department of Transportation’s Southwest Region administrator, who outlined the previous work the states had put into the nearly $3 billion project which failed in 2014 after Oregon eventually walked away from the project. Washington in 2013 had previously stepped away after failing to approve its $450 million share for the project.
The states face a looming September 2019 deadline to either show federal officials they are dedicated to reviving bridge talks or reimburse a collective $139 million.
Sen. Annette Cleveland, D-Vancouver, who spearheaded the effort to revive the process on Washington’s side, said Tuesday’s meeting was all about creating a new process to move forward.
“We owe it to the next generation and generations to come to find a way to replace that aging infrastructure,” she said.
Washington transportation officials said the congestion delays on the bridge over the Columbia River have increased 83 percent from 2014 to 2016.
Noticeably absent from the lawmakers’ comments: What to do with public transit on any replacement bridge.
Instead, several Washington lawmakers brought up the potential for building more than one additional bridge over the Columbia River, despite Washington transportation officials saying that was studied previously and it would not necessarily ease I-5 congestion.
Also, finding new funding for the bridge project will undoubtedly be a challenge in Salem, Bentz predicted, saying that it would be “horribly difficult” given that Oregon had just approved a $5.3 billion transportation package.
To that end, Rep. Ed Orcutt, R-Kalama, said Washington just passed an even bigger transportation package, yet lawmakers on that side of the river are prepared to do that hard work. “I’m still sitting at this table,” he said.
The two states didn’t schedule a second meeting of the joint committee, and Oregon’s legislative leaders would have to take formal steps in 2019 to appoint members to sit on a joint committee going forward.
Sen. Lee Beyer, D-Springfield, noted the states have been discussing replacing the Interstate Bridge for at least 20 years.
Process was never the issue.
“We haven’t had a lack of process,” he said, “we’ve had a lack of agreement on what to do,” he said.
They still do.
-- Andrew Theen
503-294-4026
@andrewtheen