Portland Mayor Sam Adams with then-City Councilor Tim Leavitt at a meeting regarding the Columbia River Crossing Project. Leavitt is now Mayor of Vancouver, Washington.
She says it'd be irresponsible to fund the "Columbia River Crossing", and she's far from alone. She even understands why it's such a clusterduck:
From 1926 to 1982, four major bridges were built across the Columbia River, with heights ranging from 140 to 210 feet. The CRC is designed at just 95-116 feet in order to accommodate Portland's light rail, which a majority of Clark County voters have repeatedly rejected. Three Southwest Washington businesses representing thousands of good-paying jobs presently located upriver from the proposed CRC location are seriously threatened due to inadequate bridge height. Any new crossing must accommodate current and future river users.
And yet the "CRC" like a scene from "Night of the Zombies", staggers blindly on, consuming $3 million per month; on track, as it were, to spend some $200 million without ever having turned one shovel-full of dirt. Wouldn't you love to work at CRC? Imagine getting paid six figures for doing nothing more than sitting at a desk, writing fairy tales. Put a bird on it and call it "art".
