The Columbia River Crossing (CRC) proposal is a $4.2 billion effort to rebuild and expand the I-5 bridges spanning the Columbia River. This is the largest, most expensive public works project in the region's history; this construction proposal is contradicting Oregon's ambitious goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Transportation is responsible for about 40% of all green house gases. The CRC project will result in an increase of more than 30% in greenhouse gas due to an increase in vehicle trips along the I-5 corridor - by 2030. That is if people can afford to drive their cars anymore. This question should be asked and addressed in the feasibility study. With the projection of gas prices, is a bigger bridge necessary?
Another consideration that must be addressed is green house gas problems. Even with the CRC task force coming up with alternative ideas for "green" transportation there will be no way that the new ideas will off set the increase of green house gas that will be derived from the increase in traffic. People should realize that the cities/developers want growth, and when growth comes there is an associated cost that all of us must bear, whether it is from your pocket book directly, indirectly, or by the impact to the environment, which in turn will affect everyone in all aspects.
If people want clean air and water we must be ready to take on the cost and inconvenience associated with addressing the problem head-on, we have sat idle for to long waiting for someone else t o tackle the problems that we face as a society.
The state and local financial obligation of this project is estimated at more than $1.4 billion, the money that will be diverted from other transportation needs. Many of our roads and bridges statewide require improvements right away. After being neglected for decades many of the structures are at best minimal safety levels, many are below the standards. Funding the CRC project as currently proposed will make it impossible, to fund these efforts. Funding this project will also likely require a statewide increase in the gasoline tax, vehicle registration fees, and vehicle transfer fees, adding additional financial burdens to Oregonians who already face increases in the prices of fuel and food.
The up side of building this bridge, but in my opinion it is more important to repair our infrastructure, is the construction jobs that it would create keeping thousand of people in work, plus it would boost our sagging economy with the trickle down effect of motels, gas, restaurants, retail shops and all the other business's that are involved in construction projects or derived from construction monies from th very small business to the huge business's.
There is no reason that the United States has fuel efficiency problems with our vehicles. We have the technology to send crafts to the moon and Mars, than we have the technology to manufacture fuel-efficient cars. Cars, that are regular sized and not tiny cracker boxes. The reason that we do not have fuel efficient cars is because the OIL industry and the car industry do not want efficiency to happen, if it happened, they would not be able to create such huge profits for a selected few in the corporations. I think that it is time that the American people demand something to be done, right now gas is $4.12 per gallon so over priced that people can not afford to drive to work but the oil executives and people like George Bush can afford lobster dinners and fly around in their gas guzzling jets.
And to think that America was labeled the land of milk and honey, a place where everyone can live the American dream. It is sad that people can only dream about having their own home, a decent car, a job to go to, and plenty to eat. Now people are thankful that they have enough money to buy a bite of food, and in, many instances people are going hungry, people a year ago would have never dreamed that they would have to rely on food from a food bank to keep their families fed. The influx of so many desperate people has caused food shortages at the food banks and some are empty. I am afraid that it will get worse before it gets better.
The American economy is in the toilet and has been there for a while, with elected leaders promoting companies to move out of the states, promoting huge tax breaks, allowing the tax breaks to be shouldered on the hard working under paid workers of America, there went American jobs, there went the economy and there goes huge profits to the corporations bank accounts, it is pretty obvious that the only people who will weather the depression is those of money and power, mainly the politicians and the oil companies.
I believe that we must do something to stimulate the economy (forget Bush's stimulus check that is a temporary half assed fix, we need something substantial and long term), to do so we must create jobs for the American worker, Rebuilding American IS the way to Succeed! We must bring the jobs back to America, we must stop WTO, NAFTA, and we must stop the Columbia Free Trade Agreement.
Lets once again tell our children that America is the Land of Milk and Honey, and You can Live Your American Dream., before it is to late.