Historically it’s been WA that shoots down Interstate Bridge replacements (Check out the history of this bridge, various Washington State governments have torpedoed OR-WA upgrade partnerships like a dozen times throughout history, they even backed out of the original construction and left the city of Portland to step in and cover costs, imagine if the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey was exclusively funded by New York), but this time around it will probably be ODOT that fucks it up by insisting against all local opposition and traffic wisdom that the bridge work be arbitrarily packaged with an expansion of I-5 for miles south of the bridge. This proposed extra work has balloned the expected ODOT budget to the point where taxes have to go up, triggering a tax revolt by Republicans down in the state capitol. But it’s not just rural Republicans who don’t like it, urban Democrats don’t want more highway lanes polluting their neighborhoods. The upgrade won’t happen because ODOTs singlular need to build more highway lanes undermines it all.
Historically it’s been WA that shoots down Interstate Bridge replacements (Check out the history of this bridge, various Washington State governments have torpedoed OR-WA upgrade partnerships like a dozen times throughout history, they even backed out of the original construction and left the city of Portland to step in and cover costs, imagine if the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey was exclusively funded by New York), but this time around it will probably be ODOT that fucks it up by insisting against all local opposition and traffic wisdom that the bridge work be arbitrarily packaged with an expansion of I-5 for miles south of the bridge. This proposed extra work has balloned the expected ODOT budget to the point where taxes have to go up, triggering a tax revolt by Republicans down in the state capitol. But it’s not just rural Republicans who don’t like it, urban Democrats don’t want more highway lanes polluting their neighborhoods. The upgrade won’t happen because ODOTs singlular need to build more highway lanes undermines it all.