Know your Metro Council President candidates: CRC and Urban Reserves

Carla Axtman

This year, Washington, Clackamas and Multnomah counties will elect the new president for the regional government entity known as Metro. Metro oversees a number of big ticket items in the region, including some public parks, the zoo, Oregon Convention Center, Portland Center for the Performing Arts, the Portland Expo Center, the regions garbage and recycling services and some regional transportation and land-use issues.

Currently, there are three candidates vying for the position of Metro Council President: Rex Burkholder, Tom Hughes and Bob Stacey. I suspect there will be a vigorous debate among the candidates as the process goes forward. From what I know so far, all three of them are capable and smart.

There are two especially big issues facing Metro right now: Urban and rural reserves and the Columbia River Crossing bridge project. I chose these two to begin the process of understanding these candidates. These are big look issues that I hope will provide insight into their broader vision for the region.

I've asked all three about their positions on these issues, which are posted below. Hughes' are statements sent to me via email. The positions of Stacey and Burkholder are excerpted from interviews.



Columbia River Crossing

Tom Hughes:

I was on the Freight Mobility Task Force and have read the Cost of Congestion study which was prepared for the region by Westside Economic Alliance and I know that it is important to replace the two existing I-5 bridges with a span that has enough capacity for economic growth. Congestion is costing all of us: in lost jobs, in quality of life, in emergency response times that affect our home insurance rates. It’s evident something needs to be done.

As for the bridge. We have to replace the bridges on I-5 in order to reduce the congestion that is created by the worst choke point on the highway from Vancouver, BC to Tijuana, Mexico. I do believe the bridge has to be high enough off of the river to prevent having to raise span every time a sail boat comes by. It is important to accommodate light rail and bike and pedestrian paths. It also has to provide access to the Columbia River Corridor so that that area can reach it's full economic potential. I think it needs to be tolled. I will support any proposal that I become convinced will meet these criteria.

Hughes doesn't have a website yet, unfortunately. His Wikipedia page is here.

Bob Stacey:

We cannot expand heavy capacity until we know what we can afford to manage in terms of greenhouse gases. With the Columbia River Crossing, we're trying to do what we already know doesn't work: build our way out of congestion.

The freeway system in Oregon is six lanes. Columbia River Crossing is twice the capacity that system can take. There will be free movement for a few years on the bridge, but in the end only so many cars can fit on I-5.

We shouldn't throw away what we already have. It will cost half the money to fix the current bridges. We can build a 3rd span that will manage local traffic (for Hayden Island), bicycles and transit.

We can make it less necessary to lift spans by fixing the railroad bridge. We should eliminate the swing span there and create a lift span that lines up with the hump in the I-5 bridge. This will ease the route for freight traffic on the river so that it can line up with the higher part of the bridge.

No matter how we do this, it needs to be a community decision.

More on Stacey's views on the CRC here.

Rex Burkholder:

The task force voted out a good proposal. Build a new bridge with six lanes plus auxillary lanes to make it function. There was never a 12 lane bridge that was voted out. That was part of a draft proposal by engineers. They started big so they could shrink.

A full analysis of the third bridge proposal that some are discussing shows that it doesn't solve the region's transportation problems. I went in to the project representing Metro. I was convinced by listening that the bridges need to be replaced. Add together all the problems with the bridges (no shoulder, drawbridge issues, maintenance costs, etc) and it's more cost effective to build a new bridge.

We need to change how this impacts communities. The freeway at Hayden Island prevents high quality development. It should be high density and mixed use. But the congestion pulls people away.

The one area where we made a mistake was fiscal discipline. At first, we didn't hold fiscal discipline correctly. But we've modeled the biggest impact and then pared it down from there.

The proposal is for a 10-lane bridge. 5 lanes run south on the bridge. 5 lanes run north on the bridge. 3 lanes each way will be through lanes. The others will be add/drop lanes which will also serve as local arterials for Marine Drive, Hayden Island and Vancouver.

By doing this we will have fewer cars traveling and less carbon impact than if we don't do it.

More on Burkholder's views on the CRC here.

Urban and Rural Reserves

Tom Hughes:

Our metro area lost approximately 52,200 jobs in 2008, or about 5 percent of the total jobs in the area, according to newly-released statistics from the
Department of Labor
. I believe that while we consider the long term impacts both of these issues will have in our region, we can’t lose sight of the fact that to remain a thriving region, we must focus on job creation to get back on track. But I also believe that our competitiveness lies in our quality of life. As a gubernatorial appointee to the Green Jobs Council, I believe that Oregon offer companies a unique place to locate that offers urban and rural, culture and environment. The Oregon experience is one we all feel strongly about and sometimes we forget how this “intangibles” are worth money. As the former mayor of Hillsboro, I created jobs that value the environment. We recruited a major company out of the Bay area that was also looking at Dallas, Texas. At the end of the day the best we could do for incentives left us $50 million behind the offer from Dallas and yet they came here anyway. Part of the reason was quality of life. So our commitment to good land use planning was worth $50 million in this case.

As far as urban reserves, I would support the Bragdon version of the map as a reasonable solution. In my last year as mayor of Hillsboro, I initiated an economic forecast that predicted that Hillsboro needed reserves to accommodate 35,000 new jobs for the next 20 years. That would roughly approximate the job growth of about 32,000 jobs that we experienced in the 8 years that I was Mayor so I don't think that it is too outlandish.

For Metro’s sake, I think that it would be a shame if the whole process comes crashing down because Clackamas County wants to further reduce the amount of land in urban reserves. Keep in mind that the Bragdon approach gives us 24,000 acres more or less of urban reserves of which 10,000 acres (most in Washington County) is foundation farm land. The proposal also calls for 224,000 acres of land in rural reserves. That is a guarantee for the next 50 years. Beyond those 224,000 acres are thousands of other acres that will be isolated from the UGB. I'm not sure that anyone can make the "critical mass" argument over the loss of 10,000 acres over the next 50 years nor can it be said that this is just the start of a great erosion of the ag base. The real losers in this, if the process fails to reach consensus will be the farmers who own the 224,000 acres. They now have 50 year assurance that their land won't be considered for urbanization. If the process crashes we go back to the previous method and every 5 years their land is on the block. The other result will be a less than robust job growth over the next 50 years of manufacturing jobs.

Bob Stacey:

We must have sites for industry and manufacturing. Those parcels should be protected for desirable businesses that meet our community's criteria. But we have to preserve foundation farm land. We should be using conflicted land first before we move into foundation farm land.

As we're growing, we need to be asking: is this sustainable? What are the energy costs? Are we heating up the planet? There has to be a community and region-wide dialogue.

Bike use and transit give us the option of living in a way that others can't. When fuel goes up to $4 a gallon again, we'll be glad we made these decisions. We need to stay compact, building town-centers and "20 minute neighborhoods" where we can bike and walk to get what we need. Parks and trails should be a part of every neighborhood.

Rex Burkholder:

When this process began, we didn't anticipate the wide variance in accounting processes and how talking with the local communities would take place. Washington County leadership is strong on development and that type of economy. Cities were asked "how big" can we make this? Clackamas avoided urbanization south of the Clackamas River. Multnomah showed no interest in expanding, and traditionally has left a lot of these kinds of decisions to the City of Portland.

It's been difficult to reconcile these approaches.

Washington County started on the high end of urban reserves in the hope that they'd end up with more. It's like a poker game.

We have a map out for comment that has a bare majority of support by the council. That map is on the high end of the 50 year growth model. The alternative map planned for 40 years, choosing the lower end of the growth model. The problem with setting aside so much for urban reserves: it really messes with farmers. Banks may not invest with farms (like hazelnut farmers for example, who need many years for a crop to reach full potential) if there's potential for the farm to be placed inside the Urban Growth Boundary. When the property values rise, its worth more to the landowners to develop rather than maintain the farm, so that long-term bank loan is suddenly not so good for the bank.

There's also the problem of "undesignated land" on the map. We shouldn't have this. It's too easy to get people looking to make it urban. I don't get lobbyists in my office asking for more rural land. But I get them for development.

A bit more on Burkholder's perspective on urban and rural reserves here.

(For reference, this document (pdf) shows the current proposal for urban and rural reserves, that Hughes referred to as the "Bragdon" approach from current Metro Council President David Bragdon and Metro Councilor Carl Hosticka. An alternative proposal, with about 10,000 acres less in urban reserves, offered by Robert Liberty and Rod Park is here (pdf).)

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    The assertion that the current proposal is for a ten lane CRC is baloney and pure PR spin. It's a MegaBridge that we can't afford.

    The "new" plan is two decks of 88 feet wide each. How many lanes fit in 88 feet, you ask? Road lanes are from 10 to 13 feet wide, generally. Presume one breakdown lane/shoulder of 12 feet, and you've got 76 feet left. That's definitely at least 6 lanes in each direction. The project admits that the only thing making the bridge "ten lanes" is the paint, and that they're able to expand it to 12 lanes in the future JUST BY REPAINTING IT.

    It's still a 12 lane project (or, if push came to shove, possibly a 14 lane bridge).

    I'd also love to see where the math is on this assertion of Burkholder's: Add together all the problems with the bridges (no shoulder, drawbridge issues, maintenance costs, etc) and it's more cost effective to build a new bridge.

    I haven't seen how that adds up to $4,000 million - plus all the delay costs of construction. Does anyone have background on that?

  • Ron Buel (unverified)
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    It's simply dishonest for Rex to say, right here on Blue Oregon, that "by doing this we will have less cars traveling and less carbon impact than if we don't do it," in reference to the CRC.

    The work done by the consultants, for which Rex is the leading spokesperson on the Oregon side, doesn't plan for ANY "induced travel" from building a big new bridge. That is, the traffic modeling done for the big new bridge says that 20 years from now, the traffic across the bridge, and the resulting land-use, will be the same with or without a big, new bridge. Yet,land-use maps show more than 5,000 acres of land near I-5 in Clark County is zoned for housing but un-developed as of today. One need only look at the Glenn Jackson Bridge across the Columbia, built in 1982, to see the fallacy with this thinking. The projected travel across the bridge for 20 and 30 years later had the same kind of land-use modeling, with no induced travel projected, but trips across that bridge are today 50% greater than projected prior to construction. What happened, of course, is that people made decisions to sprawl across East Clark County and Camas and travel across the bridge. This traffic modeling is a fatal flaw under the National Environmental Protection Act, and, if plans proceed with the bridge, lawsuits under NEPA will cause considerable delay and, in the opinion of many, will stop the project altogether.

    This is only one of the many problems with the CRC planning work, for which Rex has been and is the mouthpiece. In the air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions analysis, the consultants said that air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions will be LESS as a result of the project, because cars will be sped up through the bridge impact area, and with higher speeds and less congestion, cars will emit less air pollutants and carbon. This is nothing but a canard. It totally ignores net cumulative congestion impacts in the region from the big, new bridge, impacts that will occur on surrounding highways, on arterials and exits to and from the freeway, and on I-5 itself where it narrows, including where it connects with the Portland Freeway Loop and I-84 at the Rose Garden.
    For Rex to continue to stand behind this planning work, which he does with his false statement on Blue Oregon, demonstrates a quality of mendacity which we don't need in our Metro President. He knows that the City and Metro both asked, when they approved the big 10-to-12 lane bridge as the Locally Preferred Alternative, for the traffic modeling and the carbon impacts to be redone, but that the state highway departments and their consultants have refused to make the corrections because it will undermine the big new bridge. Rex is motivated to get a big new bridge, and tie it to his campaign, because its a good money-raising strategy with developers and the auto-oil-highway construction lobby. He's hanging in there, supporting a huge multi-billion-dollar project even though he knows, by now, that this project can't be financed at the size and scale which he is proposing, that Clark County won't support tolls (which are needed to build the bridge) and that Clark County doesn't want light rail transit enough to pay for it, and won't pass it when it comes up for a required vote under Washington State Law. Rex knows better than to try to greenwash the big, new bridge, but he's doing it anyway. He does not deserve your support.

  • Kurt Chapman (unverified)
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    Some interesting thoughts. The I-5 corridor bottlenecks in Portland. regionally and nationally that will not be allowed to remain a problem. How BEST to route traffic AND meet urban sprawl and monetary concerns will be interesting to watch play out.

    I wouldn't trust any ODOT cost estimates. For example, google I-5 south Medford interchange, ODOT. The cost ballooned over the past 5 years and even today is $20MM over the inflated estimates.

  • Jim (unverified)
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    It is important to emphasize the point about Rex's patently false claim recognized above.

    By doing this we will have fewer cars traveling and less carbon impact than if we don't do it.

    The analysis that came to that conclusion was both faulty and deceptive. Mayor Adams used to quote from it - but no linger do we hear that.

    Excluding the emissions from the induced demand created by the 12 lane capacity is just plain disingenuous in trying to determine comparative impacts between projects.

    But even worse, the study's measurement area extends only from just before the ramps in WA to just after the ramps in OR. By doing this, the analysis multiplies the effect of congestion on the bridge while entirely discounting the congestion guaranteed to be created everywhere else in the system, unless we double that capacity also.

    Lets be clear, Metro and Portland Councils both voted to make their support of the CRC 12 lane recommendation dependent on further CO2 analysis of the Big Bridge.

    Rex knows this. I want a Metro President whose word can be trusted. If Rex comes clean on the bridge, I am ready to consider supporting him.

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    Carla, thanks for posting this info. These are big issues and the election will be important.

  • Kelly (unverified)
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    Thanks!

  • Rudy V. (unverified)
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    Same here Jim. This is a great acid test to have during the election cycle!

  • Doug Allen (unverified)
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    From this post, the takeaway is that there is no policy downside to voting for Bob Stacey. On the upside, he has much broader experience at the local, state, and national level than Rex, and has worked in the non-profit, for-profit, and public sectors with a record of effectiveness.

    Regarding the CRC, Rex's bungling of his representation of Metro on the CRC, and his subsequent unwillingness to fess up, disqualifies him from being elevated to the Metro Presidency. With both Bob and Rex on the Metro Council, at least we would have good voices for farmland protection.

  • Terry Parker (unverified)
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    Balance, equity and financial justice are still missing from the CRC project –all of which have not been part of an open public discussion.

    It appears as if the only cost cutting targeted to reduce the price tag is on the highway portions of the project. At the same time, the only tolling proposals currently being discussed are to charge cars and trucks. The camel’s hump in the middle of the bridge keeps getting bigger and bigger from a group of self-proclaimed social engineers whom continue to want their choice of alternative transport preferences to be paid for by somebody other than the users of those specific modes

    While deadbeat bicyclists are seeking a freeloading joy ride with overly-wide, super-sized, lavish and even extravagantly unnecessary bicycle facilities full of frills that include costly turnouts so the pedal pushers can stop and view Mt. Hood; transit advocates are utilizing their own brand of extortion techniques to control and hijack the process including proposing a form of fraud whereby they expect the state and local funding - including motorist tolling – of the highway portions of the project to become the local match dollars for light rail. The CRC is becoming farther and farther out of balance with frills for the freeloaders trumping the necessary functionality of I-5 and the roadway portions of the crossing.

    To provide balance and equity to the project, cuts must made across the board including to both the bicycle infrastructure and light rail segments of the project. All the unnecessary recreational bicycle trails that have hitched a ride to this project need to be eliminated along with the frills such as the needless viewpoint turnouts. The bicycle infrastructure on the crossing is also excessively wide and needs to be narrowed for an additional cost savings. Likewise, there are undoubtedly some light rail design features and artsy add-ons that can be eliminated.

    Redistribution of wealth is specifically constrained in the US Constitution. The US Constitution is considered the supreme law of the land. Motorists are already paying gas taxes, registration and license fees that pay for roadways, I-5 and this bridge. The reality check is that tolls may be necessary to pay for any new crossing. The surveys on the subject of tolling so far have been extremely one-sided and incomplete. No questions were ever asked to the public about tolling all the users of the crossing so the funding base could be broadened and tolls for motor vehicles could then be kept at a minimum, and therefore be less of a negative impact on local economies.

    To bring financial justice to the project, either there must be no tolls for at all, or an equity stipulation is needed whereby the users of ALL modes of transport must be charged a reasonable fee to cross the bridge. That includes bicyclists and light rail passengers. Moreover, if there are user fees imposed (such as tolling for both motorists and bicyclists, and surcharges on transit fares), then the dollars collected must only apply to help pay for the transport mode from which the money is being collected with any fees or tolling removed once that specific mode portion of the project is paid for. Each mode of transport must pencil out as financially self-sustainable with no cross subsidies whereby the users of one mode of transport subsidize another. Additionally, any motorist paid tolling must not be used to subsidize transit operations.

    This is both a regional and a West Coast travel corridor bridge project that is supposed to better connect together the communities on the two sides of the river, eliminate a bottleneck on a highway system used for interstate and international commerce, and in reality, a part of our national defense system. It is NOT a project specifically to satisfy the social engineers of Portland and their cronies. Therefore, instead of making cuts to the project that are leading to a roadway deficient designed bridge socially engineered by alternative transport advocates; all three candidates need to openly discuss and receive feedback to making cuts to the amount of bicycle infrastructure and the light rail segments of the project instead of just roadway cuts, and all three candidates need to openly discuss and receive feedback on charging fees to all who use the crossing instead of just drivers - then work for all users to design this bridge as the horse it was meant to be, a replacement bridge that is functionally as dependable for highway users as other modes while requiring the financial responsibility to be equitably split between the users of all the modes of transport that will be accommodated on the crossing.

    • (Show?)

      Really clear, balanced arguments, Terry, but what about the issue of encouraging alternate modes of travel in order to address pollution levels? Isn't that a valid reason to charge bicyclists and pedestrians less to use the facility?

  • Jake C. (unverified)
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    Thanks Carla for focusing on this race. I'm relieved to see people actually interested in Metro! Only good can come from this discussion. I've been following closely myself over the past few months and thought I'd add my own two cents.

    The urban reserves and CRC pieces are important, but there's so much more to Metro and this race will have many far reaching effects for the region. I've seen studies that show almost 70% of our state's economy comes from output in Portland and the immediate surrounding areas. What about forests and farms? Job creation? Climate change? These are all equally important issues and should be discussed in context with one another. I think we do voters and all of the candidates a disservice by treating Metro as though it's limited to bridge building.

    Right now I'm personally leaning towards Rex Burkholder, mostly because he's represented my district in Metro for years and is clearly the most knowledgeable. I've interacted with him in the past also because of his work with the Bicycle Transportation Alliance also, but it was only in passing. It seems to me that there are a limitless supply of "plans" out there for individual challenges and areas of the area, but no overarching strategy for the region as a whole. Metro seems to be the governing body in the best position to have a direct impact on the major challenges facing us, and I think Rex's history of solving problems and consistently delivering results expanding transit choices like light rail, bike lanes, and saving open spaces from development puts him in the best position to tackle the important challenges of the future.

    For what it's worth, I found a lot of good info on Rex's website, www.rex4metro.com. Hopefully the media attention on this race will be sustained until the election so that everyone's voices can be heard clearly on election day!

    • (Show?)

      So, do you disagree with Jim's comment about Rex (Jan 10) ?: "Excluding the emissions from the induced demand created by the 12 lane capacity is just plain disingenuous in trying to determine comparative impacts between projects."

  • (Show?)

    Jake, I appreciate your thoughts. Clearly the Metro presidency decision involves more than the MegaBridge and urban reserves.

    However, the MegaBridge is the largest project in the region's history, and Metro's current plan is to spend more than one out of every seven transportation dollars in the region on just the road portion of it - $2982 million. The Coalition for a Livable Future has a great chart to see the scale of it in their Winter newsletter. That's two-and-a-half times as much as ALL the bike, pedestrian, and trail projects in the region, combined.

    Stacey has an impressive record of bringing people together to get things done too. He's worked for all levels of government, in the private sector, and in the nonprofit advocacy world. He coordinated and passed the Measure 49 solution out of Measure 37 - a hugely complex policy challenge.

  • Terry Parker (unverified)
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    When are the bicyclists going to provide more than just lip service to the CRC discussion? Just look at where the money comes from. Obviously not from deadbeat bicyclists who want all this super-sized, overly-wide, mega-bicycle infrastructure that is full of frills on the crossing as long as somebody else pays for it - the funding comes from motorist paid Federal state and local taxes and fees. Transit advocates aren’t much better about self-funding their demands either when they poach motorist paid Federal Highway Trust Fund dollars to build and capitalize transit, and then set fares that cover less then 25 percent of the operating expenses. As I previously posted: this is a redistribution of wealth specifically restrained in the US Constitution – a violation of our liberties. And just for the record, this is not the wealth of the rich, but a taking from working class people. When the freeloading pedal pushers are willing to pay hefty license and registration fees on their bicycles, and agree to tolling the bicycle infrastructure on a new Columbia River Crossing to pay for the bicycle infrastructure components, only then should then should they be listened to. In other words, bicyclists need to pay to play, and not on somebody else’s dollar, or quit the belly aching.

  • rex burkholder (unverified)
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    Thanks to Carla for putting this important, though non-partisan, race on the radar of Blue Oregon readers. Who is the next Metro President will be the most critical choice voters will make in the May election. Almost half of all Oregonians live in the Metro district. Something like 70% of Oregon’s economic output is produced here and the whole state depends on our tax revenues to keep schools open and roads paved.

    While the issues Carla raised in her post about where we grow in the future (urban reserves) and the Columbia River Crossing are important, they are just pieces of a bigger discussion on how this region will prosper and develop. Complicating this discussion are the major changes happening globally: an economic meltdown, globalization and the loss of manufacturing in this country, a tightening petroleum supply, strapped local and state government, climate change legislation and growing income disparity.

    What is the right economic development model for the future? Is it going to be based on continued, low density urban expansion like the last century or will our cities become denser and more compact like European cities? Will local manufacturing (and food production) become more important as rising petroleum prices and competition for commodities make it cheaper to do it at home rather than import?

    Answers to these questions have real implications to people’s lives. For example, the average family spends 50% of their income on housing and transportation combined. Being able to get by with one car rather than two, saves a family almost $700 a month. This is easy in the compact, denser parts of our region but almost impossible elsewhere.

    These and other complicated questions all go into the decisions I face as Metro Councilor this coming year, including how much land to bring into the urban growth boundary, what transportation projects should be funded or which planning projects to fund. One thing that is true is that the world has changed dramatically and so must our strategies if we are to survive.

    In the process of putting together the Climate Prosperity Project I’ve discovered that we lack a comprehensive economic strategy for the region. In fact, it’s worse than that: we have too many strategies--public, private, urban, suburban—all competing for attention and dollars. There has been resistance in the past to Metro being involved in economic development but times are too dire to let petty parochialism trump smart, collaborative efforts to create greater prosperity in our region.

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