In a recent segment of The Lars Larson Show, Lars Larson took aim at the skyrocketing costs of the Interstate Bridge Replacement (IBR) project, which has now reached $9 billion. Highlighting concerns about the addition of $2 billion for light rail and the limited capacity for cars and trucks, Larson criticized the project’s priorities. He emphasized that 54% of the bridge’s surface is dedicated to pedestrians, bicycles, and light rail, leaving only 46% for vehicles. The most controversial aspect? Commuters could pay up to $9.40 daily in tolls, adding $2,400 a year to their budgets. Larson didn’t hold back, questioning whether the public will stand for these costs.
Transcript:
Welcome to the Lars Larson Show and welcome to the Radio Northwest Network. We’ve been proud to serve the Pacific Northwest states of Oregon, Washington and Idaho for the past 25 plus years, providing honestly provocative talk on a daily basis. Now, where I want to start is right here in the northwest, the single largest by itself, single largest public works project in the northwest has been the proposed replacement of the Interstate Bridge that joins Oregon and Washington on Interstate 5 over the Columbia River.
And governments have shown themselves absolutely incapable of getting it done. They began the effort to do this about 20 years ago. And now yesterday, we found out a brand new piece of information that the joint Washington State and Oregon Transportation commissions met yesterday. And they said, we’ve got a great idea. We’re building a bridge the public does not approve of.
We’re going to add $2 billion of light rail to it that the public does not approve of. We’re building a bridge that absolutely is required to have Coast Guard approval, and it does not have Coast Guard approval because it’s about 60ft too short. It has problems up the ying yang, including this. The majority of that bridge will not be for cars and trucks.
And you didn’t hear me wrong. 54% of the surface of their proposed bridge. Again, this is why the public doesn’t like this bridge and should not approve it. But 54% of it is dedicated to pedestrians, bicycles and light rail, and only 46% of it is dedicated to the things that actually drive the economy. The trucks that carry freight all over the region, automobiles they carry 95% of commuters to their errands wherever they happen to be going.
Only 46% of it is for cars and trucks. And then you got to love this. You’re building a brand new bridge to replace a pair of bridges that were actually built a long, long time ago. And you say, gee, it’s currently three lanes north and three lanes south. How big should we make the new one? And the answer was three lanes north and three lanes south.
So you’re going to spend on, well, if you believe their current budget figures, $9 billion to build what is really a glorified light rail project with a bridge attached as an afterthought. The bridge is not the primary mission of the people have been planning this nonsense. Light rail is even though light rail isn’t likely to carry any people.
Their brilliant idea that they came to at the joint Commission of both Oregon and Washington yesterday was, let’s start charging tolls on the new bridge before the new bridge is even finished. And if you say tolls, why I have to commute on that bridge every day. Well, sad to tell you this, but their plan is to charge you as much as $9.40 per day to make a round trip across this big new $9 billion light rail project with a bridge attached to it.
That’s what their plan is. And the numbers on this thing have been insane for a long, long time. I mean, the previous bridge, the CRC, the Columbia River Crossing that was supposed to cost about $5 billion. And then last year, the number on the new bridge, the IBR the estimate it had gone to $6.5 billion. And now it sounds as though it’s going to end up at $9 billion.
Now you can blame inflation if you want, but did construction costs really go up 100% in just four years, from $4.8 billion, just short of $5 in 2020 to last December 2023, $6.5 billion and now to $9 billion. That is just short of a doubling in cost. And then to add to that tolls. And if you think the public opposes light rail and opposes this current bridge idea, what do you think they think about tolls?
Just ask anybody in the Puget Sound region whether they’re already charging tolls. If you want to drive in the fast lane and not sit in the moving parking lots of I-5 and I-405, why you got to pay extra cash? You’ve already paid for the road you’re driving on. Now we’re going to pay if you want to use it.
And if you want to be in the lane that’s actually moving, except these bridge tolls, they have four different scenarios, and it goes all the way up to $9.40 for a round trip. Now that works out to about $47 a week, or about $2,400 every year. And remember, those are after tax dollars. So imagine you’re making a paycheck, and you’re going to have to shell out more than $200 a month to use a bridge and a freeway that you’ve already paid for with your auto registration fees in Washington, with your car tabs, with the gasoline and diesel taxes that you pay every time you pull up to the pump.
And you’re going to have to pay nine bucks a day or more. On top of all of that, tell me that’s going to go over well with the public, and then tell me that at least somebody in either Washington or Oregon is going to throw a ballot measure in front of the voters. Can’t happen for this November, but it could happen next November.
And say to the voters, would you like to pay an extra $9 a day to do a round trip across the new fancy bridge? Oh, and by the way, you can start paying the tolls before we’re even finished building the bridge. And the bridge that only four years ago was only going to cost $5 billion is now up to $9 billion by 2025.
This is the insanity that is transportation policy in both Oregon and Washington. And then we could start asking some questions. Why don’t we just build an ordinary bridge across that river? Why don’t we just fund it and we don’t have to go to the federal government? Why don’t we just pitch the $2 billion that goes for the light rail, part of that at $1 billion per mile, or actually a little bit more than $1 billion a mile, it will be the single most expensive light rail project anywhere on planet Earth.
No exaggeration. That’s how crazy this is. Put that in front of the voters and see what kind of message they send back. I kind of figure it’s going to be a big, fat middle finger. Chris. Chris, welcome to the program. Thanks for listening on the Radio Northwest Network. What’s on your mind today? Hi, Lars, this is Chris. About three years ago, I saw them starting to put in these fancy stop places along the way, and I thought, oh, my goodness, what if they’re going to put the train in because they don’t need all those fancy things with lights and whistles and those.
And so I looked up Patty Murray. She works. She’s the one that got us the money for the bridge. But the way that she wrote it was that they were going to make a connection north of, I-5 and to I-5, and that’s not happening. But when I drove this morning, they had painted on Fourth Plain, just the, stop, stop, stop, stop stripes.
That’s green. And they’re redoing the train. They’re doing redoing the streets. So that they are the right level for the train. And so they’ve already made those decisions and it’s obvious what they’re doing. But I don’t know how to stop it. What do we do? All the way to stop it is there’s got to be public pushback against every politician, a Democrat or a Republican, to say this decision has not been made.
And Chris, the best indicator that this bridge, I call it a failed bridge proposal. And they said, let’s not failed. We’re already still making plans. Well, there’s one government agency that is absolutely required to approve the bridge design, and that’s the Coast Guard. The Coast Guard currently says that bridge is 60ft too short, because it has to allow river traffic to pass under it without an opening drawbridge, and it’s 60ft too short.
So far, the Coast Guard has not approved that bridge project. Now, maybe they think they’re going to get some kind of political fix before Joe Biden leaves office. But right now, the one agency that can say no and so far has not said yes is the Coast Guard. And I think and not not to mention the fact that they don’t have the money to build it.
I mean, Oregon doesn’t have the money. Oregon is saying it will put $1 billion into this, but they’re not speaking about it. Yes. If they put the train on that bridge, then you’re going to have to reroute all that traffic that’s going up and down I-5 right now, another way. And that’s absolutely just going to cloud the city up well and it will.
And imagine this. If they say they’re going to start putting tolls on that bridge, but they don’t put tolls on the 205 bridge, I guess where a lot of the traffic is going to divert too. So what you’ll do is because anybody who doesn’t have an extra couple of hundred dollars a month to pay the bridge tolls, now, I’ve given you the high number.
Their high number is $9.40 at the high end. The low end is around $4 a day. But imagine telling the average worker you’re going to have to shell out. You know that much money? 22 workdays times even four bucks is another $90 a month. And that’s after taxes. Imagine having to pay that money just to drive on a road that you’ve already paid for, and all that traffic is going to shift to 205, and then they’ll come back and say, now we’ve got a toll
I-205 now doesn’t make any sense. The public will reject it. Thanks for the call. You’re listening…
