WA: Camas City Council officially opposes light rail on new I-5 Bridge despite warnings changes could delay project

Camas city officials remain unified in their opposition to light rail on the planned Interstate 5 replacement bridge.

The Camas City Council on Feb. 3 voted unanimously in favor of a resolution opposing the extension of TriMet's light rail trains from North Portland across a new I-5 Bridge into downtown Vancouver.

The decision came less than two hours after leaders of the Interstate Bridge Replacement Program told Camas officials that eliminating light rail at this stage would seriously delay the project's timeline and expected 2035 opening — and even jeopardize the whole project.

"If we say, 'No, we're going to wipe away light rail,' after we moved the program forward on the basis of this locally preferred alternative, all of that work would have to be redone," Greg Johnson, head of the bridge project, told Camas city councilors during a Feb. 3 workshop. "This took 2, 2 1/2 years to get to this. I'm not saying it would take another 2 1/2 years, but it would take significant time to get to another ... locally preferred alternative that didn't include light rail."

The I-5 replacement bridge is slated to include C-Tran express service, buses running in the shoulder lanes during peak commuting hours, as well as light rail.

The bridge replacement is expected to cost about $6 billion. The project has $2.1 billion in dedicated federal mega-grant funding that is tied to the inclusion of multimodal forms of transit, including light rail, Johnson said. He told Camas officials last week that tweaking the locally preferred bridge-replacement plan approved in 2022 by stakeholders on both sides of the river would only escalate construction costs.

"Every day we miss here ... adds up to $1 million in escalation and inflation costs," Johnson said. "Time is not our friend on a project like this. These delays cause us to take dollars that could be spent on improvements and put them toward inflation and escalation."

Survey shows support

Bridge project leaders also noted that residents in Washington and Oregon have shown support for adding light rail to the replacement bridge.

"We did a statistically accurate poll that was specific to transit and there was support on both sides of the river for light rail," Frank Green, an assistant program administrator for the bridge project, told Camas officials last week. "There was strong support among residents in the entire region and solid, majority support throughout Clark County for the inclusion of light rail on the replacement bridge."

Green said a 2022 survey of residents in Southwest Washington and the Portland metro area showed 79 percent "strongly or somewhat" supported light rail on a future bridge. That support was strongest among Portland respondents, with 90 percent in favor of the light rail extension, but also captured the majority of respondents from the Washington side of the Columbia River, where light rail had 69 percent support in the city of Vancouver and 61 percent in Clark County.

According to Green, the survey also showed the light rail extension over the future bridge had 57 percent support among residents in Clark County, even excluding Vancouver residents' responses.

Camas still says 'no'

Camas City Council members came out against light rail in January, after hearing new estimates that it will cost $2 billion to extend TriMet's light rail line into downtown Vancouver and around $20 million a year to operate and maintain.

Camas Councilman Tim Hein, who represents Camas on the board of directors for C-Tran, Clark County's public transit agency, rallied other Camas City Council members in January when he called for the city to pass a statement formally opposing the inclusion of light rail on the new bridge.

"I don't think there's any concern with having a new bridge," Hein said during the council's Feb. 3 workshop. "The question is a bridge with light rail at a cost of $2 billion and significant (operations and maintenance) costs, which we are indirectly supporting ... with limited benefit."

Although leaders of other small cities in Clark County who serve on C-Tran's board also have raised concerns about light rail's cost, they said they don't want to risk the entire project.

"We know we cannot accommodate future traffic modes in this corridor with just freeway (lanes)," Johnson said. "The funding that came from each state — their expectation is that there will be light rail."

Johnson tried to assure Camas officials last week that the inclusion of light rail on the future bridge was not taken lightly by anyone involved in planning the replacement bridge.

"This was a very thoroughly discussed issue amongst partners. ... We had a bistate legislative committee who nodded their heads to that locally preferred alternative," Johnson said. "This is not just a fever dream (concocted) in a smoke-filled back room."

In the end, however, his presentation did little to sway Camas officials' anti-light rail opinions. The council voted unanimously to approve the anti-light rail resolution championed by Hein, formally stating that the addition of light rail on the replacement I-5 Bridge would be "too burdensome" to the city of Camas and its residents, would provide "little to no benefit" to Camas and should not be included on a new bridge.

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