Quote:
Originally Posted by tworivers
I am diametrically opposed to a new I-5 bridge with extra lanes (even if the claim is that the extra lanes are for local traffic) for two reasons: one, it will worsen the bottleneck that already exists around the 405 interchange and the Rose Quarter, which will increase pollution for local residents and increase pressure to widen the highway further south.
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Before I start, I just need to state that I don't mean to pick on you personally
tworivers. But your sentiment here about the "bottleneck" at the Rose Garden on I-5 has been mentioned before by other folks, and it just causes me to shake my head in amazement and disbelief.
Yes, there is a bottleneck at the Rose Garden. On my trip to Portland this August I got caught in it a couple of times in the afternoon where things just grind to a halt and/or merging is a nightmare. But...
It's a bottleneck because the freeway is only two lanes wide there! Any fewer lanes and all you would have is a Burgerville drive-through! This is a major interstate freeway through a large city we are talking about here, not a rural state highway outside of Mayberry. Of course a two lane freeway is going to be bottlenecked in the middle of town, especially with three seperate interstate freeways merging and splitting apart all within a half mile of each other.
Yeah, there's a sporadic merge lane off to the side that either leads to the Banfield southbound or MLK northbound, but the core travel lanes are reduced to the bare minimum of two lanes. And the funniest part is that if you drive I-5 from Seattle to San Diego the freeway widens as it passes through cities. Only in central Portland does it
narrow to two lanes as if it was still 1958 and ODOT was on a tight budget.
Keep going south on I-5 for 750 miles and when it arrives in my corner of the world in Orange County it widens to
12 LANES; Four lanes of regular traffic, one lane of HOV, and one dedicated merge lane in each direction. When the I-5 passes by Disneyland it widens to
14 lanes and there are dedicated multi-lane flyover ramps that lead directly into the Disneyland parking structure. Disneyland has over 20 Million people visit per year, so Disney, CalTrans, and the Orange County Transit Authority all worked together to create a massive and incredibly efficient freeway system to smooth entry and exit to the park's 10,000 space parking garage. It's reduced pollution and saved countless dollars in efficiency and fuel. When the I-5 merges with the I-405 south of me in Irvine it has
16 LANES of travel as the two large freeways meet and merge together, with dedicated flyover ramps for trucks and HOV lanes.
From 4 lanes past Portland's Rose Garden area, to 14 lanes past Disneyland. What else were people expecting out of these four lanes in Portland but choking, sputtering traffic?
Now I know that the paragraphs above have sent some native Portlanders who bike to work in ice storms into fits of convulsion and horror, and I appreciate those of you who struggled through them, but I think that should serve as a valid point of reference for what Portland is dealing with here by hosting 30 miles of Interstate 5 through town.
The I-5 bridge over the Columbia needs to be replaced since it is 50 to 90 years old. It needs to be widened to handle the additional traffic no one foresaw in 1917 and 1958 when the bridges were built. Cars and trucks aren't going away anytime in the next 50 years. They will be cleaner and leaner and easier to own in the decades ahead, but they aren't going away. Widen and modernize the Columbia river freeway bridge. Add in lanes for transit and bikes and accomodations for rail. Make it safer in earthquakes. Make it prettier. Because it will still be used by millions of privately owned vehicles 50 years from now.
And once the new Columbia crossing is funded and underway, then Portland needs to do something about the two lane freeway that barely classifies as a freeway through the center of town. I realize the 12 lane average in Orange County, where traffic flows remarkably freely and easily in a county of 3.5 Million, isn't going to happen in greener-than-thou Portland. But do you think that just maybe PDX could think about widening the eastside I-5 to 8 lanes of traffic instead of 4? Three lanes of regular traffic and one HOV lane in each direction perhaps?
It just kills me that people comment about a "bottleneck" when Interstate 5 is reduced to just two lanes!
A freeway bottleneck with two lanes?! Why, you don't say!