Salem City Council to vote on tolling a 3rd Bridge (and likely existing bridges)

Are you ready and willing to pay a $1.50 toll each way to cross the Willamette River between West Salem and the downtown area? I'm sure not. But the Salem City Council is going to vote on this at their meeting on Monday, February 13, 6:oo pm, at City Hall.

I'm urging citizens to tell Mayor Bennett and the seven city councilors (one seat is vacant) that, in short, NO WAY DO I WANT TO PAY A TOLL TO CROSS THE RIVER.

You can email them: [email protected]
You can testify during the public comment period (3 minutes maximum).

Here's info posted by the No 3rd Bridge folks about what's happening at the February 13 City Council meeting. First, a description of the event, "City Council Deliberation on DLCD Intergovernmental Agreement."

At the Salem City Council meeting on Monday, February 13th, the City Council will deliberate on an Intergovernmental Agreement with the Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development that would advance the 3rd Bridge project (Salem River Crossing). The agreement addresses the scope and timeline of the project and project funding (including tolls) among other issues.

Here's a No 3rd Bridge post, "Agreement with DLCD will call for tolling the 3rd Bridge," that focuses on tolling. 

Maybe the most interesting element of the Memorandum of Understanding signed last Friday between the City of Salem and the Department of Land Conservation and Development is pictured below.


It states that the funding strategy for the 3rd Bridge will include a "congestion pricing model" as part of the funding strategy. We believe that can only mean one thing. A toll on the 3rd Bridge.

The passage goes on to state that congestion pricing need not be applied to the existing bridges. This is peculiar because, as everyone knows, you can't just toll the 3rd Bridge and not toll the Marion and Center Street bridges. No one will use the 3rd Bridge if the other two bridges are free.

There are other methods of "congestion pricing" such as major cities like London use, involving charges to enter the central city, but that can't be what is referred to in the MOU. It must be referring to tolling the 3rd Bridge.

Of course the Funding Strategy Memo adopted by the Salem River Crossing Oversight Team already includes tolling on all three bridges (new and existing). So in a way this is nothing new.

However, the Salem City Council has never been asked to formally agree to tolling.

When the Intergovernmental Agreement is placed before them that formalizes the MOU, they will be asked to say "yes" to tolls, at least on the 3rd Bridge, and practically speaking, on all the bridges. Will that be a step they are willing to take?

Good question.

Politically, seemingly it would be unwise for Mayor Bennett or any of the city councilors to vote for tolling, Few people in Salem are eager to fork out $1.50 every time they go back and forth between West Salem and the downtown area, especially since the existing bridges are bought and paid for.

But as the No 3rd Bridge post correctly points out, it is virtually unthinkable that only a new bridge (which I like to call the Billion Dollar Boondoggle) would be tolled. If this happened, most drivers would use the existing bridges rather than the new bridge, which would make the 3rd Bridge even more of a boondoggle, being an unused boondoggle. 

Or the 3rd Bridge would become a well-to-do person's way to cross the river, similar to how some freeways in southern California have been built that require tolls.

Recently I visited my daughter, who now lives in Orange County. We were zipping along on a freeway, and I remarked how uncrowded it was. "That's because it has a toll," my daughter said. Soon I could see I-405, which roughly paralleled the toll freeway, crowded with vehicles driven by people who didn't want to pay a toll (I recall the price was $7, or something like that).

Is this what we want in Salem? Either pay $1.50 each way to use all three vehicular bridges, or just pay to use the 3rd Bridge, which soon would become known as the Rich Person's Bridge? 

Another No 3rd Bridge post, "Three good reasons why the City Council should reject the Intergovernmental Agreement with DLCD," says:

On February 13th the City Council will be asked to approve an Intergovernmental Agreement negotiated with the Oregon Land Conservation and Development Department concerning the 3rd Bridge (aka Salem River Crossing). It will be based on a Memorandum of Understanding that has already been signed by the City Manager.

 

Here are three reasons the City Council should reject the IGA.

1) The IGA advances the Salem River Crossing Project that has already wasted nearly $8 million for a project that has no viable funding plan. Millions more will be wasted if the decade long zombie project continues.

2) The IGA reduces the size of the 3rd Bridge to two lanes in the first phase of construction. A two lane bridge from Pine Street to Hope Street would still cost hundreds of millions of dollars and would do nothing to address peak hour traffic congestion at the existing bridgeheads which is the stated purpose of the Salem River Crossing project.

3) The IGA calls for "congestion pricing" of the 3rd Bridge which is a euphemism for tolls. The last thing Salem needs is an urban toll bridge which would be the only urban toll bridge in Oregon. Mayor Bennett has stated that he is opposed to tolls as a method to fund the 3rd Bridge, so why would he ever vote for the IGA?

There are other reasons why the IGA should be rejected, but these three seem sufficient, don't you think?

 

Yes, indeed, I do think. 

 

It will be interesting to see how the City Council vote turns out on February 13. The four progressive councilors -- Tom Andersen, Cara Kaser, Sally Cook, Matt Ausec -- all appear to be opposed to the 3rd Bridge. So it would make sense for them to vote against approval of the Intergovernmental Agreement that includes a tolling provision, as approval would advance the 3rd Bridge. 

 

If all four vote against the agreement, it won't be approved.

 

With one seat vacant on the nine-member City Council, it takes five votes to pass a motion, just as it would if all of the seats were filled. So one of the progressive councilors would have to join with Mayor Bennett and councilors McCoid, Nanke, and Lewis on saying "Aye" to the agreement, which is how I expect those four to vote.

 

I doubt a progressive councilor will suddenly decide to support the 3rd Bridge. So my bet is that the Intergovernmental Agreement with DLCD won't be approved.

 

This would be a big blow to the 3rd Bridge. Before the Salem City Manager, Steve Powers, signed the Memorandum of Understanding, the Department of Land Conservation and Development had signed on to a lawsuit opposing the City of Salem's expansion of its urban growth boundary to accommodate the 3rd Bridge. 

 

The agreement apparently was a deal worked out behind closed doors to get DLCD out of the lawsuit, which was filed by local bridge opponents with the Land Use Board of Appeals. 

 

Seemingly the likelihood of DLCD rejoining the appeal against the urban growth expansion would be pretty high if the Intergovernmental Agreement isn't approved by the City Council on February 13. 

 

[Update: OK, scratch that idea. A No 3rd Bridge commenter on this post said it is too late for DLCD to rejoin the LUBA appeal.]

 

Which is another reason citizens need to contact the City Council and urge a NO vote. Like I said before:

 

You can email them: [email protected]
You can testify during the public comment period (3 minutes maximum). 

Comments

[Jim Scheppke]

Unfortunately, the DLCD cannot rejoin the LUBA appeal. Too late for that. But when the DLCD Commission (confusingly known as the LCDC) finds out that the Salem City Council has failed to approve their mediated settlement, there could be repercussions. ODOT and the other regional partners in the Salem River Crossing Project may realize that the project is in trouble. It may not be worth millions more to try to complete the Environmental Impact Statement. These are discretionary regional transportation dollars that could be put to better use in the region. The Federal Highway Administration, that ultimately has to approve the EIS, may also realize that this is not a project that the community and its elected officials are solidly behind. It might be prove to be a nail in the coffin.

[Breakfast on Bikes]

Re: "the DLCD cannot rejoin the LUBA appeal"

So are you sure then that opposing the IGA is the best strategy? Locking in an unpopular congestion pricing model might actually be a surer path to hindering or defeating the bridge than hoping that cancelling the IGA won't embolden the SRC team simply to revert to full speed ahead and business as usual.

Taking away a real brake on the project and hoping that "there could be repercussions" doesn't actually sound like anything very powerful or certain.

Rallying behind cancelling the IGA looks increasing self-defeating!

[salemander]

Breakfast on Bikes raises a good point. Up until now the backers of the 3rd bridge have been intentionally fuzzy on the funding sources for the new bridge. I can't think of a better way to get most of the people in Salem against this proposal than to get it out in the open that building a 3rd bridge will entail a $1.50 charge each way on every bridge all the time.

I don't think 75% of the city population will want to pay a toll to pop over and visit relatives in the evening or to stop by Wallery's for dinner or travel to the beach on the weekend (traffic congestion is non-existent on bridge traffic i would guess 80% of the time) just so that people that chose to live in the west part of town don't have to deal with the 15-30 minutes of rush hour traffic delays that have already previously existed there for the past 40 years.

Then there is always the regressive nature of the set per-vehicle cost of crossing. That toll each way is a much bigger financial hit for, say, a housekeeper making min wage going over to west Salem to go to work than it is for a doctor who lives in W Salem going to work at the hospital. Do we really want a city where people have to stop and consider if they can afford to even step foot in certain parts?

Maybe the IGA should be supported, and moreover the "congestion pricing" should recoup the millions in funds already spent (wasted) on bridge development and even be increased so that we can pay off the bridge even faster! I'm thinking like $5-$10 toll per vehicle per crossing. Hell lets just make it $20 and throw in a complimentary rock to toss out your window on the way over the 3rd bridge to play "try and smash the blue heron egg in the nest below!"

[Jim Scheppke]

The IGA advances the 3rd Bridge. Four councilors ran and were elected on a platform in opposition to the 3rd Bridge. Therefore, to keep their campaign promises they need to reject the IGA on principle. To play political games with this would be unprincipled and may have unintended consequences, IMHO. In March I believe voters in Ward 6 will elect Chris Hoy to the vacant seat in their ward. Chris is running opposed to the 3rd Bridge. So after March 14th there will likely be a majority of Councilors who ran promising to pull the plug on the 3rd Bridge. They will have the power to do just that.

[Not Even Wrong]

Is there a timeline driving the decision to put this to a city council vote now? Especially given the apparent 4/4 split between councillors committed and opposed to the SRC?

If this isn't required, it seems an odd time to put this on the agenda unless the game is to defeat it through deadlock and, as BoB put it, full speed ahead.