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: citycouncil@cityofsalem.net
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:
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?
You can testify during the public comment period (3 minutes maximum).
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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.
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!
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!”
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.
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.