Poll commissioned about I-5 bridge issues
Following up on yesterday's post about the I-5 bridge and the possibility of tolls, the Columbia River Crossing project commissioned the Portland polling firm of Davis, Hibbitts and Midghall to do some polling about bridge options. From this morning's Oregonian:
There's still some room for caution, though:
Big picture, as Adam Davis, the pollster, kind of alludes to in the article, there may be an increasing awareness in Clark County that since Portland has developed a light rail system, it might make sense to connect to it.
There are problems, of course, with light rail, like constuction costs, safety and travel times, but if there was a genuine effort to work on those things, maybe it could fly in Clark County. Maybe. Trust me, the wingnuts in this town will never like it, and they are vocal out of all proportion to their numbers. Some of them will continue to insist that any option other than a Bridge to Nowhere is the only way to go.
The telephone poll of 400 likely voters in Clark County and an equal number in the Portland tri-county area was conducted Nov. 27 through Dec. 4.Generally favorable news. A lot of us have been wondering if attitudes in Clark County have changed in the last eleven years, since the 1995 shellacking of a light rail ballot proposal.
On the light rail question, 74 percent of respondents said they strongly or somewhat favored extending light rail to Vancouver and north into Clark County. In the Portland area, 76 percent of voters favored it, and in Clark County, 68 percent favored it.
There's still some room for caution, though:
The survey found strong support for all the major alternatives: 76 percent favored adding a third lane to I-5; 76 percent favored replacing the existing bridge and adding transit; and 66 percent favored replacing the bridge. But when asked to rank the options according to which was the most appealing, adding lanes topped the list at 35 percent, followed by replacing the bridge and adding transit at 28 percent, and then extending light rail at 19 percent.So adding asphalt is still the most popular idea, and tolls will be a tough sell.
Support for tolling, which has been mentioned as a way to pay for a new bridge, was more mixed. As a general idea, 42 percent of voters supported tolling, but only 36 percent said they would be willing to pay $2 to $3 for a new I-5 bridge. Support rises to 51 percent if the toll is reduced after construction costs are paid off.
Big picture, as Adam Davis, the pollster, kind of alludes to in the article, there may be an increasing awareness in Clark County that since Portland has developed a light rail system, it might make sense to connect to it.
There are problems, of course, with light rail, like constuction costs, safety and travel times, but if there was a genuine effort to work on those things, maybe it could fly in Clark County. Maybe. Trust me, the wingnuts in this town will never like it, and they are vocal out of all proportion to their numbers. Some of them will continue to insist that any option other than a Bridge to Nowhere is the only way to go.
