[0]Efforts by businesses in the Columbia corridor helped keep project on radar screen of local agenciesLike a two-lane blacktop tourniquet, Northeast Columbia Boulevard to Lombard Street impeded the smooth flow of traffic near Portland International Airport. With freight and everyday commuters stuck at choke points, the business community and the city recognized the need to improve Portland's most important east-west arterial for freight traffic.
With the completion of the East Columbia to Lombard Connector - which widened roads, improved access points and created safer pedestrian and bicycle crossing - the city and the Port of Portland say they've solved a nearly 20-year-old transportation problem.
Dan Laden, Portland Office of Transportation project manager for the connector, considers it to be "the most significant" transportation project in the city since the aerial tram.
"In terms of road projects, this is the largest, the most expensive project we've worked on," Laden said.
Faced with a project cost of about $34 million, finding adequate financing for the complicated connector was always a main concern. The project had been pinpointed as early as the late 1980s, but budgetary concerns and a heavy backlog of road projects kept pushing the timetable back. In 1998, the project began inching forward again, Laden said.
Eventually, the city got the bulk of the connector's funding, more than $29 million, from the Oregon Transportation Infrastructure Act, which was established by the Oregon Legislature to support road and bridge maintenance across the state. Another $2 million came from Port funds, while an additional $3 million came from city development funds.
More than $7 million from that total pot of money was spent on right-of-way acquisition, a process in which the city moved seven businesses along the corridor to new locations in order to make room for the widened road.
For the businesses not displaced, keeping the project on the city's radar screen was the main goal.
The Columbia Corridor Association, an early-in-the-pipeline proponent of the connector, argued that congestion along Columbia Boulevard was a major problem for more than a decade. The association lobbies on behalf of the interests of Columbia Corridor businesses and was instrumental in gathering business-owner feedback on the project.
"The old intersection was just inadequate for the amount of traffic going through there," said Corky Collier, executive director of the Columbia Corridor Association.
With his office located on the corridor, and with a traffic-bundled bottleneck acting as a barrier, Collier says he would spend about 20 minutes per trip inching through the corridor's congestion.
The problem was a common one for businesses located along the corridor.
In 2001, Metro received 33 letters - drafted by the Columbia Corridor Association and signed by corridor-housed businesses such as Freightliner and Harsch Investment Properties - in favor of the project. The correspondence and effort of business owners along the corridor helped keep the project on the priority list said Josh Thomas, spokesman for the Port of Portland.
The corridor currently houses 3,000 businesses, 50,000 employees and has an estimated payroll of $1.4 billion, the Port says. At full build-out, the port expects the corridor will have about 90,000 employees. And with business expansion still taking place along the corridor, the city was concerned that the congestion would stall traffic altogether in the near future.
The connector is already having the desired effect in relieving congestion, according to the Port.
"We're starting to see significant improvements to that area," Thomas said.
And the Columbia Corridor Association's Collier, for one, is thankful. Businesses along the corridor depend on reliable routes for shipping and transportation. With a more dependable route, these businesses now expect to save time and money, Collier said.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
By Tyler Graf
© 2008 DJC News
The Daily Journal of Commerce Inc.
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P.O. Box 10127
Portland, Oregon 97296
Phone 503-226-1311 | Web: www.djcoregon.com
Link to the full story here.
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