NOTE: Paul O. Edgar, a retired Business Systems Analyst, submitted a response to this post. It is reprinted at the conclusion of my post.

————————–

Shades of the U.S.-Mexico border conflict.

Stephen F. Austin, the “father of Texas”, had strong opinions about ” invaders”. In a May 4, 1836 letter, appealing for U.S. assistance during Texas’ war of independence, Austin declared “A war of extermination is raging in Texas — a war of barbarism and of despotic principles waged by the mongrel Spanish-Indian and Negro race, against civilization and the Anglo-American race…. Indians, Mexicans, and renegades, all mixed together, and all the natural enemies of white men and civilization.”

It doesn’t look like Republican Joe Kent, who lost his 2022 race in Washington’s in Washington’s Third Congressional District against Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez and is challenging her again in 2024, likes outsiders much either,, especially folks from Oregon.

In mid-January 2024, Kent proclaimed that a replacement for the deteriorating I-5 bridge and a new light rail line “… would be an expressway for Portland’s crime & homeless into Vancouver…”

“…the drug addicts and criminals in their tent colonies that are spreading their crime from Portland into Vancouver…,” are not welcome in his district, he said.

In a Feb. 29, 2024 news release, Kent repeated that allegation. “What we don’t need – and the people of my district agree on this regardless of party – is a toll road that unfairly targets Washingtonians commuting to Portland, or light rail that there is no demand for and would bring Portland’s crime problem further into Clark County.”

Kent has repeated that point of view on Facebook. ““We don’t want the problems of downtown Portland dumped right into our district in Vancouver,” he said. “If you look at the murder rate, the crime rate, that’s the last thing we want in Vancouver.”

The New York Times says the I-5 dispute “… is an example of how Republicans…are seeking to transform even the most basic of local issues into battlegrounds in the nation’s culture wars in elections this year in which control of Congress is at stake. Mr. Kent’s attacks, which rely on buzzwords of the hard right, place the bridge at the center of a national political discussion that vilifies the left and plays on fears of demographic change.”

So I guess we can expect more of this as the Kent-Perez contest heats up.

Response by Paul O. Edgar

The I-5 bridge and light rail issues are about more than crime. 

The most important issue is whether there is a need to have this very expensive TriMet Light Rail Transit (LRT) line extended into Clark County, with an additional $2 billion added into the I-5 Interstate Bridge Replacement (IBR) plan cost. 

TriMet also wants to also get reimbursed for all operating costs. Currently they are estimated to be $21.6 Million dollars per year. 

TriMet already has a huge under-funded earned health and retirement obligation that the citizens of Clark County Washington would become partners in if the I-5 bridge/Light Rail project goes through. TriMet has been working on trying to deal with those obligations, but the limit on payroll tax revenues and other State of Oregon funds already make TriMet look like a Chapter 11 bankrupt organization. 

Reading its performance reports, TriMet ridership has plunged and costs have been understated.  The West-side Commuter Rail System (WES), for example, appears to be losing $1 million dollars per month and TriMet’s LRT may well be losing $10 million dollars per month. Some of that is because of the increase in virtual offices and public concerns about drug addicts and other troubled people on the system.

All this, plus burdensome bridge tolls, will mean added costs for Clark County commuters, 99% of whom will also not be able get directly to their place of work or back home on a Fixed Rail System without even more added costs. 
The cost of what Clark County residents would be the assuming of the costs associate with extending TriMet Light Rail Transit are to far great.

This is important, and you can read TriMet’s performance reports that less than 1% of the incident of travel generated in the TriMet Service are handled by TriMet. Not enough people will use TriMet Light Rail Transit and it would be very hard for people to justify the ongoing cost, including the toll costs that will go on for ever and ever. 

Maybe the answer for many Clark County residents who now travel to Portland will be to find employment and do their shopping elsewhere.