State Senator's Solution to CRC Toll Deadbeats? Boot 'Em

Last week, an email State Sen. Lee Beyer (D-Springfield) sent to Washington State Sen. Ann Rivers (R-La Center) made headlines, because Beyer, the chairman of the Senate's Business and Transportation Committee and the co-chairman of the interim Columbia River Crossing oversight committee told Rivers in a Jan. 17 email  "my guess is the bridge issue is dead in our state for the next decade or two."

That email, first reported by The Columbian, was a bombshell. It came on the heels of a Jan. 14 interim legilsative hearing on the proposed $2.8 billion Oregon-only version of the bridge project. At that hearing, Oregon Department of Transportation officials and consultants attempted to answer many outstanding questions about the project.

Chief among those questions is how Oregon would collect tolls from Washington drivers, who make up two-thirds of the traffic over the I-5 bridge. ODOT earlier admitted there's currently no legal mechanism for Oregon to collect unpaid tolls from Washington drivers. That's a potentially fatal challenge to the project, because tolling revenues account for more than $1 billion of the CRC's cost.

What has not yet been reported is the second half of Beyer's email (emphasis added).

WWeek 2015