Sunday, Aug. 31, 2008

Pasco pulls out of Columbia River bridge study

By Joe Chapman, Herald staff writer

PASCO -- If the Tri-Cities needs another bridge over the Columbia River, the community may have to wait until the need is more imminent than it is today to consider where to put one.

That was the message Pasco city leaders recently conveyed when they announced the city will withdraw from its role leading the push to study bridge options.

"Candidly, we felt like the Pasco council was getting beat up for something unnecessarily, unfairly, when there didn't seem to be much consensus on the willingness to look forward on the issue," City Manager Gary Crutchfield said at the city council's meeting Monday.

The city previously had committed $35,000 to a $125,000 study that would lay out costs and feasibility of building a new bridge to alleviate anticipated traffic increases and congestion on the blue bridge over the next 20 years.

But for now, the city's money is off the table, Crutchfield said.

The Benton-Franklin Council of Governments should take responsibility for leading the study process, with the understanding that costs of any study should be split 50/50 between the state and the local jurisdictions, Crutchfield said.

Along with Pasco, the state Department of Transportation, Ben Franklin Transit, Franklin County and Kennewick committed money to do the study. But Richland and Benton County withdrew when a steering committee decided the scope shouldn't include possible bridge locations such as Horn Rapids Road in the north or Dodd Road in the south.

Then last month, Kennewick leaders declined to increase the city's financial support after Pasco's council proposed in June that the study focus on the area from Road 68/Edison Street to the blue bridge.

"The calculus changed when Kennewick said they weren't interested," Pasco Councilman Matt Watkins said.

Kennewick Mayor Jim Beaver said he thought Edison Street was the last place a new bridge should be put. Councilman Paul Parish lamented that the state wasn't playing a bigger role in the study.

The Pasco council also had expressed an interest in the state having more of a hand in the process, but said a study would be the tool to get the state to step up at the time of construction.

Pasco city residents also objected to the city's proposal that the study focus on putting the new bridge between Road 68 and the blue bridge. About 30 residents attended the council's June 2 meeting, some saying they would lose homes along Road 68 if it were developed to handle bridge traffic.

A new bridge over the river has been discussed off and on for the past 30 years, particularly since the Interstate 182 bridge was built linking Pasco and Richland. The council of governments started studying options in 2004.

Gwen Luper, executive director of the council of governments, said it will ask the steering committee to reconsider a bigger scope of putting a bridge anywhere from north Richland to south of the blue bridge.

But she acknowledged pro-gress on the issue depends on support from the jurisdictions.

"With a bigger study, it's going to cost more money, and if the money's not there, there won't be a study," she said.