Project Home

Project Details

I-5 Community

Project Materials

Traffic Cameras

How Does This Project Work?

The planning process for the Columbia River Crossing project is marked by five major milestones:

Identify Range of Alternatives To Be Considered

In defining the full range of alternatives to be studied, the project team will draw on recommendations from a previous related study the I-5 Trade and Transportation Partnership Study - as well as new ideas that were provided by the public and affected agencies during the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) "scoping" process in October 2005. The team will now develop concept-level design components for highway, transit, river crossing, bicycle, and pedestrian facilities. Components designed to improve transportation efficiency, such as approaches for reducing reliance on one-person-per-automobile travel, will also be identified.

All components will be measured against the evaluation criteria (Milestone 1) to select the most effective set of components in each category. For example, transit components might include express bus, bus rapid transit, streetcar, and light rail systems. All of these components will be measured against the evaluation criteria. The best components from each category will then be "packaged" into different alternatives for evaluation. Each alternative will contain highway, transit, river crossing, bicycle, pedestrian, and system efficiency components.

These are the steps leading up to Milestone 2:

	During the second set of NEPA "scoping" meetings in the spring of 2006, the public will be asked to review conceptual components and alternatives developed by the project team, suggest additional alternatives, and consider how well alternatives perform against the evaluation criteria. This step is your primary opportunity to influence the range of alternatives to be considered. (Some alternatives will be dropped at this point.) Check the Event Calendar to find the dates of these meetings and open houses.
	Engineers will develop a wide range of highway, bridge, freight, transit, bicycle, pedestrian, and system efficiency alternative components in keeping with the official "problem definition." Concept drawings and descriptions of these components will be created.
	Scientists will gather more detailed information to measure alternatives against the evaluation criteria.
	Funding experts will gather information about the options for funding construction of the new facilities.

Define the problem and identify criteria for evaluating alternatives Identify the range of alternatives to be considered Identify alternatives to be considered in the draft EIS Identify the preferred alternative Secure federal approval for the preferred alternative

back to top