The Columbian blows it: In Our View: Delta Park Dilemma

The Columbian reminds me of a 6 year-old on the playground sometimes. You know, the cute, spoiled little blond-haired girl, stamping her foot, crossing her arms and hanging on to a ball…

“NO! IT’S MINE!” she screams in phase one of her tantrum.

Like junkies in a drug store, they’re all about the drugs… and in this case, the Columbian's drug of choice is loot rail. Like someone addicted to internet porn, their vision is so focused and wears such huge blinders that they simply cannot admit that they are wrong… so they will continue to hang on to their delusions that loot rail is needed… That loot rail will make any difference… That we can’t get another bridge in a different location… that the people of this county have a far better idea of what’s best than a newspaper wrapped around the unethical axle of taking an ever larger number of public stands that will serve to enrich it individually, instead of the community as a whole.

The people do not WANT loot rail. The people DO want another bridge or two in different locations. Changing the shape of the playing field to reflect their stilted view doesn’t change that.

“Eliminating those solutions on the problem's periphery brings us back to its epicenter: the I-5 bridge.” No, it doesn't.

Casually dismissing what the people of this area actually want is one thing the Columbian excels at. They were wrong in their abortive efforts to cram loot rail down our throats 9 years ago when it was destroyed at the polls… they’re wrong to dismiss any idea that shifts the focus off of downtown Vancouver where they would personally benefit from the expenditure of billions of wasted taxpayer dollars.

It’s a pity. If they’d just cast off their blinders and look around, they actually COULD become a force for good. Instead of deluding themselves into the “we can’t” stupor, they actually could become an engine for positive, community-supported change… not cheerleaders for obsolete thinking and our local version of totalitarian, non-responsive government.



In Our View: Delta Park Dilemma

Thursday, June 16, 2005
Columbian editorial writers

Skeptics who snarl that the infamous Delta Park bottleneck will never be widened are finding it increasingly difficult to hide and grumble in their Believe-It-When-We-See-It tent.

There really is hope on the horizon albeit the distant horizon for relieving the much maligned choke point on Interstate 5 just south of the Columbia River. That's where three lanes constrict into two, and conventional wisdom is that not even the fanciest fix of bridge congestion will work until the Delta Park bottleneck is unclogged. As many as 60,000 daily commuters from Clark County to Portland know exactly what we're talking about.

"There are people who think it's never going to happen," Vancouver Mayor Royce Pollard said earlier this week. "It will happen. Delta Park will be fixed." Perhaps, but Pollard's a politician. Would it help to hear from a transportation expert? Kate Deane of the Oregon Department of Transportation told the Vancouver City Council on Monday: "I know there is skepticism about whether ODOT will really address this problem. But we do have the money ... There is a light at the end of the tunnel."

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