Intersection plan too costly, too focused on rail
Here's another way to solve long struggle to improve Oregon/Industrial way junction
It’s time to say WHOA! to IWOW.
There’s little doubt that the intersection of IndustrialWay/Oregon Way — known by highway planners as IWOW — needs a major revamp. But it’s time to scuttle the expensive and off-target plan proposed by the Washington State Department of Transportation.
Planners should forget about lifting the entire intersection above the railroad tracks and focus more sharply on moving vehicular traffic.
This is a sorry tale that has seen the cost of the project zoom to $230 million — nearly three times the original estimate when the Legislature first funded it for $85 million in 2015.
Yes, that’s nearly a quarter of a billion dollars for an interchange project. The effort has become a cat chasing its tail: a series of delays, rising costs, further delays and further rising costs. This project has been talked about for two decades or more.
The state has designated about $100 million for the project. Applications for Federal Railroad Administration grants are pending, but even if they get approved this spring, the project still would be $90 million short. So there’s no telling when work actually will start — or how much more it will cost.
The intersection is one of the state’s busiest vehicular freight corridors, and it’s going to get busier. Peak-time travel is forecast to increase 33 percent — to 4,000 vehicles an hour — within 20 years, according to WSDOT.
This community cannot afford major bottlenecks at the center of its industrial heart, especially if new businesses or other developments are sited at Barlow Point and the old Reynolds Metals Co. plant.
WSDOT’s plan is essentially to raise the entire intersection above the railroad track, with extra provision to make it faster for trucks to turn into the port industrial area. Vehicles headed in any other direction would continue to wait at traffic signals — as they do now. They’ll just do so on a road elevated above the railroad tracks.
WSDOT says its plan over 20 years would save $76.7 million in time savings (24 million hours) for vehicles; $6.2 million in fuel savings; and $7 million in reduced accidents. These benefits — $90 million — are far less than the cost of the project, not counting the (not estimated) benefits from nearly 1,100 construction jobs.
Emphasis on rail is misplaced
A key driver of the state’s proposal had been the perception that the intersection will see a major increase in daily railroad traffic, from two currently to 40. With WSDOT now projecting an increase to only four trains a day, there is no longer a compelling need for rail to drive this project — especially at this price tag. Vehicular traffic — not trains — is the cause of congestion there now and will be in the future.
Increases in rail traffic could be mitigated by restricting train lengths and prohibiting commute-time train passage.
Full grade separation could, of course, make rail service more appealing west of the intersection. Nevertheless, how much traffic can that single track, which appears to be in marginal condition, accommodate anyway? How far off is any west-end industrial development that might need rail service? And what about the bottleneck at the single-track railroad bridge over the Cowlitz River, which will be clogged even further as the Port of Longview develops is internal rail system and finds a client to occupy the old Continental Grain terminal?
Here’s another idea
Here’s a simpler and, I believe, less expensive alternative to WSDOT’s plan. It has two components (see graphic below):
One, build a single overpass to carry Oregon Way over Industrial Way to and from the Lewis and Clark Bridge. Industrial Way and the BNSF track could remain at grade and run beneath the new overpass. This eliminates all traffic signals for north/south vehicles on Oregon Way, flushing a major portion of the traffic through that area without any stops at all.
Here’s my idea for the IWOW intersection: A overpass above Industrial Way and two left hand turn lanes on Industrial Way. Oregon Way through traffic moves north/south without interruption. Note that this drawing is conceptual and not to scale. Thanks to my former newspaper colleague Sandra Putaanssuu for drafting it.
A project that does not grade-separate Industrial and Oregon ways is not worth the effort. WSDOT’s proposal does not.
Two: Movement between the two grade-separated roads and the port area could be achieved with off- and on-ramps in each quadrant of the intersection, plus two left turn lanes with signals on Industrial Way. The train track could continue to cut across Industrial Way and two of the ramps. But at least Oregon Way traffic could flow unimpeded above passing trains — an important consideration for emergency vehicles.
Trucks bound for the Port of Longview and Weyerhaeuser Co. log yard need not make turns at the IOWA intersection and already can use International Way to access the Port and Weyerhaeuser Gate 4 off Industrial Way west of the intersection.
I have no idea what my proposal would cost. Surely, it has to be less than WSDOT’s $230 million plan, which requires a heck of a lot more concrete, pile driving and earth movement.
I know what you’re thinking: All we need is another design study. This project already has shown how dysfunctional government can be. IWOW has become as fraught as the Interstate Bridge project.
But to make the new intersection better and more affordable, we must send the highway planners back to the drawing board once more.
Complicated project. Great ideas.
It needs done! There is no perfect plan, WDOT's is good, I've felt for a long time it's a good idea. I think of Vancouver lifting all the streets to the port above the railroad long ago, it made that situation so much better. This project and the I-5 bridge project are horribly over budget because no one will make a decision and stick with it. Time is money!