IKEA opened a big, shiny new store in Portland a couple years ago. It anchors the Cascade Station shopping center that also includes Target, Nordstrom Rack and 
Home Goods among its retail businesses. Cascade Station sits near Portland International Airport, strategically positioned at the south end of the I-205 Glenn Jackson Bridge that connects east Portland with Vancouver, Washington. The shopping destination’s parking lot is filled with autos displaying Washington license plates. The location is strategic because shoppers pay a 8.4% sales tax in Vancouver compared to the Oregon sales tax rate… oh, there is no Oregon sales tax.
Property taxes in Clark County (Vancouver) Washington are lower than Multnomah County (Portland) Oregon. The good-paying jobs, however, are on the Oregon side of the Columbia River, in Portland. Every workday Vancouver commuters clog I-5 and I-205 and their respective bridges across the Columbia. The city of Portland is infested with Washington drivers and their endearing motoring habits.
Vancouverians were vociferous in their opposition to the proposed extension of the MAX (Metropolitan Area Express) light-rail line across the Columbia. They feared the trains would bring, you know, “those people” from Portland into their bucolic city and so voted against paying for it to cross the river. The MAX Yellow Line began service in 2004; its trains run from downtown Portland to the line’s terminus just south of the I-5 Interstate Bridge.
The Interstate Bridge opened in 1917. Its adjacent twin was built in 1958. Neither bridge will survive the inevitable Cascadian Subduction earthquake and tsunami. Each day, 160,000 vehicles cross the Interstate drawbridges; other motorists drive ten miles east to I-205 to avoid the I-5 gridlock. The two-mile section of I-5 north of the bridge is now the most congested highway in the state of Washington.
Planning for a new Columbia River Crossing (CRC) began in 2005. The new span would handle increased auto traffic and include light-rail tracks and bicycle lanes. Washington was having none of it. Eight years later, Washington politicians pulled the plug, stiffing Oregon with most of the $200 million planning costs. Just to show their contrariness, ridership on bus lines serving Vancouver commuters has decreased nineteen percent.
Now they’re sorry and want Oregon to take them back.
Ten thousand people have moved to Vancouver in the past five years and more into surrounding communities. The new mayor, Anne McEnerny-Ogle, wants to re-start talks about reviving the CRC project. “I absolutely understand we screwed them over big time with what happened,” she says. State Senator Annette Cleveland sponsored a bill, which Governor Jay Inslee signed in May 2017, to analyze what of the CRC plans could be revived. Recently the Vancouver City Council unanimously passed a resolution to replace the bridge with one including “high-capacity transit.”
The response from Oregon? Mostly silence mixed with “wait and see” along with “Show us the money.” Meanwhile, Oregon collects income tax from Vancouver residents’ Oregon paychecks and Oregon merchants cheerfully take money from Washington shoppers.
