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Mayor remains upbeat about bypass despite setback |
By David Sale,
Newberg Graphic reporter
E-mail David at
dsale@eaglenewspapers.com
|
Despite Friday’s
announcement that Macquarie Infrastructure Group was abandoning the
Newberg-Dundee bypass project, Newberg Mayor Bob Andrews said he was
committed to seeing the bypass built.
“This is not the end of the project,” he said. “By eliminating the
private company managing the road — and their profit margin — we may
lower costs by $100 million to $200 million.”
Andrews based
his statement on the Bear Sterns audit of Macquarie’s “Milestone
One” feasibility study, the release of which was delayed two months
while Macquarie employees and members of the Oregon Department of
Transportation discussed its implications.
“That report presented a variety of options related to the bypass,
but unfortunately for everyone, did not reveal an apparent solution
to the congestion in the area that was commercially viable and
acceptable to the public,” wrote Bruce Tindall, deputy director of
ODOT’s highway division, in a May 21 letter to Macquarie project
director Nick Hann. “If there is no solution to finance the project
as it is currently defined, we are left with rethinking the project
in total.”
The Bear Sterns audit agreed with Macquarie’s initial verdict that
tolling Highway 99W would be needed to fund the project as designed
— and that by doing so, the project could be entirely funded by the
state through debt service, without the need for partnership with a
private equity group such as Macquarie.
“Revenues required to support the (public toll road) are
approximately 32 percent lower than the target revenues for the
(Milestone One) plan. In addition, over the 50-year concession
period, approximately $1.3 billion of future operating income would
accrue to the state as owner of the project,” the report stated.
But in Hann’s opinion, such a result was purely hypothetical: “Our
analysis looked at tolling through traffic, because we don’t believe
it’s feasible to toll local residents. Their analysis was based on
tolling everyone in the corridor — it didn’t address the
practicality, legal or political, in that view. The debate over that
was part of the reason for the delay of the report.”
Another issue of debate was the idea of a local toll exemption. As
Bear Sterns noted in its report: “The idea of exempting certain
users from paying by place of residence ... has not been determined
to be clearly permitted under state and federal law in the few
places where it has been considered.”
The report further advised ODOT “not to proceed to negotiate
concession terms under the assumption that a local residence
exemption would survive a legal challenge within the state of
Oregon.”
“There was the risk of a constitutional challenge,” Hann admitted,
“but even if we couldn’t grant an outright exemption, we could have
allowed local residents to buy passes for some nominal sum, say $50
per year.”
The Bear Sterns audit also took issue with Macquarie’s preference
for “through tolling,” or charging traffic that traveled the length
of the bypass from a single toll booth located at its midpoint, with
a free or reduced rate for trips that began or ended in Newberg or
Dundee.
By contrast, Bear Sterns argued that it would be necessary to place
tollbooths at both ends of the bypass, so that traffic entering the
bypass from any interchanges between Rex Hill and Dundee would pay a
toll upon exiting.
Despite the problems the Bear Sterns report found in Macquarie’s
analysis, the audit does offer hope that a scaled-down version of
the bypass project would be feasible.
“Phasing the project to initially provide for a bypass around the
communities of Newberg and Dundee and providing a limited access
alternative to 99W as a second phase might permit the project to
proceed without tolling the existing roadway ...,” the report
concluded. “Completing only the bypass from Rex Hill to just south
of Dundee is potentially financially feasible when only the bypass
is tolled.”
“There are a variety of options within the design environmental
impact statement to lower our costs,” Andrews commented. “The number
of lanes and the number and type of access points play a major role
in determining the total budget.”
With a limited number of interchanges, encouraging traffic onto the
bypass becomes even more critical. The Bear Sterns report advised,
and Andrews seconded, the use of traffic calming measures such as
lowering speed limits and increasing the length of red lights
throughout Newberg.
“Forty-five percent of the traffic on 99W is pass-through,” Andrews
said. “Those are the drivers we want to divert onto the bypass.”
But even on a limited scale, Hann expressed his doubts that the
bypass could proceed as an entirely public-funded project.
“I think it’s much needed, but the costs are too high and the
prospects of more federal or state funding are slim,” he said. “I
expect the project will just go around in circles.” |
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From
Aug. 1, 2007, Newberg Graphic
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