I went back into the Cascades where the river carves a steep but massive gorge through the amazing mountain range.
Cape Horn
After having some dinner once I arrived back in Vancouver, I decided to get back in touch with my urban side, and drove some highways around Portland. There really was no nice logical reason to do this, I simply just started out from my apartment onto the freeway.
I decided to do the I-5, I-405 loop around the city center. This doesn't take long, but the views you can get of the city are amazing... So I did it twice:
It really is hard to describe the feeling I got from driving my car around the city center on the freeways. At first it was a revolt against how anti-car the city is. I was thinking to myself "Ha! I am driving your roads, and not commuting to or from work, and not using public transit! Take that Portland! I'm burning gas for recreation!".
This then quickly turned to "Ha, I'm using roads... That people commute on every day... That you still fund better than Washington to keep your drivers appeased..."
Which led to "Wait. Portland really isn't that much different than other cities I've been to..."
And then I thought about the fact that driving is one of America's most popular recreational activities. And that most people in and around Portland most likely drive many places for recreation (National Forests, other cities, other tourist towns like Seaside and Tillamook).
Portland has a very strange relationship with Clark County and Vancouver. I've been discussing it with some of my friends at work, and the way they describe the relationship is "Portland shadows Vancouver in almost every way. Economics, popularity, accessibility, population, and... political." The local politics are strained because Vancouver has been integrated with Portland as part of its metropolitan area designation. Therefore, as a whole, Vancouver proper is supposed to get part of federal funds for Portland that are designated as "federal funds". This obviously does not happen very well because Portland's population takes up the demand for most funds on their side of the river. (One prime example of this is that the 211 system in Vancouver is... Portland's 211 system. And they barely have Clark County resources listed or compiled.)
Another huge issue here is the commuter traffic. A lot of people who live in Vancouver work in Portland. But there is no integrated public transit system that runs between the two cities. You must take a C-Tran bus through the horrific traffic to get to the MAX light rail station on the other side of the river. And because there are only two crossings into Portland across the Columbia, those crossings get very, very congested...
But the road funds are... Managed by each state. Washington road funds mostly go to Seattle-Tacoma area, while most of Oregon's funds go to... Portland. So this leads an impass in the sense that a new system needs to be developed to cross the river (see "Columbia River Crossing" project) But... Washington state funds have not been approved/created for their side of the project. (Remember Seattle-Tacoma?)
So where do we go now? An aging (but beautiful in the sense of ruined industry) I-5 bridge cannot deal with the traffic, and Washington can't/won't approve funding for a new crossing. Also it doesn't help that if a large earthquake hits the area, the I-5 bridge is pretty much gone. Oh, and the I-5 bridge is a drawbridge. One of the last remaining interstates (as far as I know) that has a necessary impediment to driving located on it.
All of this aside, (along with the fact that I prefer Vancouver over Portland) Portland is a really beautiful city at night:
And driving around in a not so different city than the others I have been in is... Kind of comforting.
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