If we're going to rely on tolls ...

John Kenneth Galbraith said that the most expensive four words in the English language are "This time it's different."

Yet, the argument that bridge boosters in Salem and Portland are making to build massive and wildly expensive new bridges is precisely that: "This time it's different."

They're saying that, contrary to a century of experience showing that new road capacity always induces more demand than the road was designed to handle (until the same degree of congestion occurs at the new, higher level of use), that they can use tolls to limit this induced demand.

If they're so confident that they can affect usage with tolls, why won't they validate the assumption by putting tolls on the existing bridges to bring the congestion down and eliminate the need for the monstrously expensive new bridges?

Or is the point to say anything to anyone at anytime, just so long as it results in getting these projects rammed through? Here's a startlingly good op-ed piece by the head of Portland's Metro regional government on the "analysis" of induced demand and the effects of tolls. Metro is totally in the bag for a new multi-billion dollar boondoggle on the Columbia, yet even its top official can't stomach the way that the Road Gang is trying to run the same old full-court press to get that project off the ground.