75 people have signed up this afternoon at a public hearing on the Columbia River Crossing, here at City Hall. Council was expected to make a tentative decision on how many lanes the bridge should have, next week, but Adams just announced that they're going to extend the hearing until late February, so there's time to give consideration to all the options. But whatever. The public wants 12 lanes.

COLUMBIA RIVER CROSSING: Public speaking out today...

Council chambers were packed at 2 pm, when the hearing started. Since then, everyone from the mayor of Vancouver, to residents of Jantzen Beach moorage, and people living on Hayden Island who want to get to hospital on time if they have a heart attack, to folks from the unions, to one guy, Devla Eminck, who admitted "I'm the guy in my SUV causing all the problems," to Jodi Parker, who was stuck in traffic on the bridge, trying to get to her daughter, who had gone into labor, to the Portland Business Alliance, to the Oregon Business Association, I'm yet to hear a single person say they don't want all 12 lanes to be built. The Port of Vancouver wants 12 lanes, as one of the biggest importers of wind energy technology in the United States. "Wind energy means big stuff, like 200-feet-long blades," says their spokesperson.

The consensus: 12 lanes will be safer. 12 lanes will reduce vehicle miles traveled. There's also broad enthusiasm for having bicycle lanes and light rail on the bridge. But people want 12 lanes. That's all there is to it.

Update, 4:11 pm: Zipcar General Manager and former chief-of-staff to Portland's former mayor Neil Goldschmidt, Bill Scott, has spoken up against the 12 lane option.

"I don't think we can pay for it," he says, adding that as more people give up their cars, "I'm not sure you're going to have the need for this capacity when the bridge is built, and I'd urge you to look at tolling alternatives in the short term."

Update, 4:16 pm: Anthony Gomez, an activist from Rising Tide, says that any addition of lanes would "take jobs from low income people here in Portland who really need them." "Adding more lanes will only benefit Vancouverites and free trade advocates," he says. "If you go ahead with adding six lanes and going along with the greedy needs of the folks like the Portland Business Alliance, I believe you are being racist and class-ist," he concludes.

Update, 4:25 pm: Joe Cortright says: "The quality of the financial analysis that has gone into this $4bn project is of the same caliber as that that went into Bernie Madoff's funds."

Update, 4:30 pm: Former city council candidate and transportation activist Chris Smith says "adding lanes in this corridor is not the way to build capacity for future growth." "Vehicle miles traveled will only be reduced across the river if we toll both bridges," says Smith. "If we can take cars that are idling and get them moving, then we'll reduce greenhouse gases, but obviously if we add more lanes to do that, then we end up with more traffic." Smith said there were two risks to the bridge failing. "Firstly, that we overestimate the elasticity of demand." [The Mercury has NO IDEA what that means, but, er, it's economics...] "Second, that we lack the political will to impose tolls that'll make a difference," says Smith. "If tolling fails, then I'd rather it failed on an 8-lane bridge than on a 12-lane bridge."

Update, 4:47 pm: Tom Buchele from the Pacific Environmental Advocacy Center, representing the Coalition for A Livable Future, says "I've had to sit here all afternoon and listen to this bridge described as "green" and "sustainable"," "but it's rhetoric." "We're tired." "The choice is between a 12 lane concrete monument to everything that was wrong with mid-20th century transportation planning and something much smaller that is truly consistent with Portland's values."

City Commissioner Randy Leonard says he has a problem with Buchele's arguments because he doesn't have any data to back them up. Buchele, for example, says the $2 toll is expected to reduce trips across the bridge by 39,000 a month (or 18%), but that he just doesn't believe it.

"$2 a day is about $80 a month, and that was what led me to believe that people would start to take light rail," says Leonard, challenging Buchele to bring him facts in dispute of the data.

Update, 5:16 pm: From the comments:

"And sorry to repeat myself, but the bridge doesn't belong to Portland. We didn't pay to build or maintain the current one, and we won't pay for the new one either. It isn't Portland's bridge and therefore it doesn't have to comport with our "values.""