June's issue of Portland Monthly has a hella long article by Editor Randy Gragg about one crucial part of the Columbia River Crossing (CRC) project: how residents of Hayden Island turned against the megabridge.

We're reported on Hayden Island and CRC opposition here, here and here but it's nice to see the whole situation sewn up in one article (featuring the heroic photo at right):

So long, big chain restaurants like Newport Bay, Denny’s, Hooters, B.J.’s Restaurant & Brewhouse, and McDonald’s. Wave goodbye to mom-and-pop shops like Dotty’s, Paddy’s, Dede’s Deli, Pushing the Envelope, and Paul’s Trading Co. And here’s hoping the 30 houseboat dwellers in the Crossing’s path have scrambled to higher ground.

But, as in any good disaster film (and in certain ginormous transportation projects, too), there needs to be a hero, or at least someone to stand valiantly in the path of the bedlam. And last November, in the parking lot of a Hayden Island grocery store located directly in the Crossing’s floodplain, a small group of residents auditioned for the part, brandishing petitions and picket signs scrawled with the humblest of requests: “Save Our Safeway.”

The Jantzen Beach Safeway is the only place to buy groceries and prescription drugs on Hayden Island. In fact, it’s the only place within a five-mile drive or a half-hour bus ride