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This forum has been a little slow lately. How about we shake things up? The Interstate Bridge Replacement Program just announced its preferred alternative for replacing the I-5 bridges across the Columbia.
The preferred alternative is essentially a somewhat scaled back version of the Columbia River Crossing (CRC) plan that was torpedoed in 2013 by the WA State Senate, largely at the behest of Clark County Republicans.
The new proposed bridge would essentially be reduced by one service lane in each direction relative to the original CRC proposal (so 8 total highway lanes rather than 10) and the sizes of the interchanges would be reduced relative to the CRC. So, for example, the Hayden Island interchange just south of the river would be reduced in footprint so that only southbound (from WA) drivers could exit at Jantzen Beach whereas north bound drivers (from OR) would need to exit at Delta Park and take surface streets to Hayden Island/Jantzen Beach.
The light rail expansion would also likely parallel I-5 in Vancouver rather than running through downtown Vancouver on surface streets. Which would probably be faster to build and less disruptive and could potentially open up increased development along that corridor just as has happened in the Northgate area in Seattle where there is all kinds of new housing going up along the light rail line which also runs next to I-5 in that part of Seattle. https://www.theurbanist.org/2021/09/...opment-update/
Makes sense. The advocates for Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) are not going to win that argument and they mostly aren't serious about transit. A real BRT system between Vancouver and Portland would be interesting but no one in Portland would be interested in spending the billions of dollars such a system would cost to have high-speed dedicated bus lanes paralleling existing light rail running from Vancouver all the way into downtown Portland where they would have to build new stations and such. Just because some Clark County conservatives are allergic to rail.
Still yet to be determined is whether the bridge will be a double decker like the Freemont and Marquam Bridges in downtown Portland, or a single deck bridge like the 205 bridge. I'm guessing double decker would make more sense and have less real estate impact on the waterfront areas on both sides of the river.
I'm also sort of curious how they plan to build it while keeping the old bridges operating until it is done. That is going to take some engineering and planning.
Last edited by texasdiver; 05-06-2022 at 09:06 PM..
I'm also sort of curious how they plan to build it while keeping the old bridges operating until it is done. That is going to take some engineering and planning.
Thanks for this news, very interesting to hear such a plan in the works.
I am not sure if it is at all doable from an engineering/construction perspective but if they made it wider and taller just enough to encompass the existing one then ultimately, they could use the existing one as the lower section of a double decker. The lower section could also be used by cyclist, bikers, etc. especially on rainy days.
I think the visually most suitable connection points would be either from 164th Ave of 192nd Ave from Vancouver connecting to Marine Drive either around Interlachen or Blue Lake. Again, this is purely visual but without knowing the traffic data, etc. hard to tell what, if any kind of impact this bridge would have.
I was asking about why they wouldn't build a new bridge between WA and OR a while back but at the time, it didn't occur to me that this would have to be a joint state effort that would also have to have mutual benefits/incentives. I reckon, that aspect is likely to complicate things but perhaps I am wrong?
Thanks for this news, very interesting to hear such a plan in the works.
I am not sure if it is at all doable from an engineering/construction perspective but if they made it wider and taller just enough to encompass the existing one then ultimately, they could use the existing one as the lower section of a double decker. The lower section could also be used by cyclist, bikers, etc. especially on rainy days.
I think the visually most suitable connection points would be either from 164th Ave of 192nd Ave from Vancouver connecting to Marine Drive either around Interlachen or Blue Lake. Again, this is purely visual but without knowing the traffic data, etc. hard to tell what, if any kind of impact this bridge would have.
I was asking about why they wouldn't build a new bridge between WA and OR a while back but at the time, it didn't occur to me that this would have to be a joint state effort that would also have to have mutual benefits/incentives. I reckon, that aspect is likely to complicate things but perhaps I am wrong?
That is why there will likely never be a third or 4th bridge between Camas and Troutdale or between Ridgefield and St. Helens despite the fact that so many Vancouverites might want it.
Take Camas to Troutdale. How many Oregonians or or Oregonian businesses are dying to drive across to Camas/Washougal for any reason? Pretty much zero. The only purpose for such as bridge would be to facilitate more suburban sprawl in east Clark County and make it easier for commuters to get to Portland. No one in OR really wants to go in the other direction because that would be a dead-end route not actually going anywhere. Furthermore, most east county residents really don't want to just go to Troutdale, they want to commute to jobs across the Portland metro area. Which most likely means connecting to I-84 westbound. But anyone driving into Portland already knows that I-84 is already at full capacity and bumper to bumper most mornings. And it can't be expanded because there is rail on one side and cliffs on the other. How many Portlanders really want another 50,000 or so east Vancouver cars on their freeways or surface streets? So where are all all those extra cars from another bridge going to go? They will only make things worse for Portlanders not better. Furthermore, we are talking about hundreds of millions of dollars to connect a new Troutdale bridge to I-84 You would probably have to connect at the intersection of Airport Way and I-84 which means new interchanges and lanes and now I-84 will be at a complete standstill every morning and afternoon from that point all the way into Portland rather than from 205 onwards. Good luck getting Oregon to sign off on that multi-billion dollar project that would benefit no one in Portland at all.
Likewise a new bridge from Ridgefield to St. Helens is even more problematic. Where would it go? Connect to US-30 which is already a congested mess going into NW Portland? There is no capacity for a lot more traffic on that road. The pipe dream would be to punch an enormous tunnel through the West Hills. Or maybe widen Cornelius Pass road into a 4 or 6 lane freeway which would cost hundreds of millions and be enormously opposed by all the residents out there. The engineering challenges of pushing a major highway through the West Hills to connect to Highway 26 would be enormous and you would be talking about tearing up some of the most expensive residential real estate in the entire Portland metro. That isn't going to ever happen. That ship sailed in the 1950s. And again, how many Oregonians are dying to commute over to Ridgefield for any reason? Or even to Felida or wherever such as bridge would be located. Pretty much none.
One thing you can absolutely count on is this. Oregon in general and Portland in specific has basically zero interest in paying enormous sums of money to subsidize car-centric suburban sprawl in the outer edges of Clark County by building new bridges. So it simply isn't going to ever happen. At best you will get Oregon and Portland to agree on transit-centric higher density development as is proposed for the I-5 corridor in Vancouver so that lots more people might connect to and work in Portland via transit but not so many in single occupancy vehicles.
What Vancouver should be doing is leveraging whatever leverage they have into light rail improvements along the yellow line from the Expo Center into downtown Portland so that the commute from Vancouver is faster and more convenient. Make the stations bigger along that route and do more to restrict car traffic along that corridor so that bigger and faster trains can zip more efficiently between Portland and Vancouver. I'm no expert in these things, but there are certainly lots that can be done to make that route a faster moving mainline route to benefit Vancouver commuters. I'd buy a waterfront condo in Vancouver if I could get whisked into downtown Portland in 10-15 min. Well, in theory anyway. I'd rather see higher density growth down there than more low density suburban sprawl in the outer edges of Camas and Hockinson.
Ok, I read that wrong. I thought it was reducing lanes from what it is now. But Google Street View shows me that it is currently 3 lanes each way, so 4 is at least an improvement. 5 would definitely be better. I mean, you need to think toward the future. Do they really want to do this all over again in 50 years to add more lanes again? Well, I guess they won't be around to care at that point. But if climate change is going to be making everything warmer, in the coming decades the PNW is just going to get more appealing, which means more people, which means more traffic.
Given that this is an Interstate, shouldn't the Feds have some say? I'm sure they'd prefer bigger than not.
Ok, I read that wrong. I thought it was reducing lanes from what it is now. But Google Street View shows me that it is currently 3 lanes each way, so 4 is at least an improvement. 5 would definitely be better. I mean, you need to think toward the future. Do they really want to do this all over again in 50 years to add more lanes again? Well, I guess they won't be around to care at that point. But if climate change is going to be making everything warmer, in the coming decades the PNW is just going to get more appealing, which means more people, which means more traffic.
Given that this is an Interstate, shouldn't the Feds have some say? I'm sure they'd prefer bigger than not.
Today the bridge is 3 lanes in each direction.
The 2013 Columbia River Crossing proposal would have expanded it to 5 lanes in each direction but one or two would have been service lanes not through lanes.
The current proposal reduces that previous CRC proposal from 5 lanes in each direction to 4 lanes in each direction with one of them being a service lane. So the footprint of the new bridge would be somewhat smaller than the previous proposal, but still an expansion from what exists today.
Some astute observers on other web sites have noticed that while the DOT's new plans show a reduction to 4 lanes from the 5 lanes of the previous proposal, they aren't actually proposing a structurally narrower bridge. Essentially they are proposing the same bridge as before but with the lanes striped for 4 lanes with bigger shoulders or something. Who knows.
So maybe the DOT is proposing a 4-lane bridge that could be restriped to make it a 5 lane bridge in the future with narrower or eliminated shoulders.
Ok, I read that wrong. I thought it was reducing lanes from what it is now. But Google Street View shows me that it is currently 3 lanes each way, so 4 is at least an improvement. 5 would definitely be better. I mean, you need to think toward the future. Do they really want to do this all over again in 50 years to add more lanes again? Well, I guess they won't be around to care at that point. But if climate change is going to be making everything warmer, in the coming decades the PNW is just going to get more appealing, which means more people, which means more traffic.
Given that this is an Interstate, shouldn't the Feds have some say? I'm sure they'd prefer bigger than not.
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We normally drive to Portland at least 3-4 times a year, most recently we went in late April. We have never encountered any traffic jams on the bridge, perhaps because it's the weekends. Where it's been nasty even on Saturday or Sunday is the freeways crossing the city, or heading to another city like Hillsboro.
Given that this is an Interstate, shouldn't the Feds have some say? I'm sure they'd prefer bigger than not.
The Feds have a LOT of say since they are paying for it.
But the "Feds" are Pete Buttigieg and the Biden Administration who are environmental-leaning transit promoters not freeway expansionists. Both Buttigieg and Biden are train and rail supporters. Biden commuted to the Senate by rail for 30+ years.
Also the Feds are Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell from WA and Senators Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden from OR as well as Earl Blumenauer the senior Congressman from Portland who is more or less the father of light rail in OR.
So expect the "Feds" to generally question massive freeway expansion of the sort that the OR and WA state DOTs might be advocating, and expect the "Feds" to be multi-modal and transit oriented and favor light rail.
Elections have consequences and we are currently in the Biden Administration with a universally Democratic Congressional delegation and Democratic control of Congress, not the Trump Administration with Republican control of Congress.
The Feds have a LOT of say since they are paying for it.
But the "Feds" are Pete Buttigieg and the Biden Administration who are environmental-leaning transit promoters not freeway expansionists. Both Buttigieg and Biden are train and rail supporters. Biden commuted to the Senate by rail for 30+ years.
Also the Feds are Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell from WA and Senators Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden from OR as well as Earl Blumenauer the senior Congressman from Portland who is more or less the father of light rail in OR.
So expect the "Feds" to generally question massive freeway expansion of the sort that the OR and WA state DOTs might be advocating, and expect the "Feds" to be multi-modal and transit oriented and favor light rail.
Elections have consequences and we are currently in the Biden Administration with a universally Democratic Congressional delegation and Democratic control of Congress, not the Trump Administration with Republican control of Congress.
I definitely align more with the blue side, very much so, and more public transit (that would actually get used) is good. BUT, when it comes to the interstates, no, wider is better. One has to think further into the future. Maybe the population growth slows down and declines, maybe it doesn't, but better to make it wider now instead of having to just widen it later with the headaches that come with that. Interstates through major metro areas are major regional/national thoroughfares. Can't skimp on those.
I definitely align more with the blue side, very much so, and more public transit (that would actually get used) is good. BUT, when it comes to the interstates, no, wider is better. One has to think further into the future. Maybe the population growth slows down and declines, maybe it doesn't, but better to make it wider now instead of having to just widen it later with the headaches that come with that. Interstates through major metro areas are major regional/national thoroughfares. Can't skimp on those.
I-5 narrows to 2 lanes in each direction in the Rose Quarter so widening the bridge really doesn't add to throughput on I-5 unless you widen other sections as well. It doesn't do any good to have a 5 lane bridge if other sections of I-5 are 2 or 3 lanes.
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