Being able to maintain river traffic is going to play into the success of this plan more than most people are aware. The commercial impact of marine traffic is huge
Really? I'd like to see the numbers for lost revenue for ships that actually require lifting of the bridge. Is there that much money being shipped east of the bridge down the Columbia?
@@InsidiousSwedeI don’t think thats true at all. The last bridge died because Clark County lobbied hard against tolls and light rail. Olympia is far more involved and this proposal and is pushing it along.
The city of Vancouver and Washington have been using excuses for years like that. Fact is, Washington's economic center is Seattle, nowhere near this EXTREMELY expensive bridge. Whereas the current bridge is literally inside Portland's boundaries.
@@InsidiousSwede The City of Vancouver has been pro bridge for awhile. You are confusing deep Clark County and District 3 republicans with liberal City if Vancouver leadership.
@@InsidiousSwede Washington State and Clark County are more than willing to pay their fair share, they however refuse to pay anything and have any part in a Light Rail line going across the bridge into their city and county. And they're smart for that. They have zero plans in Vancouver for it at all, Clark County is the same, and even CTRAN has no plans to accommodate a line there either. Voters and CTRAN/TriMet riders alike in Clark County and Vancouver have gone as far as to vote unanimously to legally rid themselves of having anything to do with a MAX extension into their city, county and jurisdiction, because they do NOT want it at all. That of course means we Oregonians will be forced to foot the multi-billion dollar bill for the Yellow Line extension into Vancouver that the IBR and TriMet are hellbent on forcing through. Aka, it is not the ridership or the voters that support and want the damn thing, it is the Government agencies. So who to blame for the issue here? TriMet, and the IBR itself. They're not letting it go no matter what, and it is that specifically that is the main lynchpin holding any progress back. We'd seriously rather the bridge just collapse into the river than give into their bullshit and pay for the stupid LRT extension no one actually wants. The tiniest little minority of bitchy people want it, but most do not and hold a lot of contempt and disdain for their instance upon it, as they should. They're smart up there in Clark County, clearing smarter than most voters and people down here in the Portland area. That much is abundantly clear. And they're staunch in their self-determination, whereas here, most people rather force others to swallow what they deem "best" and "needed". Thank god enough people learned the lessons TriMet was dishing out left and right when it came to their stupid "Transportation Bond Measures", aka, New MAX line Funding Packages if they were honest, and rejected the last one. They finally learned and know better now than to approve of those TBMs because we've had enough of their bullshit, lies, and stupid "capital projects" with the MAX grifting. It's just the way they get all that phat stacks of kickback paychecks from big name developers and contractors, as well as Federal Funds to squander away on god knows what as always. As a diehard Transit Whore and hellbent on improving and expanding the system _THE RIGHT WAY_, I hope everyone here rejects the next one, too. Call them out to their faces even more aggressively and viciously, let them know we know fully now, and we will NOT let them get away with their bullshit again. Take some power and control back. LRT is NOT the way to do this. BRT and Metro/Subway is at the local level, Regional, IC and ICE at the metro area to outer area level (up to 60 or so miles out from the start/end point, in this case, Downtown Portland and Vancouver, respectively). Emphasize pedestrians and bicyclists, while repurposing the roads to better accommodate such, as well as safety and community. Make it multi-modal. And all new rail would be entirely grade-separated, too. But, that'll never happen anywhere in the US, because it's not profitable, and they are not running transit agencies to serve the public, contrary to popular belief. But I digress.
Ignoring this is ignoring the majority of the issue. The bridge replacement is being used to try to shove in miles of massive unnecessary freeway expansion. EXPANDING THE FREEWAY WONT FIX TRAFFIC! The ONLY way to fix traffic is by building ALTERNATIVES TO CARS!
@@Bandit1379. they need to built two other bridges first to alleviate the traffic. Like 192 in Vancouver to Portland and one at Richfield across. Then it won’t screw up everything for 5 years, the tolls will be like another car payment. If they ripe out the I 5 bridge.
@ In reality it only took 10 months to rebuild the one in Minnesota, same size bridge, with light rail, it should be done just as quickly but Oregon and Washington and the union workers will milk it for as long as can. This project may take a lot longer and cost is already over 7 billion.
A big part of the controversy is that folks in Vancouver do not want "alternative transportation" because it's ridiculous to think folks will bike the long distance to Portland in the dark rain which makes up much of the years commute. Furthermore the crime that follows the light rail system isn't desired either. Portland's obsession with bicycling is also delusionally toxic. It's just not reasonable for the majority of the year for the majority of folks. Whether it's Portland state shutting down street parking to removing more and more lanes for bicycles that ultimately service less humans in motion than the original lane. While alternative transportation has value, plotting it as an ether or is not helping. As for opposing expansion of freeways... The delusion more freeways creates more traffic is ill informed. Studies simply show that expending a highway below what is needed long after the need don't cure the problem.
@@GreeceUranusPutin It can't HANDLE the traffic, but it's still GETTING the traffic whether they replace the Longview-Rainier bridge or not. Typical of Oregon to allow the only highway on the Columbia River that goes to Portland to remain a dangerous and outdated two-lane joke.
Hey, hats off to the original builders. The first half of the brige has worked for over 100 years and the second half (mirror of the original plans) for over 60. It's not the bridge -- the problem is all heavy traffic going through the needle's eye in and out of Portland. Best solution would be to build two bridges to connect to WA 192nd to I-84 and from Ridgefield to connect to Hwy 26 (tunnel under Skyline Blvd instead of up Cornelius Pass). Problem solved for the 21st Century and much cheaper than a mega project like the proposed I-5 bridge that's been hampered by too many engineers and politicians.
@@davidzimmerman1246 there really is not much demand. The cove is just a bedroom community for libertarians who want to commute. Building more bridges does not benefit Portland
@@erikanders3343 Not sure if it benefits Portland or not but I drive on 84 from the Gorge heading back to Vancouver all the time and I would love to not have to add 20+ minutes fighting traffic on 205. I think a bridge from Gresham/Troutdale area to East Vancouver/Camas would definitely benefit Portland because 205 is a major pathway to the airport so any 84 to WA traffic could circumvent that important section of freeway.
I’ve thought for a long time that they should end the right lane before the 14 to I5 interchange. Traffic bottlenecks anyway so why do they make 14 mergers have to fight to merge?
the challenge is, even after the bridge project, I-5 still narrows to 2 lanes in each direction going passed the Moda Center. It would be a shame to spend $6+B and just move the bottleneck a few miles to the South.
Baby steps. Put off doing a piece that brings significant benefits now at a known cost (excluding the inevitable overruns) or wait another 20 years intel the project cost balloons another 100%-200% and live with the growing costs of delayed traffic. We need to plan for the future we want to live in, just like the original builders (I'm a resident since 1959).
issue is they propose expanding the lanes going south of the bridge but all the proponents of Portland deem it unnecessary, almost like they ignore the fact that I-5 is bigger than Portland itself. They concern it with more bike paths, public transit, and pedestrian focus approaches. Ultimately the above between Vancouver's argument and Portland's - makes this project keep ticking instead of putting feelings away for 5 minutes and just getting this crap done. Wait another decade or two and were spending 10 to 15 billion easily on this.
I see the comment made a lot. This ignores that traffic can also travel I-405 north and south, and can take MLK, if those are too congested. There is a ton of traffic that passes over the Interstate bridge that never crosses that 2 lane section of I-5 you reference. Saying it just moves the bottleneck doesn't make any real sense. All the proposed bridge plans in the IBR will alleviate commutes into and out of Portland in many ways. Wash residents going to a concert at Moda or any number of other venues? Park in Washington, take the max. Same for shopping, bar hopping, dancing, exploring the city, etc, etc. Bike path over the current Interstate bridge is a convoluted mess. The IBR will make it considerably easier to travel by bike between states/cities. Anyone with a condo or house near any of the max stops, is likely to see the value rise considerably. Walkable areas are a huge consideration for many city dwellers. All of these additional modes of transit take many cars off the road, and reduce the number of miles and hours they spend driving.
Washington residents largely see this bridge as a Portland and Vancouver issue. The problem with this simplified viewpoint is that I-5 is the road that feeds Seattle and gets US goods to Canada. The country depends on the I-5 corridor and Seattle is its main benefactor.
No. Keeping a bridge in operation extra 10 years costs zero. Prices can come down, in 2000s prices came down, for cement and steel..... Engineers act like a 1 in million chance of collapse is awful, but we accept a 1 in 10000 chance of death yearly in road accidents.... W 2 spans if 1 collapses can use 2nd..... People who commute across the Columbia 20 miles are idiots, we should slap a $30 toll and laugh..... Last, light rail is dumb, just fly to Seattle no need to ask me to build you a rail bridge...
it would have been done already if OR and WA put their head together and funded it. but they went over the citizens head and got federal inflationary spending to do it.
In Minnesota NE of Twin Cities into Wisconsin we have the Stillwater bridge across St. Croix river which separates WI from MN, which MN didn't want to re-build the dinky metal old fashioned bridge since it would encourage sprawl into WI. Eventually they did rebuild it into a massive and high concrete bridge, but it took about 20 years. No state likes building bridges to another state which then leads to endless sprawl. The St. Croix river doesn't lead to anywhere vital so no need to accomodate shipping, and due to zebra mussels and invasive weeds they even ban recreational boating past the zone of Stillwater. . . . Long ago there was a 1900 plan to build a canal from St. Croix to Duluth, but it would've cost too much.
Look up uodated articles on the cascadia "big one." We're mostly past the main window for that to happen. And all the little earthquakes the region has been experiencing over the years, is said to have likely gradually released the stress and tension of the CSZ so that when (or if) it ever hits, it will not be 8-9 magnitude levels of stress all releasing at the same time. All that to say so we should be in the clear of a "big one."
My father is a higher up in the department of transportation on the Washington side, and has overseen working on the bridge on and off over the last 18 or so years, and he says it’s something that’s disputed by everyone, but not in a way where people know what they want, but the higher ups can’t decide wether they should spend billions to replace it while also removing what many in the region consider a historic landmark. Also for people who don’t live here, the I 205 bridge (the detour interstate for I-5), at least as far as I’ve seen, is far more busy yet streamlined and carries far more cars per day as Portland has expanded far more eastern over the past 50 years.
When creeping across the I-5 bridge once my dad suggested a new bridge next to it, replacing the newest I-5 bridge span, and make the original I-5 bridge into a bicycle/pedestrian bridge.
By adding tolls to the deal they will cause massive overcrowding of the Glen Jackson bridge as people avoid these tolls. Better to just float bonds to cover it but what do I know. We do really need more crossing option for the future if the Green loons will stop obstructing anything to do with progress.
@@MarkMay-cr6bvhe said PROBABLY. This makes sense to say this if you actually live here like I do. Portland is insanely blue and loves to vote for bureaucrats, red tape and paperwork. I own a business here and the rules are never ending as are the taxes for business
$6 Billion to tie up traffic for 15 years, which according to people in the know is the projected construction time. It would be money ahead to replace the entire bridge with a new multi lane bridge constructed up river a half mile and either leave or destroy the existing when the new bridge is completed.
It's only this way because they keep delaying it while the problem keeps getting worse. If they'd taken care of this in 1995 it would have been massively cheaper, faster, and simpler.
We need the outside the box thinking - Tunnel it and maintain the current bridge until the new tunnel is complete. Option to keep the existing bridge as transit and pedestrian only bridge.
I think the tunnel requires much more consideration. Not only would it be more efficient in construction but it also eliminates the ship access issue and, assuming the bridge is removed, clears the skyline of what is truthfully a bit of an eyesore. The Columbia with Mt Hood on the horizon is gorgeous, let’s preserve the view
@@cloudwatcher608 I totally agree, a project like Boston's Big Dig would solve a multitude of problems while allowing the existing surface road to handle local traffic. If chosen, it will take at least a decade to complete and cost will be ridiculous but 20 years from now we'll be saying "thank GOD we did it!"
Recent reports indicate that the U.S. has approved an additional $3.5 billion in military aid to Israel. This brings the total amount of U.S. aid to Israel to approximately $161.5 billion since its founding in 1948 but we don’t have money here to build a simple bridge
Fun fact: s U.S. taxpayers pay into (and basically support) Israel's own universal healthcare system. Yet we don't have enough to find it (or even TRY) for ourselves. I'm not kidding either. Look it up. Really gets ppl to look into Just how MUCH of Israel's entire economy we essentially Fund.
There's a reason why Clark County WA residents have rejected lightrail into Vancouver. Besides, even if the new bridge had twenty lanes, further south at the 405 interchange lanes are reduced causing additional congestion.
is the reason the same as milwaukie, where they thought the light rail would devalue their homes and bring homeless people to milwaukie? because guess what didn't happen in milwaukie
@@coarel2788 DING DING DING!!! We have the CORRECT answer. Don Benton and Dave Madore were out front about how light rail and dedicated bus lanes would bring THOSE people and crime.
@@robertkoreis of course! because the only reason THOSE people aren't going to vancouver is because they don't have access to it! there's surely no other reason!
An bigger reason is that Vancouverites (and other Washingtonians) don't want the creeping $hithole that is Portland OR to ooze into Washington, via more lanes and a light rail system that is well used by bangers and the homeless.
The entire I-5 corridor thru the Portland area needs a total revamp. Fixing the bridge will just move the backup into Portland 1 mile further South. Northbound it will help a lot.
What few realize is that the bridge often lifts for ships that can easily fit underneath the humpback portion farther out in the river. Why then? The Burlington Northern Railroad Bridge 9.6, which is just downstream of it, also opens, but as a swing span and is equally close to the shore as the Interstate Bridge's lift. That rail bridge doesn't have a similar raised portion out in the river, and so if a ship were to travel under the Interstate Bridge's hump in the middle of the river, it would have to attempt what is often an impossible or near-impossible maneuver to quickly line itself up with the rail bridge's swing span, and vice versa. Much of the big river traffic are barges, which are not able to make such a maneuver, and thus they will opt to go straight through both bridges' openings. My point with all of this? The new bridge is pointless in terms of anything outside of safety, unless the new bridge has its max clearance level at where the current lift is, or unless the rail bridge is replaced/modified so that the new opening is farther out in the river, shifting the straight line of safe navigation.
@@Pokesalad222 Did you even read my comment? The clear point of it is that this other bridge must be addressed simultaneously OR Interstate Bridge's lift site must be replaced with the peak height of the new bridge, which, given proximity to the shore, presents more complex engineering challenges.
@@jaymao3511 It's 100% true, look it up. There are videos on TH-cam about it. If you've ever seen a bridge lift in person, you'd realize that much of the lift traffic are ships/barges that could fit underneath the hump.
I've done extensive research on the history of the Interstate Bridge and as far back as the 1970s, people have debated replacing it. Being a resident of Vancouver my entire life I always tell people: Get this thing built ASAP before an earthquake will make the decision for you.
as a washington citizen you should be telling your state/local politicians to get it done. Oregon wants this done and is going to do it, but Washington has a long history of pulling out of shared projects at the last minute. Washington also refuses to implement common sense transit solutions that would alleviate traffic across the bridge going forward. This would have been done decades ago if Washington wasn't dragging their feet and trying to get everyone else to pay for it.
Uncle Lou lived in Ambridge, Pennsylvania. Named after the American Bridge Division United States Steel Corporation. They made steel bridges. It’s all gone now.
I was thinking about things like this. Computers and IT are now the number one most valuable industry in the world. We gave that away too. The Chinese didn't even know how to make any of that stuff, we went over there and TAUGHT them. Very different from what the textbooks in Economics will tell you, about comparative advantage and that. Our companies fly into other places and teach them how to put us out of business. Its disgusting. My family also from PA btw.
I live in vancouver, I was doing a job for a customer who was an underwater welder for the state, he does patchwork to the bridges to "keep it going" he said they're barely staying up, there's spots underwater so rusted away you can watch it flex from the river/traffic above
Bridges always flex; that's what they do. Rigid structures fail when they flex the material in the wrong place. I'm not explaining this well but I hope you understand. Go up to the top of a tall building and experience how much they sway and bounce.
@@1dariansdad I do understand they have to be able to move, but certain parts of a structure need to be rigid, and the parts that are supposed to weren't I hope you understand that
If he worked for the state of Washington, he's never touched the I-5 bridge. Period. An no such reports have come back from any engineer about such issues with the I-5 bridge either. The state of Oregon does all the I-5 bridge's maintenance. He may not be wrong concerning other bridges up I-5 corridor in Washington though.
This bridge needs replaced yes, there also needs to be more crossings added. Having only 2 bridges between Vancouver and Portland is ridiculous considering the amount of commuters and the fact that the next closest Columbia River crossing is 36 miles away in Longview WA, and even if you detour that way on your way South you still aren't able to avoid the PDX metro area traffic. Meanwhile the City of Portland has TEN bridges crossing the Willamette, it's absurd.
Two interesting proposals I've heard would add new bridges. One would start from highway 120 at Marine Drive and run parallel to the existing railroad bridge and connect to highway 501 in Washington; the other would start on hwy 99E (Martin Luther King Blvd.) where it bends toward the west and cross to connect with highway 14 in Washington. Another idea was to start from where highway 26 turns west in Gresham and go north to connect with highway 14 in Washingon, crossing Lady Island and connecting near Camas.
sad by the time the bridge is done , they will need another bridge aross the columbia. this happened to the 205 bridge. by the time it was finished. the bridge all ready over crowded with cars. traffic increase every year.and they want to much built on it, transibt stations extra.
It also doesn't help that we just build bridges instead of transit. This causes the bridges to immediately be at capacity from the moment they open with no other options to get across the river other than cars/bus. Washington refuses to implement common sense transit solutions to traffic congestion. Oregon wants to build rail across the river but Washington won't fund any of it. Ctran is a joke in terms of connecting Portland/Vancouver. You literally have to take a bus across the bridge and wait in traffic.
@@CRneu i agree. vancouver it self is afraid that a transit rail service would bring crime from portland , just like it brought more crime to gresham......
What do you think they should have used? It was 1917. There is 115 feet of sediment between the river bed and the bedrock (thank you, Missoula floods). I don't know if they had any viable alternative. And wooden pilings have a very solid track record.
@@eritain I never knew the northbound span is actually the original bridge. Yeah definitely time for the whole bridge to go. Then again there is a bridge in Philadelphia from 1697 so I guess bridges are stronger than I thought
Have you seen the trees in the PNW. They are definitely capable of holding a bridge, which is why it is still standing 100 years later. We do need to prepare for a future earthquake however, we don't want to be Texas or Florida.
I cross this bridge 4x daily. Twice in my personal vehicle and twice in my cmv taking freight to Seattle. New bridge with accompanying light rail would be dope.
One of the prior situations that could be a model for this is the so-called "Big Dig", an east coast megaproject that ran in Boston from the initial work in 1991 to the completion in 2006. Let's do it better this time, please.
It's more likely to go the way that the work on the Tacoma Narrows bridge did. With them doing one bridge at a time and setting the other one up to be bidirectional in the meantime.
they are several places along I-5 between woodland wa and kalama wa,to build a bridge over the columbia river into oregon that would cost less and improve traffic conditions on both sides of the river
No doubt it will take collapse and loss of life to get this project started. Kickbacks on the construction of this bridge will be huge. Talk about Golden Parachutes. This will help the politicians retire very comfortably.
Great video, and a key component of the info provided is that the ACTUAL bridge is only 3/4 of a mile of the 5 mile long project. This project could have been completed LONG ago if politicians and special interests hadn't dog-piled the project to add their pieces of pork. (Sorry for the mixed metaphors...) I travel from the Central/Chehalis area weekly to care for my aging father in Corvallis. A key component of my 350 mile round-trip commute is having to leave the house by 4:00AM in order to hit the bridge deck no later than 5:30AM, or I get tied up in traffic. That's south-bound. North-bound I have to leave my Dad's house no later than 12:00PM in order to get across the river, and I usually STLL face a 2-3 mile long backup through Delta Park just to get to the bridge deck. Continuing to NOT replace this piece of aging, inadequate infrastructure, will only add to the cost, frustration and potential lost revenue from businesses that depend on the bridge WHEN disaster strikes, and it WILL eventually.
@@sojourner57 I kinda agree with your comment, but because of the increase in bridge height the grade of the freeway has to change. Which is why they have to replace miles of freeway.
Unfortunately I do not see this happening until it absolutely has to be done. As in bridge failure or partial failure. I hope I am wrong but it's Oregon and Washington two of the biggest government wasting bureaucracies in the US.
I am old enough to remember my father stopping to pay the tolls in the 60’s 🤣 and I hate the traffic between Vancouver and Portland, there’s never a good time anymore, well maybe 2am 😂
It'll be under-built, just like I-5 completion in the'60s. Sure, it worked for 7 years, maybe 8, then issues started to become evident. This is just boondoggle waiting to happen. I worked in Tacoma for 22 years and watched the SR16 & I-5 interchange being rebuilt/ redesigned and that project took almost 21 years to complete. This IBR replacement? Will be at least half of that I'll wager.
Portland has always built conservative, unable to think big. The undersized rink in Memorial Coliseum kept Portland from getting an NHL franchise decades ago.
I commute over this bridge every day for school and it’s truly a nightmare for anyone coming into Portland in the AM or leaving in the PM. It’s slowed to at a crawl each morning by 7am.
I don’t think a lot of people realize the organal span which was built in 1917 is still there and that the one which is being held up by wood pylons that span is over 100 yrs old, I can’t remember if it’s the north or south bound span but it’s still being used. I’m 73 yrs old and I remember when they built the second span back in 1960 and it cost us .20cents every time we went over it. But with all the traffic on it today we do need a new bridge. And if u type I-5 bridge on google it’s the only interstate bridge between Mexico and Canada and it’s the most used of all the bridges between river traffic and auto traffic.
We need a new bridge there plus 2 more. One, east of I205, that goes from Fairview OR area to Camas WA area and another, west of I5, St Helens OR area to Woodland WA area.
They should just fix the existing bridge there are bridges that are way older that get restored the Brooklyn bridge was built in the 1800s there are no calls for knocking it down there is a bridge here it can be repaired and improvements can be made to the bridge we currently own and have
@@Fordry neither are we anymore, apparently. Look it up. Scientists and seismologists agree that all the little earthquakes this region has been experiencing in the recent decade has done enough to slowly and bit by bit alleviate the tension in the CSZ to the point there's not enough left to snap up with the same force needed to generate a 8-9 earthquake anymore. Not to mention we're toward the end of the "window" for when that earthquake was most likely.
I drive over this bridge 5 days a week. Traffic isn't too bad on the bridge itself compared to PDX traffic. I do not want to pay for a toll everytime i crossit. $6 a day, $120 a month to just drive?
West of I-5 unfortunately isn't possible, given the Port of Portland's main terminals and storage facilities are all right there, as is Kelly Point and Smith & Bybee Lakes parks on the Portland side, and the main industrial for Vancouver is also directly across the river there, with the wetlands and park of Vancouver Lake also being right there, too. That disallows anything like it from getting built, and makes it non-viable. The one east of 205 is possible, though again, you'd need to demolish A LOT of development just to squeeze it in, though the Sandy River Delta is also right there, as is Troutdale Airport... so unless the south end is a tunnel portal, it won't work either. We're actually screwed along this portion of the Columbia, when it comes to crossing abilities. Thus why supporting the Frog Ferry concept is genuinely a great idea, at least to connect Portland and Vancouver with each other in another way. Perhaps they could give people more reason to hit up Hayden Island and/or the Expo Center for once with such a service. A short hop ferry just to shuttle people across the river. Thus, we'd have a third option. If we could add in or reconstruct the BNSF Rail bridge to the west of the current I-5 Bridge, to then have say, 3 or 4 tracks, with at least two electrified, with at least one of them being strictly for passenger services, then we could implement a trolley with a metro's capacity to do quick short hops from St. Johns to Downtown Vancouver, or a true express Metro that would go from Downtown Portland to Downtown Vancouver, with a stop or two in between, possibly Swan Island and St. Johns for the two stop, or just St. Johns for the one middle stop. Technically being west of Downtown Vancouver, one could also place a middle stop in West Vancouver, too, I suppose. But do you know what would stop these problems? IMMERSED TUNNELS! "They're far too harmful on the environment and fish passage, as far more expensive than the bridges", they cry their favorite lies. But that's just it - the IBR has lied and fabricated all the BS they use against the tunnels. Anyone who has common sense, and does basic research knows this. But, tunnels would be the quickest, cheapest, most efficient path to achieve a new crossing. And we all know how the governments and contractors despise such things, because they can't milk it for ever penny they possibly can.
@@MrBearcatjewtrolls only bring up the 3rd bridge because they know that would never be built as it would cost 100x more to build a 3rd bridge and supporting whole new highways for said 3rd bridge than to just replace the existing bridge (that they don't want to pay for)
I'm 56 and grew up in Portland and still living in the area and being a driver by trade I've always thought the I5 bridge needs to be replaced. The way it bottlenecks on the approach to it on the Oregon side is almost scary. I've always been amazed that there isn't more wrecks right there and how it narrows down soon as you get on it makes it a waaaaaaay out dated bridge. Vancouver really wronged it self not going allong with the project that would have brought light rail to there city. NOW? It all comes down to money. That bridge will never be replaced till something happens that makes it so it has to be replaced or close it permanently.
Fun Fact, the Cascadia Subduction Zone and San Juan Fault Line off the coast of Washington and Oregon don't just have the potential for a 9.0 earthquake, it's one of the only seismic zones in the world that can actually hit above a 9.4 in theory. I love scaring all the Cali transplants here with that, tell em about "The Big One" that we got drilled into our heads in middle school.
I enjoyed reminding them of The Capes in Oceanside and the houses off skyline blvd - just due to poor design and how developers somehow get around geological inconveniences to make their $$$ and split….
LOL, no native Californian is going to be bothered by the idea of "The Big One" . We have also heard it our whole lives. I've been through a 7.3, a 6.7, a 6.6 and a 6.5. Granted that's no 9.4, but I imagine all 4 are bigger than anything a living PNW'r has felt.
@@bipedaltoolmaker yeah I think the last major one was back in 01, capped at 6.8. Might be another I'm forgetting but telling them about a possible 9.4 and Mt. St. Helens gets some of em jumpy. Some of the army brats that came through JBLM would get freaked out hearing about all this as well. Helps when Mt. Rainier is in full view with a good snow cap on it for extra effect, good prop to point at looming in the distance.
If Portland gets hit with a big quake the bridge will be the least of their problems. Many of the downtown buildings are built on dirt washed off of the West Hills and is not as firm as you might like. If a big quake hits many of the buildings will sink into the ground as happened in San Francisco decades ago.
There's a few articles now coming to a consensus btwn seismologists, scientists and geologists that the steady stream of earthquakes and tremors the region's been getting has slowly but surely chipped away at the amount of tension in the CSZ to produce "the big one." Not to mention, we're coming out of the tail end of the "opportunity window" for it to happen. We're still always gonna be susceptible to a 7 even with all the little regional earthquakes, but that 8-9 window is gradually (and thankfully) passing.
If 47.5 Million cars cross it per year, the toll could be $2 per car and it'd be paid for in under 10 years. But they won't. It'll be $6 per car and the tolls will remain long after its paid for itself.
@@Ponchoed I don't see "control of travel" something that anyone will get on board for except politicians, and they are the ones that should be far way from public projects. Thats what engineers are trained for.
I live in Oregon and worked in WASHINGTON(now retired) Driving trucks across the old bridge is dangerous as those are very narrow lanes with off and on ramps very close to both ends of the bridge. Back when they but in the second bridge it was not a problem as there was not as much traffic back them but now it is a nightmare trying to get a truck up to speed with those short on ramps, wider trucks and fast cars, and ways more traffic. Toles would relieve some of those problems (ie less traffic). But it still would be bad if they do not find some way to slow the people down during rush hour at least. This just my thought on the area that I drove through for over thirty years. Money is expensive, but if they do not get off their tails it will cost 10 bil. or more>
It’s just to put light rail in for the river front project. They are the donors to the democrats , the real reason they want a new bridge. It doesn’t fix anything,doesn’t add lanes, doesn’t fix the bottleneck at moda center. They sure try to scare you though with that earthquake crap. If that happened all the other Intersate bridges will fall. No one would be going anywhere. It would just mess up all travel for 5 to 10 years. They need to build two other bridges first. If not good luck getting out of Vancouver.
Tolls will make traffic a backup nightmare. Many people will choose the 205, which will bottle neck that route. A simple, boring span for cars only and additional span for alternate traffic.
@@mikebrady1767 The outcome may keep Washingtonians from working in Oregon. That might sound good to Oregonians, but what it really does is remove a huge amount of income tax $$ out of Oregon. Much more money than the tolls would produce. For me it is roughly 4 times the amount. And it's extortion, there are no options for crossing the Columbia in the Portland area except the GJ and the Interstate.
@@curtispenner2 I think tolling isn't the slowdown it used to be. You get a little gadget on your dashboard or somewhere and it takes a little money each time you drive by. You don't even know its happening.
@@bipedaltoolmaker I think small tolls - that's all anyone is talking about - will keep a few people from shopping or working in Portland. But It will be minor. But to me - an anti-freeway guy - it's peculiar to spend $3B, and worry about a small decrease in income tax. But - we all would like to see the numbers.
A major sticking point in the project has been the addition of light rail which based of some estimates, triples the cost of the project and limits both height and slope to allow for river chanel clearance. Vancouver residents have overwhelmingly rejected light rail expansion multiple times (as have Orgeon voters despite multiple expansions) and Orgeon's government is trying to force the issue anyway (that is ultimately what killed the CRC project after close to $115 million was spent on plannig alone). Between that and the fact it will not do anything for the Portland bottleneck at the I-5, I-84, and I-405 interchange and Rose Quarter, where traffic is two to three lanes, most poeple think 7 billion is too much to spend for a project that will do to little to solve the actual problems.
The current bridge is not the problem as far as congestion is concerned. The freeway on the Oregon side is totally inadequate. Traveling south from Vancouver the road is 3 lanes wide, but narrows down to 2 lanes several miles south of the bridge where the traffic can either continue on I-5 or go onto I-405, the majority of southbound traffic stays on I-5, but I-405 rejoins I-5 several miles south. The ramps to either freeway are 2 lanes wide and continue through the downtown area as 2 lanes. Until such time as Oregon under goes a major rebuilding of their freeways. the congestion will remain.
I get why they need to replace this bridge but they also need to make more crossings across the Columbia in and around that location. There need to be some surface street bridges that connect Vancouver streets with Hayden Island, Marine Drive, and the rest of North Portland. I would also argue for a surface street bridge that connects East Vancouver and SR 14 with Gresham as well. Having all traffic heading to and from Portland cross just two freeway bridges is one of the many reasons PDX has such bad traffic.
"There need to be some surface street bridges that connect Vancouver streets with Hayden Island, Marine Drive, and the rest of North Portland. " Those potential bridges face the exact same issues as the I-5 "replacement" bridge. Marine traffic and clearance being the most obvious. Then there is the matter of approaches and access to these bridges, the impacts they would have on the neighborhoods they connect to...etc...etc... Then, there is the cost involved in building multiple bridges over a major river. Multiple bridges is not the answer to this issue.
PDX has bad traffic completely independent of the river bridge. Oregon (esp PDX) road planning and management is trash, signs poorly placed or completely hidden, and many intersections and routes are rather counter-intuitive. Oregon also has the worst drivers I have seen in any of the western states (I've driven through all of them), and this is by a noticeable margin. OR seems to hand out licenses like Halloween candy and enforces all the wrong traffic laws(based on engineering principles and studies). (*Hawaii drivers are worse but I don't include them due there isolation and no connecting highway or ferry.)
A 3rd bridge to the West of the existing I-5 bridge seems to make the most sense - redundancy for critical infrastructure is always a good plan. Fix that railroad bridge first to minimize the I-5 bridge lifts. Once the new bridge is completed, upgrade the existing bridge for light rail, bikes, foot traffic and additional seismic upgrades. Keep in mind that traffic will dramatically change once fully autonomous vehicles are on the roads - the challenge is to make good predictions on what those changes will be... With this idea in mind, a problem with the bubble of engineers and politicians influencing the design of the new bridge seems to be a lack of imagination.
Tunnel would have been too expensive? with only $2.5 billion in hard costs as seen at 4:35?? I get the interchanges will cost something, but seems like the total should be under $6 billion.
A better solution would be to keep it simple and cheap while planning for a bypass freeway for Interstate traffic starting in Woodland, WA and St Helens, OR down highway 30 and looping the metro between Cornelius and Hillsboro (then back to I5) THis would remove a lot of the interstate traffic from the Portland Metro and few would care if it was a cheap but undramatic bridge.
This project is a perfect example of bloated government not being able to accomplish anything. The citizens of Oregon and Washington are happy to have the bridge replaced, but don't want to pay for all the bundled extras, like interchanges that cost more than the bridge itself, light rail to nowhere, and tolls. They could easily rebuild the bridge and not include all the extras, but refuse to look at that as an option. Also as stated in other comments, I-5 south of this bridge turns into 2 lanes and would only move the traffic jam, which will then put another 6 billion dollar burden on tax payers for another 2 billion dollar project. This project is not about traffic. It is about paying politicians donors. If it was about relieving traffic, the project would have been started in the early 2,000's when it was originally proposed.
Just don’t do it like the sellWoodbridge where you put one lane of traffic creating a nightmare 1 mile long traffic jam during rush-hour with these massive walking paths that nobody uses
I know this bridge, I lived in Portland twenty plus years ago. The I-5 bridge traffic lanes are narrow by today's standards, but IF traffic speed is reduced, it is still safe and there is no reason to tear it down for that. There is the Interstate 205 bridge that crosses the Columbia River 6.5 miles upriver to the east, it was opened in 1982, it's high enough over the river a drawbridge isn't needed, it's a good back up bridge. Portland is full of old bridges, many are over 100 years old, and the last I heard they were being maintained and upgraded. Much of old downtown Portland is also over a 100 years old made of brick unreinforced buildings, very charming, It would be shame to tear them down too for the same reason. ~ Oregon and Washington should apply the old English motto, "Make do and Mend", repair and upgrade the I-5 Columbia River bridge to the best of their abilities, but not with a perpetual endless debt ($6.5 billion) like the state of California's repair of the Oakland Bay Bridge, that is nonsense.
Bigger bridge, to handle heavier traffic, possibly more lanes, possibly light rail, wider sidewalks, and the plan is to embed it in the bedrock instead of floating wooden pilings on top of soft river sediments. How could a luxury car in 1955 be $3,000 but be $110,000 in 2024? Not only is inflation in play, but you're paying for a lot of higher functionality.
Because the average family income in 1955 was $4,400 while 2023's average was $80,610 (see Census website) and similar effects are shown on GDP, cost of goods sold, DOW 30, S&P, etc.
Great info sharing. This has been a mess for a long time, and Oregon can't seem to get their act together. Furthermore, a big part of the controversy is that what Oregon wants, and what Washington wants, are two separate things. Oregon has twice now tried to pull a "fast one" on Washington, asking Washington to pay for the things unrelated to the actual bridge replacement. With the Columbia River Crossing project, less than $1B was actually being tasked to bridge replacement, but at one point Oregon was asking Washington to pay 40% of the entire project, amounting to more than $1B alone. Once Washington voters picked up on that, and that Oregon was trying to "sneak in" a light rail public transit project to downtown Vancouver, that was pretty much the death of the CRC project (that's when Washington pulled out completely after the voters spoke up). I expect Oregon is going to continue pulling these shenanigans on the IBR project as well. Washington has been very skeptical of Oregon's intentions moving forward. This should be a Federal bridge replacement project, and let Oregon/Washington buy the bridge later (like happened originally back in the 1900s).
@@dawnanewday9671 would require a significant retrofit and upgrade. The bridge will likely collapse in an earthquake and could significantly damage the new bridge
Will YOU pay for maintenance and insurance? Leaving the old bridge in place will severely constrain the design of the new bridge as ships would need to navigate both.
Hood River & White Salmon got a bridge project lined up. The trick, no ODOT, no Metro. Also imagine posing the idea to make a public resource cost more so less people can afford access. Use that on a public school? A library?
Stupid Washington fighting light rail over the bridge even though it is Vancouver residents working and shopping in PDX that make up the bulk of traffic.
absolutely. it has to have light rail and ample pedestrian/bike lanes or it's just a waste of time. they have plans for that stuff on a separate deck and the public comment period will be open again soon so find the site and speak your piece. this is gonna take forever though. process is not streamlined and there's a lot involved including changing lanes of I5 on both sides of the river into north portland and vancouver. ugh. it's gonna be messy
washington is broken because the dumb citizens keep electing democrats who think social programs are more important than infrastructure, and getting people to work
Planning this project has turned into a permanent endeavor like homeless services. A by-pass on the west side, I205W, would solve all these problems without the politics of Portland. All those trucks from San Fransisco and Seattle would stay out of town and we would have a third choice of bridges.
No project like this has EVER come close to the 'maximum' anticipated costs. Just look at the Bay Bridge replacement in SF, that came in at almost SIX TIMES higher than the estimation, and that was using the CHEAPEST Chinese source for the bridge segments.
No govenment project comes in under budget. The OHSU Tram going up to Pill Hill started out at fifteen million, then a little more, then thirtytwo million, and a little more, ending up at sixtyfour million dollars just to avoid taking a shuttle from the offices down below to the hospital above. The funny thing is that some people will not take the tram and there is a shuttle whenever you want it.
Government rewards contracts to the lowest bidder. Companies just lowball the bid knowing they can't complete it at that cost, and then we get stuck when they run out of money partway through. Lowest bidder is BS and should be replaced with guaranteed bonded contracts.
Man this makes me wonder about the bridge going over mobile bay in alabama. Im a local and they almost built a toll bridge and the community protested and killed it. Its a bridge that needs updating. Like the majority of everyone in the country that goes to florida for vacation has to cross this bridge. Not to mention the businesses that also use it. It's so congested on the weekends it's horrible
Actually, while it certainly contributes and perhaps is responsible for starting the backups, maybe. The real issue is the marine drive and delta park on ramps. Far more oncoming traffic and nowhere for that traffic to go.
@@Fordry I agree, starting from downtown Portland going north almost immediately I-405 merges in, then traffic from Swan Island comes on. Next Interstate Ave and delta park come on, then Martin Luther King and people exiting and entering at Hayden Island. You finally cross the bridge, but traffic slows if not stops in the right lane for traffic to exit onto hwy 14. The traffic patterns all date beck to before the 205 bridge was built, and the Interstate bridge was the only game in town.
They need a tunnel. The channel is only 18 feet deep from the bridge up stream. Plenty of room in the river and on the banks. The real issue is the years of bridge construction without an I5 crossing. This would do permanent damage economically to Portland and Vancouver. I would think that river traffic would also be impacted. 1/5 of the US grain export goes under that bridge in barges.
Why is there no commuter rail between Vancouver and Portland using the Columbia River Railroad Bridge? Seattle has commuter rail to Tacoma and Everett.
@@matthewwelsh294 yes, but the first train heading out of Vancouver is at 10:09AM that is way too late for commuters, in comparison the first sounder train heading out of Tacoma is 4:50AM. Although the reverse commute can work as the last train heading out of Portland is 7:25PM which is better than Sounders 6:30PM train out of Seattle, although there is a 7:50PM Cascades train the heads south out of Seattle. All that being said cascades is no where frequent enough to be an effective commuter rail, and that’s not even mentioning how people complain about the frequency and scheduling of the sounder commuter rail.
Outrageous vehicle licensing fees paid for Sound Transit's Sounder commuter rail. And, the trains run on the existing tracks of a private company. The infrastructure costs were limited.
I'd be surprised if the cost didn't balloon to ridiculous levels. I live in Boston. The Big Dig started with an 8 billion estimate. Finished at tens of billions. So many people had to be paid, so many law suits, it was a master's class in public grifting.
I agree, the Big Dig is a giant lesson. The difference here is that there is nobody living in the river to fight for land or underground rights. That area is already reserved for the bridge that exists.
While more lanes ARE needed, the main problem is the dumping of traffic onto the bridge from highway 14 and from the reengineered traffic from Lombard, Marine drive and Jantzen Beach. The traffic is dumped without enough lanes to accommodate each new entrancing traffic. There were far less problems before the Lombard on/off ramps were closed resulting in pouring so much traffic into one entrance point. The other problem is Jantzen Beach should have their own lane for exiting and entrance to the freeway. That stated, most problems are the way Oregon re engineered the traffic pattern going north and the way Oregon deals with Jantzen Beach traffic. They all cause logjams - I feel Oregon shoulders most of the blame in poor traffic management.
As an Oregonian I dont want to pay any more than Washington, and refuse to pay any toll. Oregon's local and state government know how to waste hundreds of millions on stupid "studies" so its no surprise nothing ever gets done. I doubt this bridge will be replaced anytime soon.
Years ago I had read there were plans to have a western bypass similar to I-205 to the east. But funds were diverted to fund the Max light rail. Can anyone confirm this? I’ve spent many hours crossing over those bridges.
@@Freedom17762 no one does that better than the U.S. military! Hundreds of dollars for....one cup. They even most Recently spent $8000 for one bathroom soap dispenser. So take that up with the military industrial complex. The federal govt programs crucial to keeping the country running are underfunded severely enough already BECAUSE of the defense budget and they'll blame anyone and everyone they can before they admit it.🇺🇲🦅
@@Freedom17762 Government is all of us, so we are wasting our own money by continuing to elect people who refuse to support the completion of any solutions.
For the bridge replacement and against light rail. The light rail portion has numerous issues. First, per a portion of your video, the light rail portion costs more than the construction of the bridge itself. (And if the Bay Bridge replacement is any guideline, costs will skyrocket well beyond the $6B median estimate.) That's a problem. Second, light rail lines will permanently take up lane space, so the productivity of those lanes will be much smaller than if they were vehicle lanes. Third, light rail requires permanent taxpayer subsidies and would typically require a sales tax surcharge on the Washington side of the bridge, and perhaps bonds for Clark County taxpayers to pay off, like the BART to San Jose extension. The better approach is to build at least 4 total lanes each way and dedicate one lane, during commute hours, to bus traffic. Transit buses don't require the level of capital investment that light rail does. One can easily add or reduce bus traffic to accommodate changes in traffic and commute patterns, and buses go places light rail doesn't. Maintenance costs will be lower as it's all roadway maintenance, not roadway and railway maintenance. And Washington taxpayers won't be dragged in to paying for Portland's light rail. The insistence of the Oregon side to adding light rail has delayed this project by over a decade and is causing the price to skyrocket. It's ridiculous that bridge that cost $140M, inflation adjusted, will now cost $6B to replace (and I bet it will be $10B). Taxpayers aren't made of money; it's time to build a cost effective replacement.
Yeah, the fight over this is ridiculous. It’s a 100+ year old DRAW BRIDGE (ffs!) sitting on wooden pylons on one of the busiest stretches of I-5. It should have been replaced 30 years ago, but no one wants to foot the bill. The feds should cover a large chunk of it because it’s an interstate but it will very likely need to be tolled as well, which I think is the biggest sticking point outside of light rail. The reality is, though, that this bridge is primarily used by freight and people who live in SW Washington (who already dodge income and sales tax), so they need to shut up and pay up.
why should my tax dollars build your bridge? My state needs highway work as well. The greed for OPM (other people's money) is the real issue here. Everyone wants everything, but no one wants the bill sent to them. Well, this is a west coast problem to be paid for by west coast tax payers. With the way our left coast treats businesses and workers, good luck with that.
The vast majority of SW Washington residents who use the bridge work in Oregon, so no, they’re not dodging any taxes. They pay Oregon state income taxes and taxes to the city of Portland every year, while not benefitting from most of that tax money. If you earn income in Oregon, regardless of where you live, you pay state income taxes.
"It is a popular delusion that the government wastes vast amounts of money through inefficiency and sloth. Enormous effort and elaborate planning are required to waste this much money." P. J. O'Rourke
Lived in Portland all my 75 years. The I-5 bridge has been outdated since it was built. Unbelievable traffic back-ups 24/7. Complete traffic shut down when the bridge lifts. The I-205 bridge is also overloaded now. I was stuck on the bridge for over two hours last time I to used it. I dread driving North and avoid it as much as possible. A new bridge should have been built decades ago.
The amount of traffic, a new bridge is justified. I would love to see the old bridge turn into a surface street, historically reasons, name it Denver ave. You could use one of the old bridges for max and bike paths, the other for cars. Then build a new 4 lane each way bridge. It’s over due by 20 years.
Amazing how far costs spiral out of control. New bridges will cost (inflation adjusted) 20 times the cost the second bridge built in the fifties mind boggling. This is why nothing infrastructure wise gets done because of astronomical costs and every agency getting their cut along with contractors cheaping out on materials to squeeze even more money and then cost overruns are inevitable. Those bridges should cost nowhere more then one billion to replace.
![SAFEPLANET - ดาวเคราะห์ [ THE PLANET ]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/4X1XL3I_k3c/mqdefault.jpg)
Being able to maintain river traffic is going to play into the success of this plan more than most people are aware. The commercial impact of marine traffic is huge
Is river traffic going to pay tolls?
@@michaelspring3915 no, federal law doesn't allow it
@@michaelspring3915are the pedestrians going to pay toll
@@michaelspring3915 they'll pay taxes that pay for this bridge
Really? I'd like to see the numbers for lost revenue for ships that actually require lifting of the bridge. Is there that much money being shipped east of the bridge down the Columbia?
Why does it seem like this has been going on for at least the last 40 years
Because it has. And because Washington State doesn't want to pay their fair share, its infuriating.
@@InsidiousSwedeI don’t think thats true at all. The last bridge died because Clark County lobbied hard against tolls and light rail. Olympia is far more involved and this proposal and is pushing it along.
The city of Vancouver and Washington have been using excuses for years like that. Fact is, Washington's economic center is Seattle, nowhere near this EXTREMELY expensive bridge. Whereas the current bridge is literally inside Portland's boundaries.
@@InsidiousSwede The City of Vancouver has been pro bridge for awhile. You are confusing deep Clark County and District 3 republicans with liberal City if Vancouver leadership.
@@InsidiousSwede Washington State and Clark County are more than willing to pay their fair share, they however refuse to pay anything and have any part in a Light Rail line going across the bridge into their city and county. And they're smart for that. They have zero plans in Vancouver for it at all, Clark County is the same, and even CTRAN has no plans to accommodate a line there either. Voters and CTRAN/TriMet riders alike in Clark County and Vancouver have gone as far as to vote unanimously to legally rid themselves of having anything to do with a MAX extension into their city, county and jurisdiction, because they do NOT want it at all. That of course means we Oregonians will be forced to foot the multi-billion dollar bill for the Yellow Line extension into Vancouver that the IBR and TriMet are hellbent on forcing through. Aka, it is not the ridership or the voters that support and want the damn thing, it is the Government agencies. So who to blame for the issue here? TriMet, and the IBR itself. They're not letting it go no matter what, and it is that specifically that is the main lynchpin holding any progress back. We'd seriously rather the bridge just collapse into the river than give into their bullshit and pay for the stupid LRT extension no one actually wants. The tiniest little minority of bitchy people want it, but most do not and hold a lot of contempt and disdain for their instance upon it, as they should.
They're smart up there in Clark County, clearing smarter than most voters and people down here in the Portland area. That much is abundantly clear. And they're staunch in their self-determination, whereas here, most people rather force others to swallow what they deem "best" and "needed". Thank god enough people learned the lessons TriMet was dishing out left and right when it came to their stupid "Transportation Bond Measures", aka, New MAX line Funding Packages if they were honest, and rejected the last one. They finally learned and know better now than to approve of those TBMs because we've had enough of their bullshit, lies, and stupid "capital projects" with the MAX grifting. It's just the way they get all that phat stacks of kickback paychecks from big name developers and contractors, as well as Federal Funds to squander away on god knows what as always. As a diehard Transit Whore and hellbent on improving and expanding the system _THE RIGHT WAY_, I hope everyone here rejects the next one, too. Call them out to their faces even more aggressively and viciously, let them know we know fully now, and we will NOT let them get away with their bullshit again. Take some power and control back. LRT is NOT the way to do this. BRT and Metro/Subway is at the local level, Regional, IC and ICE at the metro area to outer area level (up to 60 or so miles out from the start/end point, in this case, Downtown Portland and Vancouver, respectively). Emphasize pedestrians and bicyclists, while repurposing the roads to better accommodate such, as well as safety and community. Make it multi-modal. And all new rail would be entirely grade-separated, too. But, that'll never happen anywhere in the US, because it's not profitable, and they are not running transit agencies to serve the public, contrary to popular belief. But I digress.
I think you underplayed how much of the controversy is over the freeway expansions to north and south.
Ignoring this is ignoring the majority of the issue.
The bridge replacement is being used to try to shove in miles of massive unnecessary freeway expansion. EXPANDING THE FREEWAY WONT FIX TRAFFIC! The ONLY way to fix traffic is by building ALTERNATIVES TO CARS!
@@Bandit1379. they need to built two other bridges first to alleviate the traffic. Like 192 in Vancouver to Portland and one at Richfield across. Then it won’t screw up everything for 5 years, the tolls will be like another car payment. If they ripe out the I 5 bridge.
@@davem3148 You think it will only take five years 😅😂😂
@ In reality it only took 10 months to rebuild the one in Minnesota, same size bridge, with light rail, it should be done just as quickly but Oregon and Washington and the union workers will milk it for as long as can. This project may take a lot longer and cost is already over 7 billion.
A big part of the controversy is that folks in Vancouver do not want "alternative transportation" because it's ridiculous to think folks will bike the long distance to Portland in the dark rain which makes up much of the years commute. Furthermore the crime that follows the light rail system isn't desired either.
Portland's obsession with bicycling is also delusionally toxic. It's just not reasonable for the majority of the year for the majority of folks. Whether it's Portland state shutting down street parking to removing more and more lanes for bicycles that ultimately service less humans in motion than the original lane. While alternative transportation has value, plotting it as an ether or is not helping.
As for opposing expansion of freeways... The delusion more freeways creates more traffic is ill informed. Studies simply show that expending a highway below what is needed long after the need don't cure the problem.
We really need 2 or 3 more Bridges over the Columbia between the Longview Bridge and the Glen Jackson bridge
Highway 30 can't handle the traffic.
we definitely need something, htis traffic between portland and vancouver is rediculous
@@GreeceUranusPutin It can't HANDLE the traffic, but it's still GETTING the traffic whether they replace the Longview-Rainier bridge or not. Typical of Oregon to allow the only highway on the Columbia River that goes to Portland to remain a dangerous and outdated two-lane joke.
@@MarkMay-cr6bv People are supposed to use I-5, a federal highway, which parallels hwy 30. There will NEVER be a restricted-access 4-lane highway 30.
An additional bridge at St. Helens and a freight-only bridge that hits HW30, the Port of Portland, and the Port of Vancouver would be great.
Realistic estimates that take into account corruption and cost overruns should end up north of 10 billion. And a 4 year delay.
The corruption is built in nowadays, something that should cost 100 million is now 6 billion. But you are probably still correct.
Thanks for your excellent reporting on critical infrastructure in the Pacific Northwest.
Hey, hats off to the original builders. The first half of the brige has worked for over 100 years and the second half (mirror of the original plans) for over 60. It's not the bridge -- the problem is all heavy traffic going through the needle's eye in and out of Portland. Best solution would be to build two bridges to connect to WA 192nd to I-84 and from Ridgefield to connect to Hwy 26 (tunnel under Skyline Blvd instead of up Cornelius Pass). Problem solved for the 21st Century and much cheaper than a mega project like the proposed I-5 bridge that's been hampered by too many engineers and politicians.
And it wouldn’t interfere with the airport…
@@davidzimmerman1246 there really is not much demand. The cove is just a bedroom community for libertarians who want to commute. Building more bridges does not benefit Portland
Exactly what I've he saying for years
I like the idea of a bridge connecting Ridgefield to Oregon for sure.
@@erikanders3343 Not sure if it benefits Portland or not but I drive on 84 from the Gorge heading back to Vancouver all the time and I would love to not have to add 20+ minutes fighting traffic on 205. I think a bridge from Gresham/Troutdale area to East Vancouver/Camas would definitely benefit Portland because 205 is a major pathway to the airport so any 84 to WA traffic could circumvent that important section of freeway.
The last on ramp before the bridge going south bound is a death trap too.
I’ve thought for a long time that they should end the right lane before the 14 to I5 interchange. Traffic bottlenecks anyway so why do they make 14 mergers have to fight to merge?
Maby for you.
The last on ramp going north, from Jantzen Beach is crazy as well.
This bridge project has been a hot topic for so long! It’ll be interesting to see how it all plays out. Thanks for the inside scoop!
the challenge is, even after the bridge project, I-5 still narrows to 2 lanes in each direction going passed the Moda Center. It would be a shame to spend $6+B and just move the bottleneck a few miles to the South.
Excellent point. Especially since that work on I5 near moda is also currently gridlocked.
Baby steps. Put off doing a piece that brings significant benefits now at a known cost (excluding the inevitable overruns) or wait another 20 years intel the project cost balloons another 100%-200% and live with the growing costs of delayed traffic. We need to plan for the future we want to live in, just like the original builders (I'm a resident since 1959).
issue is they propose expanding the lanes going south of the bridge but all the proponents of Portland deem it unnecessary, almost like they ignore the fact that I-5 is bigger than Portland itself. They concern it with more bike paths, public transit, and pedestrian focus approaches.
Ultimately the above between Vancouver's argument and Portland's - makes this project keep ticking instead of putting feelings away for 5 minutes and just getting this crap done. Wait another decade or two and were spending 10 to 15 billion easily on this.
I see the comment made a lot. This ignores that traffic can also travel I-405 north and south, and can take MLK, if those are too congested. There is a ton of traffic that passes over the Interstate bridge that never crosses that 2 lane section of I-5 you reference.
Saying it just moves the bottleneck doesn't make any real sense. All the proposed bridge plans in the IBR will alleviate commutes into and out of Portland in many ways. Wash residents going to a concert at Moda or any number of other venues? Park in Washington, take the max. Same for shopping, bar hopping, dancing, exploring the city, etc, etc.
Bike path over the current Interstate bridge is a convoluted mess. The IBR will make it considerably easier to travel by bike between states/cities.
Anyone with a condo or house near any of the max stops, is likely to see the value rise considerably. Walkable areas are a huge consideration for many city dwellers.
All of these additional modes of transit take many cars off the road, and reduce the number of miles and hours they spend driving.
that's an Oregon problem.
Washington residents largely see this bridge as a Portland and Vancouver issue. The problem with this simplified viewpoint is that I-5 is the road that feeds Seattle and gets US goods to Canada. The country depends on the I-5 corridor and Seattle is its main benefactor.
I just want it built already, the longer they wait the more it cost.
No. Keeping a bridge in operation extra 10 years costs zero. Prices can come down, in 2000s prices came down, for cement and steel..... Engineers act like a 1 in million chance of collapse is awful, but we accept a 1 in 10000 chance of death yearly in road accidents.... W 2 spans if 1 collapses can use 2nd..... People who commute across the Columbia 20 miles are idiots, we should slap a $30 toll and laugh..... Last, light rail is dumb, just fly to Seattle no need to ask me to build you a rail bridge...
@@amyself6678 This has to be the dumbest and most uninformed comment I have ever read about the bridge. Congratulations.
it would have been done already if OR and WA put their head together and funded it. but they went over the citizens head and got federal inflationary spending to do it.
@@maxxordinate5088 Absolutely not, it’s a federal freeway, the federal government should be paying for a majority of the project.
In Minnesota NE of Twin Cities into Wisconsin we have the Stillwater bridge across St. Croix river which separates WI from MN, which MN didn't want to re-build the dinky metal old fashioned bridge since it would encourage sprawl into WI. Eventually they did rebuild it into a massive and high concrete bridge, but it took about 20 years. No state likes building bridges to another state which then leads to endless sprawl. The St. Croix river doesn't lead to anywhere vital so no need to accomodate shipping, and due to zebra mussels and invasive weeds they even ban recreational boating past the zone of Stillwater. . . . Long ago there was a 1900 plan to build a canal from St. Croix to Duluth, but it would've cost too much.
I'm 54 lived in the area my whole life. I wonder if there will be a new bridge in my lifetime, and if it or Cascadia happens first.
I am 78 and the new bridge has been talked about since I was about 35.
Look up uodated articles on the cascadia "big one." We're mostly past the main window for that to happen. And all the little earthquakes the region has been experiencing over the years, is said to have likely gradually released the stress and tension of the CSZ so that when (or if) it ever hits, it will not be 8-9 magnitude levels of stress all releasing at the same time.
All that to say so we should be in the clear of a "big one."
My father is a higher up in the department of transportation on the Washington side, and has overseen working on the bridge on and off over the last 18 or so years, and he says it’s something that’s disputed by everyone, but not in a way where people know what they want, but the higher ups can’t decide wether they should spend billions to replace it while also removing what many in the region consider a historic landmark.
Also for people who don’t live here, the I 205 bridge (the detour interstate for I-5), at least as far as I’ve seen, is far more busy yet streamlined and carries far more cars per day as Portland has expanded far more eastern over the past 50 years.
When creeping across the I-5 bridge once my dad suggested a new bridge next to it, replacing the newest I-5 bridge span, and make the original I-5 bridge into a bicycle/pedestrian bridge.
Thanks for a very informative video! I've been curious about this bridge and its replacement.
By adding tolls to the deal they will cause massive overcrowding of the Glen Jackson bridge as people avoid these tolls. Better to just float bonds to cover it but what do I know. We do really need more crossing option for the future if the Green loons will stop obstructing anything to do with progress.
The issue of increased traffic on 205 will be addressed with tolls there also. In the name of
congestion equity................
@@bill3641 That will be something to see. And where exactly do they erect those toll booths? LOL.
@@richknudsen5781 Wherever they want
OfCourse..........
The fact is there is so much bureaucracy in this project its just mind boggling.
You probably voted for more bureaucracy.
@@ExploringCabinsandMines You don't have the first clue what that person did or didn't vote for. Gow up, little boy.
Two blue states and two insane blue cities and you are surprised?
@@MarkMay-cr6bvhe said PROBABLY. This makes sense to say this if you actually live here like I do. Portland is insanely blue and loves to vote for bureaucrats, red tape and paperwork.
I own a business here and the rules are never ending as are the taxes for business
And competing priorities. No consensus.
$6 Billion to tie up traffic for 15 years, which according to people in the know is the projected construction time. It would be money ahead to replace the entire bridge with a new multi lane bridge constructed up river a half mile and either leave or destroy the existing when the new bridge is completed.
It's only this way because they keep delaying it while the problem keeps getting worse. If they'd taken care of this in 1995 it would have been massively cheaper, faster, and simpler.
We need the outside the box thinking - Tunnel it and maintain the current bridge until the new tunnel is complete. Option to keep the existing bridge as transit and pedestrian only bridge.
I think the tunnel requires much more consideration. Not only would it be more efficient in construction but it also eliminates the ship access issue and, assuming the bridge is removed, clears the skyline of what is truthfully a bit of an eyesore. The Columbia with Mt Hood on the horizon is gorgeous, let’s preserve the view
@@cloudwatcher608 I totally agree, a project like Boston's Big Dig would solve a multitude of problems while allowing the existing surface road to handle local traffic. If chosen, it will take at least a decade to complete and cost will be ridiculous but 20 years from now we'll be saying "thank GOD we did it!"
Recent reports indicate that the U.S. has approved an additional $3.5 billion in military aid to Israel. This brings the total amount of U.S. aid to Israel to approximately $161.5 billion since its founding in 1948 but we don’t have money here to build a simple bridge
Fun fact: s U.S. taxpayers pay into (and basically support) Israel's own universal healthcare system. Yet we don't have enough to find it (or even TRY) for ourselves. I'm not kidding either. Look it up. Really gets ppl to look into Just how MUCH of Israel's entire economy we essentially Fund.
There's a reason why Clark County WA residents have rejected lightrail into Vancouver. Besides, even if the new bridge had twenty lanes, further south at the 405 interchange lanes are reduced causing additional congestion.
The reason is incompetence
is the reason the same as milwaukie, where they thought the light rail would devalue their homes and bring homeless people to milwaukie? because guess what didn't happen in milwaukie
@@coarel2788 DING DING DING!!! We have the CORRECT answer. Don Benton and Dave Madore were out front about how light rail and dedicated bus lanes would bring THOSE people and crime.
@@robertkoreis of course! because the only reason THOSE people aren't going to vancouver is because they don't have access to it! there's surely no other reason!
An bigger reason is that Vancouverites (and other Washingtonians) don't want the creeping $hithole that is Portland OR to ooze into Washington, via more lanes and a light rail system that is well used by bangers and the homeless.
The entire I-5 corridor thru the Portland area needs a total revamp. Fixing the bridge will just move the backup into Portland 1 mile further South. Northbound it will help a lot.
What few realize is that the bridge often lifts for ships that can easily fit underneath the humpback portion farther out in the river. Why then? The Burlington Northern Railroad Bridge 9.6, which is just downstream of it, also opens, but as a swing span and is equally close to the shore as the Interstate Bridge's lift. That rail bridge doesn't have a similar raised portion out in the river, and so if a ship were to travel under the Interstate Bridge's hump in the middle of the river, it would have to attempt what is often an impossible or near-impossible maneuver to quickly line itself up with the rail bridge's swing span, and vice versa.
Much of the big river traffic are barges, which are not able to make such a maneuver, and thus they will opt to go straight through both bridges' openings. My point with all of this? The new bridge is pointless in terms of anything outside of safety, unless the new bridge has its max clearance level at where the current lift is, or unless the rail bridge is replaced/modified so that the new opening is farther out in the river, shifting the straight line of safe navigation.
This is fake information and not true.
So let's do nothing... Got it
@@Pokesalad222 Did you even read my comment? The clear point of it is that this other bridge must be addressed simultaneously OR Interstate Bridge's lift site must be replaced with the peak height of the new bridge, which, given proximity to the shore, presents more complex engineering challenges.
@@jaymao3511 It's 100% true, look it up. There are videos on TH-cam about it. If you've ever seen a bridge lift in person, you'd realize that much of the lift traffic are ships/barges that could fit underneath the hump.
@@TR-zx1lc that they have been studying since the 90s!
I’ve lived in Oregon for 24 years and they’ve been trying to get this done the whole time, I think it’ll take a major earthquake to rebuild this thing
I've done extensive research on the history of the Interstate Bridge and as far back as the 1970s, people have debated replacing it.
Being a resident of Vancouver my entire life I always tell people: Get this thing built ASAP before an earthquake will make the decision for you.
I guarantee you they'll wait for the earthquake.
as a washington citizen you should be telling your state/local politicians to get it done. Oregon wants this done and is going to do it, but Washington has a long history of pulling out of shared projects at the last minute. Washington also refuses to implement common sense transit solutions that would alleviate traffic across the bridge going forward.
This would have been done decades ago if Washington wasn't dragging their feet and trying to get everyone else to pay for it.
If this bridge goes down the traffic will get 100x worse than it already is
I live near here and I can’t recall a earthquake in the past 8 years
@@staceybarnes6165 8 years is tiny time in the grand scheme of things.
Uncle Lou lived in Ambridge, Pennsylvania.
Named after the American Bridge Division United States Steel Corporation.
They made steel bridges. It’s all gone now.
I was thinking about things like this. Computers and IT are now the number one most valuable industry in the world. We gave that away too. The Chinese didn't even know how to make any of that stuff, we went over there and TAUGHT them. Very different from what the textbooks in Economics will tell you, about comparative advantage and that. Our companies fly into other places and teach them how to put us out of business. Its disgusting. My family also from PA btw.
If Trump were President they'd still be out of business if that's where you're going.
I live in vancouver, I was doing a job for a customer who was an underwater welder for the state, he does patchwork to the bridges to "keep it going" he said they're barely staying up, there's spots underwater so rusted away you can watch it flex from the river/traffic above
Bridges always flex; that's what they do. Rigid structures fail when they flex the material in the wrong place. I'm not explaining this well but I hope you understand. Go up to the top of a tall building and experience how much they sway and bounce.
@@1dariansdad I do understand they have to be able to move, but certain parts of a structure need to be rigid, and the parts that are supposed to weren't
I hope you understand that
If he worked for the state of Washington, he's never touched the I-5 bridge. Period. An no such reports have come back from any engineer about such issues with the I-5 bridge either.
The state of Oregon does all the I-5 bridge's maintenance. He may not be wrong concerning other bridges up I-5 corridor in Washington though.
We'll be well into the next ice age before this ever gets done. Might as well wait and just drive across the frozen Columbia river.
Not sure that's how climate change works but I bought a sled and a jet ski just in case.
Whatever happened to the Westside bypass? It would reduce the commercial traffic over the I-5:bridge significantly.
Didn’t Multnomah county essentially steal the west side bypass funds to build the max line way back?
@@bluezhawg2104- "Redirected" would be a better term. The money went to public transportation either way.
@ Redirected, misappropriated or stolen when it comes to government it’s one and the same.
This bridge needs replaced yes, there also needs to be more crossings added. Having only 2 bridges between Vancouver and Portland is ridiculous considering the amount of commuters and the fact that the next closest Columbia River crossing is 36 miles away in Longview WA, and even if you detour that way on your way South you still aren't able to avoid the PDX metro area traffic. Meanwhile the City of Portland has TEN bridges crossing the Willamette, it's absurd.
This is a really good video!
Two interesting proposals I've heard would add new bridges. One would start from highway 120 at Marine Drive and run parallel to the existing railroad bridge and connect to highway 501 in Washington; the other would start on hwy 99E (Martin Luther King Blvd.) where it bends toward the west and cross to connect with highway 14 in Washington. Another idea was to start from where highway 26 turns west in Gresham and go north to connect with highway 14 in Washingon, crossing Lady Island and connecting near Camas.
sad by the time the bridge is done , they will need another bridge aross the columbia. this happened to the 205 bridge. by the time it was finished. the bridge all ready over crowded with cars. traffic increase every year.and they want to much built on it, transibt stations extra.
It also doesn't help that we just build bridges instead of transit. This causes the bridges to immediately be at capacity from the moment they open with no other options to get across the river other than cars/bus.
Washington refuses to implement common sense transit solutions to traffic congestion. Oregon wants to build rail across the river but Washington won't fund any of it. Ctran is a joke in terms of connecting Portland/Vancouver. You literally have to take a bus across the bridge and wait in traffic.
The official name for this is induced demand. Pretty well-studied, but the DOTs are extremely slow to change, and not really incentivized to.
@@CRneu i agree. vancouver it self is afraid that a transit rail service would bring crime from portland , just like it brought more crime to gresham......
@@CRneu Unless they are forced to use it, mass transit is the last choice in
the pacific northwest. Facts
When I first moved to Portland they were talking about replacing the bridge. I moved to Portland in 1998. Also wooden pilings? Wtf??
The city of Venice is built on hundreds of thousands of wood pilings. They work.
What do you think they should have used?
It was 1917. There is 115 feet of sediment between the river bed and the bedrock (thank you, Missoula floods). I don't know if they had any viable alternative. And wooden pilings have a very solid track record.
@@eritain I never knew the northbound span is actually the original bridge. Yeah definitely time for the whole bridge to go. Then again there is a bridge in Philadelphia from 1697 so I guess bridges are stronger than I thought
Have you seen the trees in the PNW. They are definitely capable of holding a bridge, which is why it is still standing 100 years later. We do need to prepare for a future earthquake however, we don't want to be Texas or Florida.
@@sojourner57 well, most of the time, they work. It has been an issue recently
I cross this bridge 4x daily. Twice in my personal vehicle and twice in my cmv taking freight to Seattle. New bridge with accompanying light rail would be dope.
One of the prior situations that could be a model for this is the so-called "Big Dig", an east coast megaproject that ran in Boston from the initial work in 1991 to the completion in 2006. Let's do it better this time, please.
It's more likely to go the way that the work on the Tacoma Narrows bridge did. With them doing one bridge at a time and setting the other one up to be bidirectional in the meantime.
they are several places along I-5 between woodland wa and kalama wa,to build a bridge over the columbia river into oregon that would cost less and improve traffic conditions on both sides of the river
We need another bridge on Highway 30 in my town in Saint Helens
Lolz…Im from St. Helens
Why? Other than local convenience. No ones gonna spend billions so people can get to longview faster.
No doubt it will take collapse and loss of life to get this project started. Kickbacks on the construction of this bridge will be huge. Talk about Golden Parachutes. This will help the politicians retire very comfortably.
Great video, and a key component of the info provided is that the ACTUAL bridge is only 3/4 of a mile of the 5 mile long project. This project could have been completed LONG ago if politicians and special interests hadn't dog-piled the project to add their pieces of pork. (Sorry for the mixed metaphors...) I travel from the Central/Chehalis area weekly to care for my aging father in Corvallis. A key component of my 350 mile round-trip commute is having to leave the house by 4:00AM in order to hit the bridge deck no later than 5:30AM, or I get tied up in traffic. That's south-bound. North-bound I have to leave my Dad's house no later than 12:00PM in order to get across the river, and I usually STLL face a 2-3 mile long backup through Delta Park just to get to the bridge deck. Continuing to NOT replace this piece of aging, inadequate infrastructure, will only add to the cost, frustration and potential lost revenue from businesses that depend on the bridge WHEN disaster strikes, and it WILL eventually.
@@sojourner57 I kinda agree with your comment, but because of the increase in bridge height the grade of the freeway has to change. Which is why they have to replace miles of freeway.
It needs to happen and a big part of the cost is the on/off ramps!
Ready to pay a $3 toll each way weekly plus every time you need to cross for any other reason?
Unfortunately I do not see this happening until it absolutely has to be done. As in bridge failure or partial failure. I hope I am wrong but it's Oregon and Washington two of the biggest government wasting bureaucracies in the US.
I am old enough to remember my father stopping to pay the tolls in the 60’s 🤣 and I hate the traffic between Vancouver and Portland, there’s never a good time anymore, well maybe 2am 😂
It'll be under-built, just like I-5 completion in the'60s. Sure, it worked for 7 years, maybe 8, then issues started to become evident. This is just boondoggle waiting to happen.
I worked in Tacoma for 22 years and watched the SR16 & I-5 interchange being rebuilt/ redesigned and that project took almost 21 years to complete. This IBR replacement? Will be at least half of that I'll wager.
Portland has always built conservative, unable to think big. The undersized rink in Memorial Coliseum kept Portland from getting an NHL franchise decades ago.
I commute over this bridge every day for school and it’s truly a nightmare for anyone coming into Portland in the AM or leaving in the PM. It’s slowed to at a crawl each morning by 7am.
People retired having meetings about the bridge with huge pensions and nothing has been done
Probably one of the most frustrating facts about this whole thing
I don’t think a lot of people realize the organal span which was built in 1917 is still there and that the one which is being held up by wood pylons that span is over 100 yrs old, I can’t remember if it’s the north or south bound span but it’s still being used. I’m 73 yrs old and I remember when they built the second span back in 1960 and it cost us .20cents every time we went over it. But with all the traffic on it today we do need a new bridge. And if u type I-5 bridge on google it’s the only interstate bridge between Mexico and Canada and it’s the most used of all the bridges between river traffic and auto traffic.
We need a new bridge there plus 2 more. One, east of I205, that goes from Fairview OR area to Camas WA area and another, west of I5, St Helens OR area to Woodland WA area.
Looking at the thumbnail, thinking dang, that bridge looks familiar... grew up 45 minutes north of it.
They should just fix the existing bridge there are bridges that are way older that get restored the Brooklyn bridge was built in the 1800s there are no calls for knocking it down there is a bridge here it can be repaired and improvements can be made to the bridge we currently own and have
New York is not susceptible to 9.0+ earthquakes...
@@Fordry neither are we anymore, apparently. Look it up. Scientists and seismologists agree that all the little earthquakes this region has been experiencing in the recent decade has done enough to slowly and bit by bit alleviate the tension in the CSZ to the point there's not enough left to snap up with the same force needed to generate a 8-9 earthquake anymore. Not to mention we're toward the end of the "window" for when that earthquake was most likely.
I drive over this bridge 5 days a week. Traffic isn't too bad on the bridge itself compared to PDX traffic. I do not want to pay for a toll everytime i crossit. $6 a day, $120 a month to just drive?
in the meantime build one by camas and one west of the interstate
West of I-5 unfortunately isn't possible, given the Port of Portland's main terminals and storage facilities are all right there, as is Kelly Point and Smith & Bybee Lakes parks on the Portland side, and the main industrial for Vancouver is also directly across the river there, with the wetlands and park of Vancouver Lake also being right there, too. That disallows anything like it from getting built, and makes it non-viable. The one east of 205 is possible, though again, you'd need to demolish A LOT of development just to squeeze it in, though the Sandy River Delta is also right there, as is Troutdale Airport... so unless the south end is a tunnel portal, it won't work either. We're actually screwed along this portion of the Columbia, when it comes to crossing abilities. Thus why supporting the Frog Ferry concept is genuinely a great idea, at least to connect Portland and Vancouver with each other in another way. Perhaps they could give people more reason to hit up Hayden Island and/or the Expo Center for once with such a service. A short hop ferry just to shuttle people across the river. Thus, we'd have a third option. If we could add in or reconstruct the BNSF Rail bridge to the west of the current I-5 Bridge, to then have say, 3 or 4 tracks, with at least two electrified, with at least one of them being strictly for passenger services, then we could implement a trolley with a metro's capacity to do quick short hops from St. Johns to Downtown Vancouver, or a true express Metro that would go from Downtown Portland to Downtown Vancouver, with a stop or two in between, possibly Swan Island and St. Johns for the two stop, or just St. Johns for the one middle stop. Technically being west of Downtown Vancouver, one could also place a middle stop in West Vancouver, too, I suppose.
But do you know what would stop these problems? IMMERSED TUNNELS! "They're far too harmful on the environment and fish passage, as far more expensive than the bridges", they cry their favorite lies. But that's just it - the IBR has lied and fabricated all the BS they use against the tunnels. Anyone who has common sense, and does basic research knows this. But, tunnels would be the quickest, cheapest, most efficient path to achieve a new crossing. And we all know how the governments and contractors despise such things, because they can't milk it for ever penny they possibly can.
the people of camas will never let a bridge in their town lol
@@MrBearcatjewtrolls only bring up the 3rd bridge because they know that would never be built as it would cost 100x more to build a 3rd bridge and supporting whole new highways for said 3rd bridge than to just replace the existing bridge (that they don't want to pay for)
I'm 56 and grew up in Portland and still living in the area and being a driver by trade I've always thought the I5 bridge needs to be replaced. The way it bottlenecks on the approach to it on the Oregon side is almost scary. I've always been amazed that there isn't more wrecks right there and how it narrows down soon as you get on it makes it a waaaaaaay out dated bridge. Vancouver really wronged it self not going allong with the project that would have brought light rail to there city. NOW? It all comes down to money. That bridge will never be replaced till something happens that makes it so it has to be replaced or close it permanently.
Fun Fact, the Cascadia Subduction Zone and San Juan Fault Line off the coast of Washington and Oregon don't just have the potential for a 9.0 earthquake, it's one of the only seismic zones in the world that can actually hit above a 9.4 in theory. I love scaring all the Cali transplants here with that, tell em about "The Big One" that we got drilled into our heads in middle school.
I enjoyed reminding them of The Capes in Oceanside and the houses off skyline blvd - just due to poor design and how developers somehow get around geological inconveniences to make their $$$ and split….
LOL, no native Californian is going to be bothered by the idea of "The Big One" . We have also heard it our whole lives. I've been through a 7.3, a 6.7, a 6.6 and a 6.5. Granted that's no 9.4, but I imagine all 4 are bigger than anything a living PNW'r has felt.
@@bipedaltoolmaker yeah I think the last major one was back in 01, capped at 6.8. Might be another I'm forgetting but telling them about a possible 9.4 and Mt. St. Helens gets some of em jumpy. Some of the army brats that came through JBLM would get freaked out hearing about all this as well. Helps when Mt. Rainier is in full view with a good snow cap on it for extra effect, good prop to point at looming in the distance.
If Portland gets hit with a big quake the bridge will be the least of their problems. Many of the downtown buildings are built on dirt washed off of the West Hills and is not as firm as you might like. If a big quake hits many of the buildings will sink into the ground as happened in San Francisco decades ago.
There's a few articles now coming to a consensus btwn seismologists, scientists and geologists that the steady stream of earthquakes and tremors the region's been getting has slowly but surely chipped away at the amount of tension in the CSZ to produce "the big one." Not to mention, we're coming out of the tail end of the "opportunity window" for it to happen. We're still always gonna be susceptible to a 7 even with all the little regional earthquakes, but that 8-9 window is gradually (and thankfully) passing.
We need a new bridge so badly
If 47.5 Million cars cross it per year, the toll could be $2 per car and it'd be paid for in under 10 years. But they won't. It'll be $6 per car and the tolls will remain long after its paid for itself.
Tolls reduce congestion. The reason traffic is so bad is Washington residents clogging up this chokepoint to save $3 in sales tax.
@@Ponchoed I don't see "control of travel" something that anyone will get on
board for except politicians, and they are the ones that should be far way
from public projects. Thats what engineers are trained for.
@@Ponchoed Yep, saving the Washington sales tax that replaced their Oregon income tax. Can't escape death and taxes.
I live in Oregon and worked in WASHINGTON(now retired) Driving trucks across the old bridge is dangerous as those are very narrow lanes with off and on ramps very close to both ends of the bridge. Back when they but in the second bridge it was not a problem as there was not as much traffic back them but now it is a nightmare trying to get a truck up to speed with those short on ramps, wider trucks and fast cars, and ways more traffic. Toles would relieve some of those problems (ie less traffic). But it still would be bad if they do not find some way to slow the people down during rush hour at least. This just my thought on the area that I drove through for over thirty years. Money is expensive, but if they do not get off their tails it will cost 10 bil. or more>
No forever tolls please
Once you build the booths, those tolls will never go away.
I’ll be dead before this ever gets decided
Also tolling an interstate is lame.
9$ each way
@@mikeall9374if that's each time..how is that even a reality.? Ha. That would fuck so many of us including me. I don't get it
It’s just to put light rail in for the river front project. They are the donors to the democrats , the real reason they want a new bridge. It doesn’t fix anything,doesn’t add lanes, doesn’t fix the bottleneck at moda center. They sure try to scare you though with that earthquake crap. If that happened all the other Intersate bridges will fall. No one would be going anywhere. It would just mess up all travel for 5 to 10 years. They need to build two other bridges first. If not good luck getting out of Vancouver.
As someone who drives across this bridge twice a day for work them tolls be mighty scary
A toll. On a FREEway. Get your sh!# together, Oregon!!!
Tolls will make traffic a backup nightmare. Many people will choose the 205, which will bottle neck that route. A simple, boring span for cars only and additional span for alternate traffic.
@@curtispenner2Unfortunately Oregon is proposing tolling 205 as well. That’s extortion!
@@mikebrady1767 The outcome may keep Washingtonians from working in Oregon. That might sound good to Oregonians, but what it really does is remove a huge amount of income tax $$ out of Oregon. Much more money than the tolls would produce. For me it is roughly 4 times the amount. And it's extortion, there are no options for crossing the Columbia in the Portland area except the GJ and the Interstate.
@@curtispenner2 I think tolling isn't the slowdown it used to be. You get a little gadget on your dashboard or somewhere and it takes a little money each time you drive by. You don't even know its happening.
@@bipedaltoolmaker I think small tolls - that's all anyone is talking about - will keep a few people from shopping or working in Portland. But It will be minor. But to me - an anti-freeway guy - it's peculiar to spend $3B, and worry about a small decrease in income tax. But - we all would like to see the numbers.
A major sticking point in the project has been the addition of light rail which based of some estimates, triples the cost of the project and limits both height and slope to allow for river chanel clearance. Vancouver residents have overwhelmingly rejected light rail expansion multiple times (as have Orgeon voters despite multiple expansions) and Orgeon's government is trying to force the issue anyway (that is ultimately what killed the CRC project after close to $115 million was spent on plannig alone). Between that and the fact it will not do anything for the Portland bottleneck at the I-5, I-84, and I-405 interchange and Rose Quarter, where traffic is two to three lanes, most poeple think 7 billion is too much to spend for a project that will do to little to solve the actual problems.
As long as the tolls are ended once the cost is recouped
It won’t end though…just like income tax
Come on. You don't ACTUALLY believe that, do you?
@ 😂
The current bridge is not the problem as far as congestion is concerned. The freeway on the Oregon side is totally inadequate. Traveling south from Vancouver the road is 3 lanes wide, but narrows down to 2 lanes several miles south of the bridge where the traffic can either continue on I-5 or go onto I-405, the majority of southbound traffic stays on I-5, but I-405 rejoins I-5 several miles south. The ramps to either freeway are 2 lanes wide and continue through the downtown area as 2 lanes. Until such time as Oregon under goes a major rebuilding of their freeways. the congestion will remain.
I get why they need to replace this bridge but they also need to make more crossings across the Columbia in and around that location. There need to be some surface street bridges that connect Vancouver streets with Hayden Island, Marine Drive, and the rest of North Portland. I would also argue for a surface street bridge that connects East Vancouver and SR 14 with Gresham as well.
Having all traffic heading to and from Portland cross just two freeway bridges is one of the many reasons PDX has such bad traffic.
Another bridge further east,like Troutdale to Camas. Yes.
Also west St helens to Woodland.
You say that as if it's easy.
"There need to be some surface street bridges that connect Vancouver streets with Hayden Island, Marine Drive, and the rest of North Portland. "
Those potential bridges face the exact same issues as the I-5 "replacement" bridge.
Marine traffic and clearance being the most obvious.
Then there is the matter of approaches and access to these bridges, the impacts they would have on the neighborhoods they connect to...etc...etc...
Then, there is the cost involved in building multiple bridges over a major river.
Multiple bridges is not the answer to this issue.
PDX has bad traffic completely independent of the river bridge. Oregon (esp PDX) road planning and management is trash, signs poorly placed or completely hidden, and many intersections and routes are rather counter-intuitive.
Oregon also has the worst drivers I have seen in any of the western states (I've driven through all of them), and this is by a noticeable margin. OR seems to hand out licenses like Halloween candy and enforces all the wrong traffic laws(based on engineering principles and studies).
(*Hawaii drivers are worse but I don't include them due there isolation and no connecting highway or ferry.)
A 3rd bridge to the West of the existing I-5 bridge seems to make the most sense - redundancy for critical infrastructure is always a good plan. Fix that railroad bridge first to minimize the I-5 bridge lifts. Once the new bridge is completed, upgrade the existing bridge for light rail, bikes, foot traffic and additional seismic upgrades. Keep in mind that traffic will dramatically change once fully autonomous vehicles are on the roads - the challenge is to make good predictions on what those changes will be... With this idea in mind, a problem with the bubble of engineers and politicians influencing the design of the new bridge seems to be a lack of imagination.
Tunnel would have been too expensive? with only $2.5 billion in hard costs as seen at 4:35?? I get the interchanges will cost something, but seems like the total should be under $6 billion.
A better solution would be to keep it simple and cheap while planning for a bypass freeway for Interstate traffic starting in Woodland, WA and St Helens, OR down highway 30 and looping the metro between Cornelius and Hillsboro (then back to I5) THis would remove a lot of the interstate traffic from the Portland Metro and few would care if it was a cheap but undramatic bridge.
Its such a key corridor economically, that I believe there should be zero tolls on it.
I-95 is a key corridor yet it has like 9 tolls on it
Tolls mean that the people who benefit most from it pay the most for it.
This project is a perfect example of bloated government not being able to accomplish anything. The citizens of Oregon and Washington are happy to have the bridge replaced, but don't want to pay for all the bundled extras, like interchanges that cost more than the bridge itself, light rail to nowhere, and tolls. They could easily rebuild the bridge and not include all the extras, but refuse to look at that as an option. Also as stated in other comments, I-5 south of this bridge turns into 2 lanes and would only move the traffic jam, which will then put another 6 billion dollar burden on tax payers for another 2 billion dollar project. This project is not about traffic. It is about paying politicians donors. If it was about relieving traffic, the project would have been started in the early 2,000's when it was originally proposed.
True that!
Just don’t do it like the sellWoodbridge where you put one lane of traffic creating a nightmare 1 mile long traffic jam during rush-hour with these massive walking paths that nobody uses
To be fair, that bridge feeds into a road that only has one lane each way, so what is the alternative? Traffic would bog down regardless.
Well done video!
I know this bridge, I lived in Portland twenty plus years ago. The I-5 bridge traffic lanes are narrow by today's standards, but IF traffic speed is reduced, it is still safe and there is no reason to tear it down for that. There is the Interstate 205 bridge that crosses the Columbia River 6.5 miles upriver to the east, it was opened in 1982, it's high enough over the river a drawbridge isn't needed, it's a good back up bridge. Portland is full of old bridges, many are over 100 years old, and the last I heard they were being maintained and upgraded. Much of old downtown Portland is also over a 100 years old made of brick unreinforced buildings, very charming, It would be shame to tear them down too for the same reason. ~ Oregon and Washington should apply the old English motto, "Make do and Mend", repair and upgrade the I-5 Columbia River bridge to the best of their abilities, but not with a perpetual endless debt ($6.5 billion) like the state of California's repair of the Oakland Bay Bridge, that is nonsense.
The underwater portions of the bridge are in drastic need of replacement.
We need a camas to Gresham bridge first
How is it a bridge that could be built in the 50's for 114 million current dollars now require 6 bn! Ridiculous!
YEAH
corruption.
Bigger bridge, to handle heavier traffic, possibly more lanes, possibly light rail, wider sidewalks, and the plan is to embed it in the bedrock instead of floating wooden pilings on top of soft river sediments. How could a luxury car in 1955 be $3,000 but be $110,000 in 2024? Not only is inflation in play, but you're paying for a lot of higher functionality.
Because the average family income in 1955 was $4,400 while 2023's average was $80,610 (see Census website) and similar effects are shown on GDP, cost of goods sold, DOW 30, S&P, etc.
How is it someone can justify comparing two scenarios over half a century apart from each other? There may be some variables you aren’t considering
Great info sharing. This has been a mess for a long time, and Oregon can't seem to get their act together. Furthermore, a big part of the controversy is that what Oregon wants, and what Washington wants, are two separate things. Oregon has twice now tried to pull a "fast one" on Washington, asking Washington to pay for the things unrelated to the actual bridge replacement. With the Columbia River Crossing project, less than $1B was actually being tasked to bridge replacement, but at one point Oregon was asking Washington to pay 40% of the entire project, amounting to more than $1B alone. Once Washington voters picked up on that, and that Oregon was trying to "sneak in" a light rail public transit project to downtown Vancouver, that was pretty much the death of the CRC project (that's when Washington pulled out completely after the voters spoke up).
I expect Oregon is going to continue pulling these shenanigans on the IBR project as well. Washington has been very skeptical of Oregon's intentions moving forward. This should be a Federal bridge replacement project, and let Oregon/Washington buy the bridge later (like happened originally back in the 1900s).
They should leave the old bridge for recreation/pedestrian/light rail and build a new bridge nearby for cars.
@@dawnanewday9671 would require a significant retrofit and upgrade. The bridge will likely collapse in an earthquake and could significantly damage the new bridge
Will YOU pay for maintenance and insurance? Leaving the old bridge in place will severely constrain the design of the new bridge as ships would need to navigate both.
Hood River & White Salmon got a bridge project lined up. The trick, no ODOT, no Metro. Also imagine posing the idea to make a public resource cost more so less people can afford access. Use that on a public school? A library?
Stupid Washington fighting light rail over the bridge even though it is Vancouver residents working and shopping in PDX that make up the bulk of traffic.
Washington state is always broken because we don't tax our oligarchs.
absolutely. it has to have light rail and ample pedestrian/bike lanes or it's just a waste of time. they have plans for that stuff on a separate deck and the public comment period will be open again soon so find the site and speak your piece. this is gonna take forever though. process is not streamlined and there's a lot involved including changing lanes of I5 on both sides of the river into north portland and vancouver. ugh. it's gonna be messy
washington is broken because the dumb citizens keep electing democrats who think social programs are more important than infrastructure, and getting people to work
Please make a comment about this on the website!! I understand your feelings as a Vancouver Resident!
Light rail only supports the illegal drug trade. It is a complete and utter failure.
Planning this project has turned into a permanent endeavor like homeless services. A by-pass on the west side, I205W, would solve all these problems without the politics of Portland. All those trucks from San Fransisco and Seattle would stay out of town and we would have a third choice of bridges.
No project like this has EVER come close to the 'maximum' anticipated costs. Just look at the Bay Bridge replacement in SF, that came in at almost SIX TIMES higher than the estimation, and that was using the CHEAPEST Chinese source for the bridge segments.
Blame the Brown "brothers" for that - Jerry and Willie.
No govenment project comes in under budget. The OHSU Tram going up to Pill Hill started out at fifteen million, then a little more, then thirtytwo million, and a little more, ending up at sixtyfour million dollars just to avoid taking a shuttle from the offices down below to the hospital above. The funny thing is that some people will not take the tram and there is a shuttle whenever you want it.
Government rewards contracts to the lowest bidder. Companies just lowball the bid knowing they can't complete it at that cost, and then we get stuck when they run out of money partway through. Lowest bidder is BS and should be replaced with guaranteed bonded contracts.
It would be so cool to bypass the notorious traffic by bus or train on the lower level!
Whatever they build, this will be the new "Face of the Couve", so it needs to be beautiful to promote the Vancouver, USA waterfront.
Lmao
Man this makes me wonder about the bridge going over mobile bay in alabama. Im a local and they almost built a toll bridge and the community protested and killed it. Its a bridge that needs updating. Like the majority of everyone in the country that goes to florida for vacation has to cross this bridge. Not to mention the businesses that also use it. It's so congested on the weekends it's horrible
One big thing to factor in is the jantzen beach northbound on ramp. That is a huge part of the daily bumper to bumper traffic
Unless traffic is creeping along that N.B. ramp can be pretty dangerous too.
Actually, while it certainly contributes and perhaps is responsible for starting the backups, maybe. The real issue is the marine drive and delta park on ramps. Far more oncoming traffic and nowhere for that traffic to go.
@@Fordry I agree, starting from downtown Portland going north almost immediately I-405 merges in, then traffic from Swan Island comes on. Next Interstate Ave and delta park come on, then Martin Luther King and people exiting and entering at Hayden Island. You finally cross the bridge, but traffic slows if not stops in the right lane for traffic to exit onto hwy 14. The traffic patterns all date beck to before the 205 bridge was built, and the Interstate bridge was the only game in town.
They need a tunnel. The channel is only 18 feet deep from the bridge up stream. Plenty of room in the river and on the banks. The real issue is the years of bridge construction without an I5 crossing. This would do permanent damage economically to Portland and Vancouver. I would think that river traffic would also be impacted. 1/5 of the US grain export goes under that bridge in barges.
A new bridge can be built with minimal interruption of barge traffic.
Why is there no commuter rail between Vancouver and Portland using the Columbia River Railroad Bridge? Seattle has commuter rail to Tacoma and Everett.
The Amtrak does and the Cascades line is like a commuter rail
@@matthewwelsh294 yes, but the first train heading out of Vancouver is at 10:09AM that is way too late for commuters, in comparison the first sounder train heading out of Tacoma is 4:50AM.
Although the reverse commute can work as the last train heading out of Portland is 7:25PM which is better than Sounders 6:30PM train out of Seattle, although there is a 7:50PM Cascades train the heads south out of Seattle.
All that being said cascades is no where frequent enough to be an effective commuter rail, and that’s not even mentioning how people complain about the frequency and scheduling of the sounder commuter rail.
Outrageous vehicle licensing fees paid for Sound Transit's Sounder commuter rail. And, the trains run on the existing tracks of a private company.
The infrastructure costs were limited.
I'd be surprised if the cost didn't balloon to ridiculous levels. I live in Boston. The Big Dig started with an 8 billion estimate. Finished at tens of billions. So many people had to be paid, so many law suits, it was a master's class in public grifting.
I agree, the Big Dig is a giant lesson. The difference here is that there is nobody living in the river to fight for land or underground rights. That area is already reserved for the bridge that exists.
How can you toll based on income? People that drive to work pay more tolls? Seems legit, We will punish the ones that work.
While more lanes ARE needed, the main problem is the dumping of traffic onto the bridge from highway 14 and from the reengineered traffic from Lombard, Marine drive and Jantzen Beach. The traffic is dumped without enough lanes to accommodate each new entrancing traffic. There were far less problems before the Lombard on/off ramps were closed resulting in pouring so much traffic into one entrance point. The other problem is Jantzen Beach should have their own lane for exiting and entrance to the freeway. That stated, most problems are the way Oregon re engineered the traffic pattern going north and the way Oregon deals with Jantzen Beach traffic. They all cause logjams - I feel Oregon shoulders most of the blame in poor traffic management.
As an Oregonian I dont want to pay any more than Washington, and refuse to pay any toll. Oregon's local and state government know how to waste hundreds of millions on stupid "studies" so its no surprise nothing ever gets done. I doubt this bridge will be replaced anytime soon.
Years ago I had read there were plans to have a western bypass similar to I-205 to the east. But funds were diverted to fund the Max light rail. Can anyone confirm this? I’ve spent many hours crossing over those bridges.
They have spent 100 million dollars so far and not a shovel full of dirt. Build a Tunnel.
Government doing what they do best, wasting our hard earned money.
@@Freedom17762 no one does that better than the U.S. military! Hundreds of dollars for....one cup. They even most Recently spent $8000 for one bathroom soap dispenser. So take that up with the military industrial complex. The federal govt programs crucial to keeping the country running are underfunded severely enough already BECAUSE of the defense budget and they'll blame anyone and everyone they can before they admit it.🇺🇲🦅
@@Freedom17762 Government is all of us, so we are wasting our own money by continuing to elect people who refuse to support the completion of any solutions.
For the bridge replacement and against light rail. The light rail portion has numerous issues. First, per a portion of your video, the light rail portion costs more than the construction of the bridge itself. (And if the Bay Bridge replacement is any guideline, costs will skyrocket well beyond the $6B median estimate.) That's a problem. Second, light rail lines will permanently take up lane space, so the productivity of those lanes will be much smaller than if they were vehicle lanes. Third, light rail requires permanent taxpayer subsidies and would typically require a sales tax surcharge on the Washington side of the bridge, and perhaps bonds for Clark County taxpayers to pay off, like the BART to San Jose extension. The better approach is to build at least 4 total lanes each way and dedicate one lane, during commute hours, to bus traffic. Transit buses don't require the level of capital investment that light rail does. One can easily add or reduce bus traffic to accommodate changes in traffic and commute patterns, and buses go places light rail doesn't. Maintenance costs will be lower as it's all roadway maintenance, not roadway and railway maintenance. And Washington taxpayers won't be dragged in to paying for Portland's light rail. The insistence of the Oregon side to adding light rail has delayed this project by over a decade and is causing the price to skyrocket. It's ridiculous that bridge that cost $140M, inflation adjusted, will now cost $6B to replace (and I bet it will be $10B). Taxpayers aren't made of money; it's time to build a cost effective replacement.
Yeah, the fight over this is ridiculous. It’s a 100+ year old DRAW BRIDGE (ffs!) sitting on wooden pylons on one of the busiest stretches of I-5. It should have been replaced 30 years ago, but no one wants to foot the bill.
The feds should cover a large chunk of it because it’s an interstate but it will very likely need to be tolled as well, which I think is the biggest sticking point outside of light rail.
The reality is, though, that this bridge is primarily used by freight and people who live in SW Washington (who already dodge income and sales tax), so they need to shut up and pay up.
why should my tax dollars build your bridge? My state needs highway work as well. The greed for OPM (other people's money) is the real issue here. Everyone wants everything, but no one wants the bill sent to them. Well, this is a west coast problem to be paid for by west coast tax payers. With the way our left coast treats businesses and workers, good luck with that.
The vast majority of SW Washington residents who use the bridge work in Oregon, so no, they’re not dodging any taxes. They pay Oregon state income taxes and taxes to the city of Portland every year, while not benefitting from most of that tax money. If you earn income in Oregon, regardless of where you live, you pay state income taxes.
"It is a popular delusion that the government wastes vast amounts of money through inefficiency and sloth. Enormous effort and elaborate planning are required to waste this much money."
P. J. O'Rourke
lol 3:20 absolutely not true, Seattle is worse during peak times and there are a lot of places where traffic hits bad on I5
Great video tho
I5 through seattle sucks, so we have 405, which is worse lol
@ lol had me in the first half of that sentence
Lived in Portland all my 75 years. The I-5 bridge has been outdated since it was built. Unbelievable traffic back-ups 24/7. Complete traffic shut down when the bridge lifts. The I-205 bridge is also overloaded now. I was stuck on the bridge for over two hours last time I to used it. I dread driving North and avoid it as much as possible. A new bridge should have been built decades ago.
Here's an idea, maybe pedestrians and cyclist shouldn't be allowed to cross a huge main highway bridge!!
Pedestrians and cyclists can cross the current bridge. It's a lie they can't cross.
Sure. They can drive instead, and that'll fix things.
The amount of traffic, a new bridge is justified. I would love to see the old bridge turn into a surface street, historically reasons, name it Denver ave. You could use one of the old bridges for max and bike paths, the other for cars. Then build a new 4 lane each way bridge. It’s over due by 20 years.
Amazing how far costs spiral out of control. New bridges will cost (inflation adjusted) 20 times the cost the second bridge built in the fifties mind boggling. This is why nothing infrastructure wise gets done because of astronomical costs and every agency getting their cut along with contractors cheaping out on materials to squeeze even more money and then cost overruns are inevitable. Those bridges should cost nowhere more then one billion to replace.