The development of a planned replacement Interstate Bridge over the Columbia River has been anything but straightforward. More than a decade in development and supposedly less than two years from breaking ground, questions as basic as what it will look like remain unanswered.
But what looked like another wrench thrown into the conversation may turn out to be a bit of clarity as a laundry list of stakeholders inch toward the needed consensus.
CRC FAQ
What's the status of the project right now?
We're in a gap between the release of the Draft and Final Environmental Impact Statements. Once the Final EIS is released, the federal government will be charged with making a decision on whether to approve the project.
Just the feds approve it?
If only. First, it's not just "the feds," it's the Federal Aviation Administration (for impacts to Pearson Field and PDX), the Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Coast Guard (looking at navigation on the Columbia), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (fisheries), the Federal Transit Administration (light rail), the Federal Railroad Administration (because of the downstream BNSF rail bridge) and the Federal Highway Administration (the interstate itself).
Beyond that, the following must approve the project: both the Oregon and Washington departments of transportation, both states' legislatures, both states' governors, the transportation planning agencies for Vancouver (Southwest Washington Regional Transportation Commission) and Portland (Metro), the cities' transit agencies (C-Tran and TriMet), and the cities of Portland and Vancouver themselves.
I thought the project was going to cost more than $3 billion. What's this about $400 million?
If it was as simple as building a new bridge over the Columbia, the project would cost just $400 million. It's not. The bridge itself, when accounting for inflation, will cost about $896 million once it's completed. The rebuild of Interstate 5 across Hayden Island into Delta Park, including right of way purchases, is estimated to cost about $1 billion. Rebuilding I-5 in Washington, including two new freeway-to-freeway interchanges ($766 million), the Yellow Line extension into Washington ($750 million) and the teardown of the old Interstate Bridge ($81 million) wrap up the rest of the project's expenses, according to the Columbia River Crossing Project.
Who pays for it?
Roughly one-third of the funds will come from the federal government, one-third from Washington state and one-third from Oregon. A December 2009 estimate figured the Federal Transit Administration would pick up about $850 million of the tab; if the project is deemed a "Project of National Significance," another $400 million would be secured. Oregon and Washington would have to combine to pay about $800 million. Around $200 million could come from starting the tolling of the Interstate Bridge before the new Columbia River Crossing is opened. Tolls would pay $800 million to $1.4 billion.
When is Metro involved?
Every metropolitan area in the country has its own regional transportation-planning entity – in Portland, that's Metro (Vancouver has the Southwest Washington Regional Transportation Commission). Before the federal government hands down cash for projects, that regional agency has to approve a project. That vote would likely come later this year.
The Metro Council also steps in through its land planning role – it will hold a vote to decide whether the bridge meets state land use requirements.
A report put out last week by outside consultants cast aside concerns about one of the Columbia River Crossing's biggest constraints – airspace. New designs for the bridge can include towers supporting the highway's structure.
The Federal Aviation Administration has never formally said the bridge must limit its height. But planners, up to now, have been assuming they shouldn't even bother asking. The consultants said they think the FAA will be flexible.
"There will be substantial improvements to the operational safety of Pearson Field as compared to the existing bridge, with its vertical lift towers," the report said.
The towers would be no taller than the Interstate Bridge's century-old lift span, but a diagram in the report showed the northernmost tower on the cable-stayed design situated near the lift span's south tower.
One-runway Pearson Field lies just east of the Interstate Bridge in Vancouver, near the flight path for planes approaching from and taking off towards the west of Portland International Airport. Because of that jetway for traffic to and from PDX, planes from Pearson have to veer north when taking off. The landing pattern is even more complicated. Either way, the 75 planes per day that use Pearson avoid the Interstate Bridge area anyway.
So where a flat bridge was a must before, towers could be a part of the new structure. That was good news for the project's Urban Design Advisory Group, said one of the group's members, Portland architect Jeff Stuhr.
"We are especially pleased to see serious consideration and been shown for addressing concerns surrounding airspace and waterway impacts without nullifying aesthetic opportunities," Stuhr said in an e-mail. While the group is encouraging governors John Kitzhaber and Christine Gregoire to move forward with the recommendations from the consultants, Stuhr emphasized that there must first be adequate public review of the consultant's proposals.
"Remarkably, the Bridge Panel of Experts has clearly shown a viable and sensible way forward – a way that is not only cheaper but also a way that offers a design in which we can all be proud," Stuhr said.
Cost savings were the most obvious impact of the report, with consultants estimating the new Columbia River bridge would cost between $340 million and $430 million, compared to $440 million estimated for the experimental open-web box girder type bridge the consultants recommend stakeholders scrap.
The cheapest option would be a composite truss bridge, flat like the Glenn Jackson but with a steel double-deck structure similar to the Marquam. A cable-stayed bridge, similar to the Sunshine Skyway near St. Petersburg, Fla., or the Alex Fraser Bridge near Vancouver, B.C., would cost about $400 million.
The extra $60 million wouldn't just buy aesthetics. Where the truss bridge would have 10 piers in the water, the cable-stayed would have just three, minimizing impacts to both river traffic and wildlife.
The impacts aren't so much in the placement of new piers in the river, said Metro policy analyst Andy Cotugno. It's more the impacts of the traffic and disruption during construction.
With the open-web design, there would be six independent construction sites on the river, Cotugno said. "You're not building all six at once," he said. "You're building one, then it moves on and you're starting the next one… you're doing stages. You've got different stages of construction activity across the river… 12, instead of 3.
"The premise these guys came up with is from a fish kill, and therefore fish permitting, point of view, it should be less impact," Cotugno said.
The longer-spanned bridges, including the arch and cable-stayed, Cotugno said, would also miss the shallower salmonid habitat on the south side of the river, closer in to Hayden Island.