CliffordK

https://www.oregonlive.com/roadrepor...animously.html

Apparently after shutting down previous bridge proposals, Vancouver is now voting to move ahead. Maybe.

Now, if they could just take one of those century old bridges and convert it into a bike bridge, it could be one of the best bike paths in the world. Just imagine, a 38 foot wide bike lane.

Now, under a new administration, will the Republicans choose to fund this?

The proposals are very expensive, but I'm not sure I like the idea of a toll bridge. And, I can imagine the toll plazas becoming HUGE parking lots.

Rollfast

You'd think that when one of them just falls apart. We used to have a trestle bridge going into Payette, Idaho that had sections of the edge with no roadbed at all, holes you could see the river through. dated to 1927 I think...wretched thing.

CliffordK

I suppose I'd hate to see the maintenance bills on the current bridges. Maintaining them indefinitely would be expensive, but they certainly would be overbuilt for pedestrians and bikes.

There is a neat older crooked bridge in St. Louis. The first bridge in that area across the Mississippi which was converted into a bike bridge. I could imagine it would have been a horrible car bridge, but great for bikes and pedestrians.

But, obviously old bridges won't last forever without maintenance. An old train trestle across the Columbia on the John Wayne Trail was partly burnt in a fire and never repaired Now it needs about a mile of new deck.

fietsbob

Portland, Starting the Tolls, First , building the bridge later,

... seems a Plan..

Rollfast

Tolled Trolls?

CliffordK

To prevent traffic jams from propagating through Portland... Perhaps do it like San Francisco...

Give Oregonians a free pass to cross to Washington... But, slam the Washington commuters with tolls.

starkmojo

You know they have a system for tolling people without a Toll plaza, actually they have several:
EZ PASS is the most common.
One bridge in Cali they just take a picture of your plate and send the owner a bill.
Its funny how some folks are all "NO FREE RIDE" and "PAY YOUR OWN WAY" until you mention tolls on a bridge then they are all "IT WILL BE A DISASTER!!"
IIRC Oregon was ready to go last time and Washington State legislature balked, lost 100s on Millions in Federal money too. I lived in Portland at the time and wasn't thrilled with the bridge (crappy design, ugly, increase congestion in Portland etc) but I was all "well OK I guess if both legislatures agree this is as good as it gest then that's what it will be." I don't live near it anymore and now my perspective is if Washington can figure out how to get back the money they lost from the feds last time then sure, but seeing as I don't use it I don't want to be paying for it. No free ride, you know.

For those not from Portland I5 bottle necks a few miles down the road- all those cars going over the bridge will just come to a stop there. There are alternatives to the Billion some dollar replacement (upgrades, re aligning the RR bridge near it and seismic retrofit) but the big money is all for rebuild or bust.

CliffordK

Personally, I think the congestion problem in Portland is far worse than a single bridge crossing over the Columbia, and replacing the Columbia bridge will simply push the problem down onto the entire I-5 and I-405 corridor.

So, add say 4 or 6 more lanes crossing the Columbia, and pretty soon we'll see a major rework project of the entire freeway from Woodburn to Vancouver.

The bridge replacement will be the cheap upgrade.

We really need more bicycles.

B. Carfree

IIRC, the reason WA killed off the prior nightmare bridge expansion was because it included light rail. Vancouver was determined to not have a light rail connection to PDX.

I suspect part of the reason for renewed interest is the growing understanding of induced demand and the role it is playing in climate change (an issue that is on most everyone's minds in OR and WA these days as we face summer after summer of historically foul air from fires). The road and car folks realize the window for freeway expansions is closing and they want to lock in the project before these things cease to be done. Now if only ODOT would get on board (not holding my breath).

CliffordK

Hmmm...

We could try the road diet concept, and drop 3 lane freeways down to 2 lanes.

Rollfast

If you like people racing down a lane and forcing merging. This is what caused the fiery tragedy at the Cloverdale exit of I-84 between a tanker and van with Air Force airmen, killing the semi driver and three of the servicemen and damaging the bridge over the freeway so badly that it's closed and being replaced. There are three lanes to split traffic off efficiently to several exits along the way, and it works well when it's done right.

In this case there was reconstruction and not very good flow management by the contractor.

CliffordK

Whew, I was thinking of major I84 intersections in Portland.

That does remind me a bit of the I85 fire and collapse, which they apparently repaired at a lightening fast pace.

Medic Zero

Other than the rail bridge, the I-5 and 205 bridges are the only bridges over the Columbia River for some 50+ miles in either direction. The current I-5 bridge is rate a 38. Out of 100. I fail to see where the are alternatives to a new bridge.

I cycle across the I-5 bridge almost every weekday. As a cyclist, it'd be real nice to get a replacement that had enough room for two bikes/pedestrians to pass eachother, and didn't include narrow chokepoints on the descent. I'd settle for a replacement that wasn't about to fall into the river.

starkmojo

Cool y'all figure out how to pay for it, go for it. But there is plenty bridge work to be done here in the rest of Oregon and I don't want to see all the states money get sucked into building a new bridge at the expense of the rest of the state.
And since you are from Washington and your legislature lost the Fed money your side of the river can make it up.

No free rides, right? That's what Vancouver keeps saying, and I believe them.

starkmojo

Oh and lets not there was a retrofit/repair plan that cost less than was wasted on the CRC project. So for what we have already spent we could have had two working earthquake proof bridges and modified the RR bridge to avoid 99% of the lifts each year.

CliffordK

Can light rail be connected to the existing RR bridge?

Jeff Wills

No. The Yellow Line's northern terminus is at the Portland Expo Center, a bit less than a mile upstream of the railroad bridge.

The current Vancouver city government is a little more friendly to light rail. I don't have any illusions about a new I-5 bridge being built before I retire, though.

CliffordK

Amtrak runs from Portland to Vancouver. Light rail comes within 100 yards of the station.

The infrastructure exists to run a conner shuttle service.

Even going from Oregon City to Vancouver .

Jeff Wills

The Portland light rail already runs almost to Vancouver on its Yellow Line route. This parallels Interstate 5 to its northern end. Putting the MAX light rail on the existing railroad bridge is a near impossibility- you'd need a radical rebuild of the MAX alignment plus it would put the MAX light rail on the opposite side of downtown Vancouver from where it needs to be.

poppadaddio

It wasn't just Vancouver, it was much of the rest of Washington that didn't want to pay for Portland/Vancouver's light rail.
I can't imaging anyone from either state crossing the Interstate Bridge and not seeing the need for its replacement.

CliffordK

There was a question in politics that made me wonder about selfish vs selfless government.

If half the Washington population is in Seattle/Tacoma/Olympia, then why vote to pay for a little city to their south?

After all, Seattle already has the Sounder.

Personally, I don't do that commute frequently, especially since I'm pretty much car-free. However, I'm not convinced that building a bigger bridge will actually solve traffic congestion problems in Portland. Perhaps push the congestion problems further south a bit, but the congestion will remain.

I wonder if the current bridges would qualify for "National Historic Places". That would sure throw a monkey wrench into the project.

Nonetheless, I doubt we'll see any progress on this while Trump is in office.

fietsbob

They're talking about a cross river ferry too , probably a bigger one ..
than crosses from Westport Oregon, to Puget Island Washington,

Jeff Wills

The latest proposal is for a ferry from downtown Vancouver to downtown Portland- almost 20 miles. If they can do the trip in 40 minutes as they claim, it'll be faster than driving during rush hour. Otherwise, it won't help.

Rollfast

Like the first Tacoma Narrows Bridge?

fietsbob

I suppose the 2 proposed terminal- landings must be widely separated , east - west*,
not north/south across the river.. to have a 20 mile sail.. Or Is..
*Portland side upstream on the Willamette?

Estuary, out here, wider.. that's bridged in 4 miles ...