The Third Bridge
Bi-State Industrial Corridor

The Historic Columbia River Crossing is Structurally Sound

The Historic Columbia River Crossing will be celebrating their 50th and 100th birthdays soon with pride of constructions. This good report on the I-5 bridges translates into removing bottlenecks only, leaving the Historic Columbia River Crossing a lone. It is a great relief not having to deal with rebuilding the bridges. Now we can turn our direction towards a new corridor and a futuristic transportation system to complement our 21st century communities.

The fact is that the I-5 is an international highway. I-5 is over 1,300 miles long and the only freeway stretching from Canada to Mexico in the U.S. With billions of freight tonnage traveling the corridor our economy hinges on it's continuing to flow, especially as we head into an on time demand economy. I-5 travels through dozens of towns and belongs to none of them including us. Vancouver WA. and Portland, OR. have been sister cities for over 150 years yet have not built one local access bridge.

I-5 international highway was build for long distance travel. I-5 is not meant to be used for short distances of less than 50 miles nor as a local commuter route. The one stretch of I-5 crossing the Columbia river is less than seven miles long .

We built a bridge or more each decade, now it's been two decades since we built a bridge.

 Don Wagner, administrator, Southwest Region, WADOT, as reported in the official minutes of the October 20 & 21 2004 Washington Transportation Commission. (page 17 of http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/commission/AgendasMinutes/minutes/2004/Oct20.pdf)

The previous studies have made very clear findings.

1. The Columbia River Crossing I-5 Bridge recently under went a complete inspection which found that "(b)oth of the bridges are structurally sufficient and meets all requirements" The Columbia River Crossing received an upgrade from two to three lanes in each directions, a new 17 million dollar paint job and is currently being upgraded electrically.

2. The I-5 Trade and Transportation Partnership finding were that we need more capacity, not that we need to remove a structurally sound and efficient historic bridge that carry more traffic than originally built for.

3. The Columbia River Crossing is to capacity. I-5 is at capacity from I-84 all the way into Washington. "There is physically no room for additional lanes in the corridor. (I-5)" Enlarging the Columbia River bridge will not add capacity to the I-5 corridor.

4. Enlarging the current Columbia River Crossing will encroach on the Fort Vancouver Historic Reserve. It will demolish Jantzen Beach businesses, residences, and floating residences. Paying to remove successful businesses, on premium land is extremely expensive.

5. The environmental damage of demolishing and removing structurally sound buildings, homes and bridges is also extremely expensive.

6. The construction my not start for 10, 15, or 20 years and may take 5 to 7 years for removal and rebuilding the bridge. With I-5 under construction and I-205 being the only other crossing, we can look forward to many years of increasing congestion costs both in dollars, reputation, and time wasted.