“We’re going to build this bridge,” said Washington Governor Bob Ferguson at a March 17 press conference in Vancouver. Or as he put it put it a few minutes later, “We’re building this damn bridge.”
The bridge is the replacement for the double-span I-5 bridge over the Columbia River. It’s been on the drawing board for over 20 years. But a recent breakthrough clears the way to making it a reality, Ferguson said: In January the U.S. Coast Guard approved a plan to construct it as a fixed-span bridge — not the lift-span bridge that today causes traffic to back up when tall ships need to pass. Ferguson said he personally intervened to help make that happen, meeting with river users and with Coast Guard officials in Washington, D.C.
Eliminating the need for a lift span knocks $1.7 billion off the price of the bridge replacement, Ferguson said. Washington and Oregon are now prepared to go forward with just the bridge replacement and can put off proposed improvements to seven nearby highway interchanges to later phases with later funding. The replacement bridge would include a light rail connection between Portland and Vancouver.
Once a required environmental review is complete later this year, Ferguson said the plan is to hire the general contractor in 2027. Construction would then start in 2028 and would last six to seven years.
The Oregon and Washington legislatures have each approved $1 billion in funding, and the federal government has approved another $3.5 billion. The current estimate of the project cost for the bridge alone is $7.65 billion, so remaining funds will have to be secured from the states and federal government and from bonding to be backed by future tolls.
