The Week Observed: October 17, 2025

What City Observatory Did this Week

The misleadingly mis-named “bridge replacement project: Only a fifth of the multi-billion dollar cost of the IBR project pays for a new bridge over the Columbia. The Interstate Bridge “Replacement Project” is a misnomer: It’s really a five-mile long, ten- to twelve-lane wide highway expansion project, that rebuilds seven interchanges, and creates two new elevated freeway sections that just happens to cross a river.

Oregon and Washington highway builders have misleadingly re-branded the failed Columbia River Crossing as a “bridge replacement” project: It’s not. Only a fifth of the cost of $5 to $7.5 billion project is actually for replacing the existing highway bridge, according to its own 2022-vintage estimates.

Most–about 63 percent–of the cost is for widening the freeway and rebuilding interchanges for miles north and south of the bridge crossing; replacing the current bridge is somewhere between $1 and $1.5 billion. The two state highway departments are spending three times as much on widening and interchanges as on replacing the bridge.

Calling $7.5 billion, 5-mile long freeway a “replacement bridge” is like calling a new $85,000 truck a “tire replacement.” Then-Congressman Peter DeFazio called the project “gold-plated,” saying they “let the engineers loose” rather than build an appropriate, affordable solution. A right-sized replacement would cost billions less.

Greenwashing the IBR: The Interstate “bridge replacement” gets marketed primarily as a project to serve cyclists and pedestrians. But its really about widening five miles of freeway, ostensibly to move 180,000 cars a day, something you’d never know by looking at project renderings. Instead, it looks like this $7.5 billion (and more likely $9-10 billion) project gets depicted as almost entirely to benefit people walking, cycling and taking transit.

More than 90 percent of those shown in project illustrations presented to the Oregon and Washington legislatures are depicted as cyclists and pedestrians. Only 3 cars are shown in six project illustrations. Project renderings make biking and walking appear to be about 1,800 times more common than driving, compared to the IBR’s own projections of who will use the bridge.

Must Read

No, Portland isn’t burning; the Trump Administration is lying. We publish City Observatory in supposedly “war-torn” Portland. The city is tranquil, apart from the brutal and menacing antics of masked ICE thugs. Portlanders are pushing back in a truly Portland way: by joyfully ridiculing false claims and illegal tactics with music,