Interstate Bridge
Based on Wikipedia: Interstate Bridge
The Bridge That Can't Get Out of Its Own Way
Every weekday, at predictable hours, one hundred thirty thousand vehicles crawl across a pair of century-old steel bridges connecting Portland, Oregon to Vancouver, Washington. The drivers inch forward, brake lights glowing, while beneath them the Columbia River flows freely. The irony isn't lost on anyone stuck in that traffic: the river moves faster than they do.
The Interstate Bridge has been a bottleneck since before most of its current commuters were born. It has been studied, debated, redesigned, and abandoned more times than any infrastructure project in the Pacific Northwest. The story of this bridge is really a story about how difficult it is for Americans to build anything anymore—even when everyone agrees something needs to be built.
A Bridge Born of Frustration
Before 1917, getting from Portland to Vancouver meant taking a ferry. The Pacific Railway, Light and Power Company ran the service, and by all accounts, it was overcrowded and inadequate. The two cities sat on opposite banks of the Columbia River, separated by less than a mile of water but often by hours of waiting.
Local officials began planning a permanent crossing as early as 1912. They passed bond measures, hired consulting engineers, and broke ground in March 1915. Less than two years later, on Valentine's Day 1917, the Interstate Bridge opened to traffic.
The final cost was $1.75 million—roughly $43 million in today's dollars. Clark County, on the Washington side, paid about a third. Multnomah County, containing Portland, covered the rest. The split was roughly proportional to their populations.
What they built was remarkable for its time. Thirteen steel spans stretched more than 3,500 feet across the river. One of those spans could lift 136 feet straight up to let tall ships pass beneath. The roadway was 38 feet wide with a five-foot sidewalk. A toll of five cents per vehicle helped pay back the construction bonds.
This was the first automobile bridge between Washington and Oregon at this location—only the second bridge to cross the Columbia River anywhere along the state line, after a bridge near Wenatchee opened in 1908.
Streetcars and Dual Gauge Track
Here's something that would baffle modern commuters: on opening day in 1917, streetcars rolled across the Interstate Bridge alongside automobiles. And not just any streetcars. The bridge deck carried dual-gauge track.
What does that mean? Railroad and streetcar systems use different widths between their rails—the "gauge." Portland's streetcar system ran on narrow-gauge track, with rails set 3 feet 6 inches apart. Vancouver used standard gauge, with rails 4 feet 8.5 inches apart—the same width used by most North American railroads.
To accommodate both cities' streetcars, the bridge builders laid down tracks that worked for both gauges. It's the kind of pragmatic solution that seems obvious in retrospect but required careful engineering to execute.
Before the bridge existed, Portland actually had operated a streetcar line toward Vancouver since 1893. But it only went as far as Hayden Island, a large island in the middle of the Columbia. Passengers had to transfer to a ferry owned by the streetcar company to complete their journey. The new bridge finally made a direct streetcar trip possible.
Streetcar service across the Interstate Bridge ended on September 3, 1940. The automobile had won.
A Twin Is Born
By 1948, more than thirty thousand vehicles were crossing the original bridge every day. It had never been designed for that kind of load. The bridge opened in 1917, remember, when cars were still relatively novel machines and few families owned more than one.
Highway officials in Oregon studied the problem after World War II. Their chief engineer, R.H. Baldock, concluded that expanding the existing bridge wasn't feasible. Instead, he proposed building a second, parallel bridge.
Several sites were surveyed. Engineers and officials debated. In September 1950, Oregon and Washington agreed on a location: the new bridge would sit just west of the original.
But building it required reinstating tolls to pay for construction. This led to a lawsuit that reached the Washington Supreme Court. In September 1953, the court ruled in favor of the states. Construction began in summer 1956.
The second bridge opened to traffic on July 1, 1958. It cost $14.5 million—about $158 million adjusted for inflation. The new span was almost identical to the original, with one important difference: it had a "humpback" section that provided 72 feet of clearance over the shipping channel. This higher clearance meant fewer bridge openings for river traffic.
After the new bridge opened, the old one was temporarily closed so workers could add a matching humpback to it as well. On January 8, 1960, both bridges finally operated together. The original became the northbound span. The new bridge carried southbound traffic. Each now had three lanes.
Tolls were set at 20 cents for cars, 40 cents for light trucks, and 60 cents for heavy trucks and buses. By 1966, the construction debt was paid off, and the tolls were removed.
How a Lift Bridge Works
The Interstate Bridge is what engineers call a vertical-lift bridge. Unlike a drawbridge, which pivots upward from one end like a medieval castle gate, a lift bridge raises its entire movable section straight up—like an elevator for ships.
The original bridge's lift span is 275 feet long and can rise 136 feet above the roadway. When fully raised, ships have 176 feet of clearance to pass beneath. The towers supporting the lift mechanism stand 190 feet tall above the road deck.
When the bridge needs to open for a tall ship, traffic stops. The massive steel span rises slowly on cables, guided by those towers. The whole process takes about ten minutes. It happens twenty to thirty times per month—roughly three hundred openings per year.
By federal law, marine traffic has right of way at the bridge outside of peak commuting hours. From 6:30 to 9 in the morning and from 2:30 to 6 in the evening, cars take priority. At other times, ships do.
This arrangement satisfies no one completely. Commuters resent the delays. Ship captains resent the restricted hours. And both sides have been arguing about it for decades.
Maintenance, Breakdowns, and Temporary Trains
Keeping a century-old bridge operational requires constant work. The Interstate Bridge has undergone major repairs and upgrades throughout its life.
In 1990, crews replaced lift cables, expansion joints, and repaved the deck. Cost: $3 million. In 1995, the diesel generator powering the lift mechanism was replaced for $150,000. In 1999, the entire bridge was repainted at a cost of $17 million. A $10.8 million electrical upgrade finished in May 2005.
The most dramatic repair happened in September 1997. The trunnion—a critical component that allows the lift span to operate—failed on the northbound bridge. Replacing it required shutting down Interstate 5 completely. No traffic could cross the river on the bridge.
Officials initially planned for a 21-day closure. The repair crews finished in six days.
During the closure, Amtrak operated a temporary commuter train service. Trains ran between Portland's Union Station and Vancouver Station ten times a day during peak hours. The rides were free.
Despite the free service, ridership averaged only 1,335 passengers per day. Officials attributed the low numbers to the inconvenient location of Vancouver's train station, which sits away from the city's commercial center.
In 2020, the northbound bridge's trunnion needed replacement again. This time, engineers arranged all traffic on the southbound bridge. They used a "zipper machine"—a specialized vehicle that moves concrete barriers—to create two lanes in the peak direction. Morning commuters got two lanes going toward Portland. Evening commuters got two lanes going toward Vancouver. The barriers shifted twice daily.
A Street Gets Its Name
The Interstate Bridge gave its name to one of Portland's major streets, though the connection isn't obvious to modern residents.
In 1917, shortly before the bridge opened, city planners designated two streets through North Portland as the main route to and from the new crossing: Maryland Avenue and Patton Avenue. They renamed both streets Interstate Avenue.
Today, Interstate Avenue runs through North Portland and hosts the MAX Yellow Line, a light rail service. Few people using it realize the street's name commemorates the bridge that opened the same year.
The Columbia River Crossing That Wasn't
By the early 2000s, it was clear that six lanes—three in each direction—could not handle the traffic that needed to cross the Columbia River. At full capacity for four hours every day, the bridge had become a permanent bottleneck.
Both spans received official ratings of "functionally obsolete." The original bridge scored a sufficiency rating of just 18.3 percent. The newer span fared somewhat better at 49.4 percent.
Oregon and Washington transportation departments began studying replacement options. Initial estimates put the cost around $2 billion. That number would climb steadily.
By 2006, planners were considering twelve different proposals for improving the Interstate 5 crossing. By late that year, they had narrowed the field to four options, plus a fifth "no build" alternative.
The lead proposal became known as the Columbia River Crossing, or C.R.C. It envisioned a replacement bridge and an extension of Portland's MAX Light Rail system into Clark County, connecting to Clark College in Vancouver.
The Light Rail Debate
Nothing divided communities more than the question of light rail.
Portland had invested over $5 billion in its MAX light rail network. Lines radiated from downtown to suburbs in all directions—except north. Vancouver, just across the river, remained disconnected.
Supporters argued that Vancouver had the cheapest possible entry into one of America's most successful light rail systems. The infrastructure was already built on the Oregon side. Extending it across a new bridge would be relatively inexpensive compared to building a new system from scratch.
During his 2007 State of the City address, Vancouver mayor Royce Pollard made his position clear:
I've said it before, but it bears repeating—Vancouver and Clark County residents have the cheapest buy-in to one of the most successful light-rail systems in the world, the MAX system. There is over $5 billion invested in light rail across the river. We can tap into that system at a very minimal cost. We'd be foolish not to.
He went further: if the final design didn't include light rail coming into downtown Vancouver, he would not support the project at all.
Opponents saw things differently. Many Clark County residents had specifically moved to Washington to escape Oregon's land-use regulations and income tax. They drove to Portland for work but preferred their car-oriented suburban lifestyles. Light rail, they feared, would bring urban density—and urban problems—across the river.
Costs Spiral, Concerns Mount
By 2008, fuel prices were spiking and project cost estimates were soaring. The original $2 billion estimate had grown to $3.4 billion. An independent study in 2010 suggested the true cost could reach $10 billion.
Many Portland residents began questioning whether a twelve-lane highway bridge was the right solution at all. A larger bridge, they argued, would simply encourage more people to live in Vancouver's sprawling suburbs and commute to Portland—a phenomenon traffic engineers call "induced demand." Build more lanes, and more drivers will use them, until congestion returns to its original level.
Environmental concerns compounded the opposition. Critics pointed to potential damage to Clark County's drinking water supply, endangered fish habitat in the Columbia, and increased air pollution in North Portland.
The Environmental Protection Agency reviewed the draft environmental impact statement in 2008 and found it inadequate. In a letter to project planners, the E.P.A. noted that the statement failed to address how construction and increased traffic would affect minority communities in North Portland. Diesel construction vehicles, noise, and additional traffic would all impact neighborhoods that had already borne disproportionate environmental burdens.
Design Complications
Even if everyone agreed on what to build, actually building it would be complicated.
A short distance downriver from the Interstate Bridge sits the Burlington Northern Railroad Bridge 9.6—a railroad drawbridge that also crosses the Columbia. The location of this bridge constrains where the shipping channel can go. Any replacement for the Interstate Bridge would need to accommodate that reality.
Adding to the challenge: Portland International Airport sits nearby, and approach paths for landing aircraft limit how tall any new bridge can be. Pearson Field in Vancouver—one of the oldest operating airfields in the country—imposes similar height restrictions.
Some proposed building a replacement bridge at a different location entirely, avoiding these constraints. But that would require building new highway connections on both sides of the river, dramatically increasing costs and complexity.
Collapse
In June 2013, the Washington State Legislature voted against further funding for the Columbia River Crossing project.
It was over. After years of planning, tens of millions of dollars in studies, and countless hours of public debate, the project collapsed. On June 29, Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber directed the C.R.C. to shut down operations.
The bridge that everyone agreed needed replacing would remain in place.
A Second Attempt
The Interstate Bridge Replacement Program launched in 2017. It represented another attempt to solve the same problem that had defeated the Columbia River Crossing.
This time, the effort involved an even longer list of partners: the Oregon Department of Transportation, the Washington State Department of Transportation, the Federal Highway Administration, the Federal Transit Administration, Metro (Portland's regional government), the Southwest Washington Regional Transportation Council, the cities of Portland and Vancouver, and both ports.
A joint Oregon-Washington legislative committee formed in 2017 to study the replacement. Awkwardly, Oregon didn't send any representatives for the first year. The committee existed primarily to prevent $140 million in federal funding—originally allocated for the C.R.C.—from being recalled. That deadline was eventually extended to 2025.
In April 2019, Washington approved $17.5 million to establish a project office and begin pre-design work. Oregon matched the contribution a few months later.
By late 2019, a new timeline emerged: environmental review would begin in 2020, with construction starting in 2025.
What Might Get Built
As of late 2022, the project is estimated to cost between $5.5 billion and $7.5 billion—more than double the estimates from a decade earlier, and still climbing.
The locally preferred alternative, selected in 2022, calls for an eight-lane bridge with a light rail guideway on the west side. The design includes several modified interchanges to improve traffic flow on both sides of the river.
But there's a catch. The preferred design would lower clearance for river traffic by 60 feet compared to the current bridge. The U.S. Coast Guard, responsible for regulating navigation on the Columbia, has requested an alternative design with a drawbridge to preserve clearance for tall ships.
Several alternative ideas have been proposed over the years: an immersed tube tunnel under the river, a third bridge at a different location, a bascule bridge (the type that pivots upward from one end). All have been rejected as too expensive or impractical.
Construction is currently scheduled to begin in late 2025 or early 2026. Tolls will be implemented on the existing bridge during construction to help fund the replacement.
Why This Matters
The Interstate Bridge saga reflects a broader American problem. The country built remarkable infrastructure in the early and mid-twentieth century—the Interstate Highway System, the Hoover Dam, the Golden Gate Bridge. Today, building almost anything major seems impossibly difficult.
The original Interstate Bridge took two years from groundbreaking to opening day. The second span took two and a half years to build. The replacement has been under discussion for two decades, and construction hasn't even started.
Some of the delay reflects genuine complexity. Environmental review processes didn't exist in 1917 or 1958. Neither did modern concerns about induced demand, community impact, or climate change. These considerations matter.
But some of the delay reflects dysfunction. Political disagreements between states. Fights over light rail that have more to do with culture than transportation. Cost estimates that balloon because projects take so long to approve that inflation eats away at budgets. The inability to make decisions and stick with them.
Meanwhile, 130,000 vehicles cross the Interstate Bridge every day. Commuters sit in traffic. Ships wait for their ten-minute windows. And everyone agrees something needs to change.
They've been agreeing for twenty years.