PORTLAND — The chairman of a panel advising Washington and Oregon transportation leaders briefed the public Thursday on the group’s recommendation for a new Interstate 5 bridge across the Columbia River.
In doing so, Utah-based transportation consultant Tom Warne waded into the controversy that continues to swirl around the multibillion-dollar proposal.
But that’s normal, he said.
“There is no project in the United States today with unanimity across the board,” Warne told a roomful of people who gathered Thursday evening at Portland’s Expo Center. “Ultimately, a project like this gets built because of leadership, and because people like you care enough to see that it gets built.”
Warne will deliver a separate presentation Friday to Vancouver and Portland mayors and other high-level elected officials who serve on a Project Sponsors Council advising the two states’ governors.
He will explain the Bridge Expert Review Panel’s report of Feb. 3.
Warne’s panel offered a choice of tied-arch, cable-stayed and composite deck truss designs. The panel found that each design would be cheaper and more reliable than the CRC team’s old open-web box girder design, largely because the panel straightened the bridge’s alignment across the river. Govs. Chris Gregoire of Washington and John Kitzhaber of Oregon agreed with Warne’s panel to kill the open-web box girder design.
All options have a minimum 95-foot-tall clearance above the water, which enables boats to pass without stopping traffic for a bridge lift.
The old CRC alignment envisioned the bridge bending in a broad arc downstream from the current I-5 bridge. Warne’s panel calculated that straightening the bridge — saving money on raw material and requiring fewer piers — would bring $10 million to $100 million in savings.
Currently estimated to cost $3.6 billion, the total project would replace the existing twin three-lane drawbridges with a 10-lane span across the river, improve five miles of freeway on both sides and extend Portland’s light-rail transit system into downtown Vancouver.
David Madore, the Vancouver entrepreneur who founded notolls.com in opposition to the CRC project, suggested inviting bridge designers from throughout the world to compete to design an architecturally sound, aesthetically pleasing project at a lower cost than the current proposal. Warne and another member of the bridge review panel said they were familiar with such competitions and skeptical that they save money.
“Quite frankly, there are jobs that have quadrupled in budget through that process,” said David Goodyear, a panel member who serves as chief bridge engineer for T.Y. Lin.
Similarly, Warne studiously avoided being drawn into a debate over the merits of tolls as a local source of funding for the project. “We did not touch that with a 10-foot pole,” he said.
However, he did address several questions about the validity of light rail.
He noted that Oregon political leaders have made it clear that they won’t support the project — or provide an estimated $450 million in funding from Oregon’s legislature — if the bridge does not carry light rail.
“It’s my observation that you can’t build a project without light rail, just like you can’t build a project without a highway,” he said. “You can’t have a project without the two together.”
Warne added that he’s had positive experience using light rail in his hometown of Salt Lake City. Like other urban corridors around the country, he said, light rail provides an alternative for people trying to get around cities that are becoming increasingly congested.
“It’s done a lot of good in our community,” he said. “You’re not going to build your way out of congestion.”
Erik Robinson: 360-735-4551 or erik.robinson@columbian.com.
