Clark County commuters awoke to a traffic nightmare this morning, as road closures in Oregon led to heavy traffic and long delays getting into the Portland area.
Southbound Interstate 205 has been particularly hard-hit, thanks to a disabled vehicle south of the Glenn Jackson Bridge. A trip from Mill Plain Boulevard in Vancouver to the Interstate 84 junction in Portland took 90 minutes, and traffic backed up as far as Padden Parkway earlier this morning.
Beginning Sunday night and running through August, several two-week-long, 24-hour-a-day ramp closures at the Interstate 5/Interstate 84 interchange in Portland are expected to dramatically congest the city’s streets and highways.
The Oregon Department of Transportation is warning of congestion similar or worse than typical rush-hour conditions from 5 a.m. to 11 p.m. on weekdays. Commutes could last for a couple of hours. Backups could stretch to the Interstate 5 Bridge, to Troutdale on I-84 and to the Glenn Jackson Bridge and Sunnyside on Interstate 205.
