Looking back more than 100 years, it is easy to see the present — and the future.
A recent article from Columbian reporter William Seekamp details construction of the original Interstate Bridge, which opened in 1917 after years of political wrangling and various setbacks. The bridge spanned the Columbia River and linked Vancouver and Portland, as well as the entire West Coast. For the first time, travelers could go from Mexico to Canada by road, without requiring a ferry ride.
All of this is relevant, of course, because the original bridge is the current bridge, and officials from Washington and Oregon are working on plans for a more modern structure. A second span was added in 1958 — the one that now carries southbound traffic — but aside from that the bridge has been largely unchanged for more than a century.
With that in mind, several items from the history of the bridge resonate today. Most prominent among them: “We should not build the bridge for today, next week or next year, but for the next 40 years.” That was written in 1912 by J.H. Nolta, former president of the Portland Commercial Club and an early advocate for a durable span.
We are guessing that not even Nolta envisioned a bridge that would last for more than a century. But his words can be applied to current efforts.
Proposals and preparations for a new span must pay heed to the needs of future residents. Those needs can be difficult to predict, particularly with the COVID-19 pandemic altering the nature of commuting and quite possibly the future of workplaces.
Remote work is here to stay, to one extent or another. It is quite possible that city centers in Vancouver and Portland and elsewhere will gradually transition to more residential space and less office space, with fewer workers commuting to the office.
But even if that is the case, populations will continue to grow on both sides of the Columbia, requiring increased traffic capacity from a new bridge. Ideally, an increasing percentage of commuters will use transit options to limit their carbon footprint. But reality suggests that a new bridge must have adequate capacity to lessen driving time as demand increases.
This is not only important for commuters but for the local economy. One reason the focus has been on the I-5 Bridge rather than a third bridge across the Columbia is the proximity to Swan Island, the Port of Portland’s hub. Having trucks trying to ferry goods but sitting in traffic is costly to manufacturers throughout the region.
The key to all this is a vision for the future, one that accurately assesses the needs of a growing population and a growing economy.
The history of the bridge also provides an abject lesson in this regard. Washington Gov. Ernest Lister vetoed a bill that would have provided funding for the bridge, saying, “There is, in my opinion, not a sufficient necessity or justification for further adding to the taxes on the state the cost of this bridge at the present time.”
Clark County officials soon approved bonds for construction of a bridge to be paid for with tolls, but it is apparent that Gov. Lister was not a man of vision.
In the end, the initial construction of an Interstate 5 Bridge provides some hope for the current situation. In spite of various setbacks and disagreements over financing, a crossing was built, and the headline in The Columbian trumpeted, “With Iron Bands We Clasp Hands.”
Those bands are still strong, yet they are outdated.
