VANCOUVER, Wash. — The project to replace the Interstate Bridge across the Columbia River failed once before.
But now there's a renewed push on both sides to get it done. Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee is also on board, and momentum is building.
The consensus among people who take the often backed-up stretch of road is that doing something about the century-old bridge is long overdue.
Let’s rewind: Oregon and Washington were in talks about the Columbia River Crossing project for years. It fell apart in 2014 when Washington lawmakers decided not to cough up the state's portion.
The feds loaned the states tens of millions of dollars to help with a good chunk of planning that never came to fruition.
Fast forward to December when Gov. Inslee requested the Legislature fund a new joint office to get the ball rolling and study how to replace or update the bridge.
In a letter to a transportation official, Gov. Kate Brown said Oregon needs to be ready to create a plan by this summer, according to The Oregonian. In that letter, Brown said the the old bridge is bad for freight, seismically not sound and is a problem for public transit.
People KGW spoke with in Vancouver want to see the bridge expanded, but also want to see one or two more bridges over the Columbia River. Some are even calling for a tunnel rather than a bridge replacement.
They applauded Gov. Brown, who says it's critical for the economy, business, and quality of life to replace the bridge now.
"I am very aware of the issues we are facing in terms of transporting goods and, frankly, people back and forth across the river,” Brown said in a press conference Thursday afternoon..
She says the ball is now in Washington's court.
“I want to make sure they are delivering on funding for a joint office. I want to make sure they are committed to including public transit as part of this project. And so, I think for me, it's about being a little more cautious,” Brown said.
Columbia Corridor association executive director Corky Collier has been involved in the conversation about a new bridge for years, and said this is long overdue.
“You have transit services that have difficulty getting across the bridge. Emergency services have difficulty getting across. But the day-to-day impact most people see is just that it’s so congested it adds so many minutes to everybody’s day sitting in traffic," Collier said. "Nobody wants to do that, that’s lost time. That's part of your life that goes away on a daily basis. I think we can recapture that. It doesn’t have to be such a waste."
He said safety is also a major issue. Collier said there are too many interchanges too close together on either side of the freeway and other improvements, along with the bridge, have to be made to manage the merging system.
“The whole system has to work together and it's not working very well right now," he said.
Seismic issues are rampant on the old structure. Half of the bridge is a century-old and has held up well, Collier told KGW. But back when it was built, nobody envisioned such heavy traffic and the structure wasn’t built in preparation for an earthquake.
"We know that when next big earthquake strikes, that's coming down," he said.
From a freight and commerce perspective, echoing Brown’s concerns, Collier said added delays on the road mean added burden.
“As you add cost, that hurts everybody. It’s not good for the people driving the trucks, it’s not good for the consumer," he said.
But Collier is hopeful this go-around and says plans and studies from the failed vision are still useful.