PORTLAND, Ore. — A mix of Oregon and Washington officials gathered Thursday near the Interstate Bridge for an event to celebrate a series of federal grant awards that have collectively brought in roughly $2.1 billion over the past year for the project to replace the aging structure.
The Interstate Bridge Replacement Program was awarded $600 million from the Mega Grant program last year and another $1.5 billion from the Bridge Investment Program last month. Both programs were created as part of President Joe Biden's signature Bipartisan Infrastructure Law in 2021.
"The 1.5 (billion dollars) means that we can start the funding on design and ultimately construction, which could happen as early as 2026. So I’m telling people, you’d better start taking pictures of this bridge, because it’s not going to be around much longer," U.S. Sen Maria Cantwell said, gesturing at the current twin bridges behind her.
U.S. Federal Highway Administrator Shailen Bhatt also attended and spoke about the age of the current bridges and the central role that they play in the region's economy.
"We have a bridge in the backdrop here that, check my math, but I think President Woodrow Wilson could’ve cut the ribbon on the first one, and I think President Eisenhower would’ve cut the ribbon on the second one," he said. "And you don’t win the 21st century with bridges and infrastructure from the 20th century."
U.S. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, who represents southwest Washington, also spoke about the ongoing maintenance costs of the current bridge, arguing that the cost of new infrastructure also needs to be weighed against the rising costs of maintaining aging equipment.
The replacement project has been in the works in one form or another for decades, but the current effort got underway in 2019. It's estimated to cost about $6 billion, so the federal grant money covers about a third of that total — although project officials warned this year that costs have escalated over the past few years so the project price tag is likely to rise when the team produces an updated estimate after the federal environmental review process is completed in the next year.
The project won't begin detailed design work until it receives federal approval, but the initial high-level design plans call for a pair of replacement bridges, one of which would also carry a light rail extension to Vancouver. The project would also replace the bridge from Hayden Island to the Oregon mainland and upgrade several freeway interchanges on either side of the river. The current timeline calls for construction to begin in 2026.
