HOOD RIVER, Ore. — The Hood River Bridge recently landed a $200 million federal grant to help pay for a replacement crossing over the Columbia River, but news about the project caused one viewer to wonder: why is the current Hood River Bridge one of just a couple over the river that charge tolls?
In an email to KGW, viewer Steve Crump noted that the Hood River Bridge's tolls are said to go toward maintenance, but that prompted another question:
The Dalles Bridge just had a whole lot of maintenance and nobody charged us for it. Maybe in our taxes somewhere, but not a toll on the bridge collecting it. It makes me wonder why one bridge can be free and the other one has a toll, and they both cross the same river. Maybe it's a state bridge and the other one is privately owned?
THE QUESTION
If an Oregon bridge charges tolls in perpetuity, is that because it's not state-owned?
THE SOURCES
THE ANSWER
Yes, all Oregon bridges that currently charge permanent tolls are not state-owned, making them ineligible for the gas tax revenue that funds routine maintenance on state-owned bridges.
WHAT WE FOUND
There are two bridges in Oregon that fall into the weird perpetual tolling category: the Hood River Bridge and the Bridge of the Gods. Both bridges were originally built by private companies in the 1920s and were later purchased by the Port of Hood River and the Port of Cascade Locks, respectively, making them unique among Oregon's major bridges.
Most other Oregon bridges were built as government projects and are owned by the Oregon Department of Transportation or local governments — or in the case of most Columbia River bridges, jointly owned by ODOT and the Washington State Department of Transportation.
Some of those bridges originally charged tolls to cover construction costs, such as the Astoria-Megler Bridge and the Interstate Bridge, but those tolls stopped being collected once the bonds were paid off, with subsequent maintenance costs — such as the $27.6 million deck replacement on The Dalles Bridge that Crump referenced — covered by the DOTs.
The counties and DOTs can rely in part on gas tax revenue to fund the ongoing bridge maintenance, but the ports don't have access to that money. So that's the short answer: the tolls are the alternate funding source that the ports use in lieu of the gas tax.
Why the ports?
The longer answer involves a couple other questions: How did the toll bridges end up with the ports rather than ODOT or WSDOT? And why do the ports use tolls instead of subsidizing the maintenance costs through their other operations?
Several of the region's prominent bridges didn't start out under state ownership — Oregon and Washington purchased the northbound Interstate Bridge span from Multnomah and Clark counties in 1929, for example, and ODOT acquired the St. Johns and Ross Island bridges from Multnomah County in 1976.
But according to spokesman Don Hamilton, ODOT passed on the opportunity to buy the Hood River Bridge from its original private owners in 1950. An Oregon State Highway Commission report at the time concluded that many drivers would use less fuel — and therefore pay less in gas taxes — if they switched their trips to the Hood River Bridge, so buying the bridge and making it toll-free would be a money-losing proposition for the state.
But the Oregon Legislature had passed a law in 1949 that allowed ports to own and operate toll bridges, so the Port of Hood River was happy to step in. The bridge was still relatively new and didn't need as much maintenance at the time, according to current port executive director Kevin Greenwood, so the port saw the ongoing tolls as a major financial asset.
"Those tolls, in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, in part, aside from taking care of the current bridge, actually went into investing in economic development in Hood River and in the fabulously popular waterfront here," he said.
The Bridge of the Gods has a similar history — the Port of Cascade Locks was one of several public agencies that the private owners approached to try to sell the bridge in the 1950s, according to a 2021 article from the port, and its tolls have helped fund port economic development in addition to bridge maintenance.
The Hood River Bridge still accounts for about 60% of the Port of Hood River's overall revenue, Greenwood said, so getting rid of the tolls would not only mean finding other revenue to subsidize bridge maintenance — it would also mean finding more revenue to replace the tolling money that goes into other port operations.
That financial relationship is changing on its own, however, because the cost of upkeep has grown steadily as the bridge has aged, and the amount of leftover funding for other projects has correspondingly dwindled. As of last year, more than 90% of the bridge's roughly $6 million toll revenues went straight back into maintenance, Greenwood said.
Replacement bridge
The costs will only get worse as the bridge approaches the end of its useful life, which is why the port began work in 2017 on a project to replace the crossing. Construction is set to begin in about two years, and the successor bridge will be owned and operated by a new agency called the Hood River-White Salmon Bridge Authority. Greenwood said the port has been working to grow its other revenue sources so it can be self-sustaining once the new bridge opens in 2029 — if not sooner.
"It's really been the Port Commission's goal to completely get off of tolls for non-bridge-related activities by June of 2026. And I think we've been doing that over the last 18 months," he said. "But frankly, with inflation and not adjusting the tolls to a CPI, that's not going to be hard to do, because the cost of maintaining this bridge will likely force our hand come July of 2026."
The current tolls were hiked substantially in September, but the additional revenue will all go toward construction of the new bridge rather than maintenance on the old one or other port operations.
The Port of Cascade Locks is in a different situation because the Bridge of the Gods is still in good condition, according to reporting from Columbia Gorge News, so there's no talk of a replacement anytime soon. Its maintenance costs have increased over time, necessitating toll hikes, but Columbia Gorge News reported that the port recently asked the Oregon Legislature for $6 million to study how to seismically retrofit the bridge and extend its lifespan.
The tolls continue
Back in Hood River, the new bridge authority will take over toll collection on the replacement crossing, but it will still have the same problem as the port — no access to gas tax revenue to cover maintenance. So even after the construction costs are paid off, it's likely the new Hood River Bridge will remain an oddball with permanent tolls.
The only way that could change would be if ODOT or WSDOT acquired the new bridge, and an FAQ on the project's website does raise that possibility. But it appears to be a purely hypothetical scenario at this stage — Greenwood said the port asked both agencies back in 2017 if they'd be interested in taking over the new bridge project, and the answer was a hard no.
ODOT has also had no conversations so far about the idea of taking over once the project is complete, Hamilton said. But the new bridge will be built to meet minimum ODOT and WSDOT criteria, according to a bridge authority spokesperson, so the agency plans to broach the topic with the states again down the road.
One final note: it is currently true that no state-owned bridges in Oregon charge tolls, but that may not be the case much longer. The under-construction Abernethy Bridge project will be financed through tolls, and the in-development Interstate Bridge Replacement project also plans to start collecting tolls in just a couple years. And the Regional Mobility Pricing Plan aims to bring tolls to large stretches of Interstate 5 and Interstate 205 throughout the Portland metro area.