The project to replace the aging Interstate 5 bridge over the Columbia River continues to move along with a goal to start construction in 2025 still in sight, according to project officials.
In a Jan. 24 meeting of state legislators from Washington and Oregon, officials involved with the Interstate Bridge Replacement Project (IBRP) provided an update on current efforts to form a plan. As the first meeting of the year for the legislative group, it largely served as an update on the ongoing project which seeks to succeed where the Columbia River Crossing project of the prior decade failed.
IBRP Administrator Greg Johnson told lawmakers the project is on track to have a “locally preferred alternative” — essentially the plan for the replacement — in front of a committee by July. After that, the project could launch its environmental review process. The goal to begin substantial construction is still set for 2025.
After the project updated previous analysis done by the Columbia River Crossing a decade ago, in December the Federal Highway Administration and Federal Transit Administration determined additional environmental review was needed. Johnson said chief concerns included potential climate inequity and changes in the physical layout of the area.
Johnson said the federal agencies’ determinations were not a surprise, as the IBRP expected it would need to do some additional environmental work. Earlier in the project timeline, he noted the project may need to start from scratch, although that wasn’t the case. He anticipates it will take a year to publish the finalized environmental study.
“We are still well on that target,” Johnson said.
Johnson said the project focused on community engagement in 2021. There were 79 virtual meetings and events, and 18,700 responses collected from community surveys. Recently, he said the bridge project received a specific mention from President Joe Biden during a speech on transportation.
“(The president) noted that this is one of the most important infrastructure projects in the country,” Johnson said. “Folks are seeing the importance of this bridge in a national setting.”
Alongside the update, Johnson presented conceptual diagrams of what the project would look like on the Washington side with interchanges into Vancouver and to state Route 14. One option depicts a side-by-side option on the bridge, while another has stacked lanes with different levels for northbound and southbound traffic.
IBRP Deputy Program Manager John Willis reviewed the number of options under consideration by the project, which were first unveiled to the committee in October. The options include several concepts for interchanges and bridge crossings, as well as 10 options for transit.
As of the meeting, Willis said the project is only days away from releasing more information on the options. The next step would include analyzing tradeoffs for the different options, and engaging with project feedback groups to consider aspects like transit access, connections and other priorities.
Over the course of the spring, the project will compile the different aspects of the program to create a single project plan, Willis said.
Willis addressed the potential for tolling in the project area, something considered a given in some form. He said the project assumes variable rate tolling will be included and various models will be analyzed based on the different design options. He said the project will not make a recommendation on the toll rate, however, which he said is something “external” to the project’s scope.
“We won’t even know what rates are reasonable until after a series of traffic and revenue studies start in the summer of 2022 and will be complete more than a year later,” Willis said.
During public comment, Washington state Rep. Vicki Kraft, R-Vancouver, said she didn’t want the tolling aspect to be considered later on in the process. Kraft, who is not a member of the bi-state committee, said the need for additional capacity on the bridge is of chief importance to commuters and commercial vehicles using the corridor. More lanes could be achieved easier with a side-by-side setup, she said.
“I would argue that most of them, if we had them all in this room right now … they would scream for more throughput lanes,” Kraft said.
With recent cost estimates anticipated between $3.5 to $4.5 billion, those involved in the project said federal funding is key to getting the replacement complete. Johnson said any federal funding has to be allocated through metropolitan planning organizations like the Southwest Washington Regional Transportation Council (RTC), and similar agencies on Oregon’s side of the river.
RTC Director Matt Ransom touched on the ongoing analysis for the project. Ransom said it is based on the expectation of a data-driven process that will be laid out in the Washington legislative bill that established the bi-state committee.
“I believe … in fact the data, the coordination, the comprehensive nature of this project and the work that’s ongoing would meet all of the expectations we have to, both in our duty to federal and state laws that we serve,” Ransom said.
Ransom said RTC works with agencies on both sides of the Columbia River when developing forecasts, which he said have been updated to go up to 2045. He said the project analysis has been “comprehensive” and assumes traffic, transit, tolling, traffic demand management and land use. Different aspects weren’t analyzed in silos.
Ransom said he is confident the data generated is adequate for devising the project.
“All the work that is the foundational technical work that we have authoritative interest in I think is sound,” Ransom said.
