The first batch of projects to discuss are the replacement freeway bridge concepts. They could be located either immediately east or west of the existing bridges, and come in three height variations: Low (65 foot verical clearance), Medium (110 foot vertical clearance) or High (130 foot vertical clearance).
You can find detailed descriptions on pages 5-3 to 5-5 and 5-10 (PDF 318K) from the screening report (PDF 3.3M).
The Low variations would not allow clearance for all river traffic, so they would require some kind of movable span.
The Medium variations have sufficient clearance that they do not require a movable span. Given this, it’s not clear what advantages the High variations provide, which is probably just as well, as staff has recommended against them due to interference with the airspace for Pearson Air Park and possibly PDX.
On to our supplemental question: will this design help reduce reliance on SOV automobilies? That would depend to a large degree on the lane configurations. How much is given over to HOV lanes or dedicated transit lanes, bus or Light Rail (we can assume the bike and ped facilities will be built to current standards)? If the number of unmanaged lanes is increased, we’re simply encouraging more people to commute from Vancouver to Portland, which will not help with SOV reliance.
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| ID | NAME | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Q4 | Q5 | Q6 | Overall |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RC-1 | Replacement Bridge, Downstream, Low-level, Movable | P | P | P | P | P | P | P |
| RC-2 | Replacement Bridge, Upstream, Low-level, Movable | P | P | P | P | P | P | P |
| RC-3 | Replacement Bridge, Downstream, Mid-level | P | P | P | P | P | P | P |
| RC-4 | Replacement Bridge, Upstream, Mid-level | P | P | P | P | P | P | P |
| RC-5 | Replacement Bridge, Downstream, High-level | P | P | P | F | P | P | F |
| RC-6 | Replacement Bridge, Upstream, High-level | P | P | P | F | P | P | F |
The first batch of projects to discuss are the replacement freeway bridge concepts. They could be located either immediately east or west of the existing bridges, and come in three height variations: Low (65 foot verical clearance), Medium (110 foot vertical clearance) or High (130 foot vertical clearance).
You can find detailed descriptions on pages 5-3 to 5-5 and 5-10 (PDF 318K) from the screening report (PDF 3.3M).
The Low variations would not allow clearance for all river traffic, so they would require some kind of movable span.
The Medium variations have sufficient clearance that they do not require a movable span. Given this, it’s not clear what advantages the High variations provide, which is probably just as well, as staff has recommended against them due to interference with the airspace for Pearson Air Park and possibly PDX.
On to our supplemental question: will this design help reduce reliance on SOV automobilies? That would depend to a large degree on the lane configurations. How much is given over to HOV lanes or dedicated transit lanes, bus or Light Rail (we can assume the bike and ped facilities will be built to current standards)? If the number of unmanaged lanes is increased, we’re simply encouraging more people to commute from Vancouver to Portland, which will not help with SOV reliance.
Comments have been closed and will be submitted to the project public record. If you have additional thoughts, please comment on the open thread for this purpose.