Update: I mis-labeled the meeting below and have corrected it.
As one reader wrote to us “You guys have to cover this”.
This being the idea that the City of Portland should kick in some of its transportation funds, to the tune of $8M per year, to generate much of the local match for the Sellwood Bridge project, even though the County owns the bridge.
The rationale is that Portland has a vital interest in the bridge, and Multnomah County is simply never going to have the necessary revenue given how transportation funds are distributed.
To be clear, the proposed $8M is based on the assumption that Portland will receive a substantial increase in transportation funding from the State under the Governor’s proposed transportation package. No new funding, no deal.
I was at the Mayor’s transportation cabinet Safe, Sound and Green Streets meeting where this was discussed and I can tell you no one was happy about the idea (because Portland has so many unmet needs of its own) but there was general recognition that this may be inevitable. But there was considerable interest in negotiation a contribution lower than $8M.
14 responses to “Portland to Fund Sellwood?”
I think someone will be taking a closer look at the low cost solution…fixing the existing bridge. A good precedent for the CRC project. Note that the old Oregon City/ West Linn bridge is now weight restricted; ODOT will start a retrofit project soon. Why tear down an old bridge that can be fixed?
Lenny Anderson: I think someone will be taking a closer look at the low cost solution…fixing the existing bridge. A good precedent for the CRC project. Note that the old Oregon City/ West Linn bridge is now weight restricted; ODOT will start a retrofit project soon. Why tear down an old bridge that can be fixed?
If by “fixing”, you include some method of widening the existing sidewalk by a considerable margin and adding one on the south side, I’d agree it is a good question. How much did the repair on the Ross Island cost?
Why widen the sidewalk? Why not just add a pedestrian/bicycle deck on the lower part of the truss, and then get rid of the sidewalk and widen the traffic lanes on the top deck?
As for Portland paying for the bridge, why not transfer the County’s Willamette River Bridges to Portland? All the bridges are in city limits, and Portland is generally responsible for transportation infrastructure anyway. It would make more sense to have PDOT operate and maintain the bridges.
Douglas K. Says: Why widen the sidewalk? Why not just add a pedestrian/bicycle deck on the lower part of the truss, and then get rid of the sidewalk and widen the traffic lanes on the top deck?
Works for me. I didn’t think of it, honestly. It does seem as though widening would be less expensive but perhaps not, or perhaps not enough to make a difference. The deck below the Steel Bridge is certainly a great solution.
Is repair of the Sellwood cost-effective? I don’t know the answer–just asking. The bridge may be nearing (or past) the end of its useful life, and replacement may be the only cost-effective option.
“Why widen the sidewalk? Why not just add a pedestrian/bicycle deck on the lower part of the truss, and then get rid of the sidewalk and widen the traffic lanes on the top deck?”
In a word: safety.
In more words: I believe there is concern that such a design would attract a large number of people engaged in non-transportation related activities.
Ugh! The idea of retrofititng and rehabilitating the existing bridge has been studied to death. Study after study shows that it would be more expensive and more disruptive to traffic than building a new bridge would be.
Plus, a full retrofit would only buy for a bridge that would last for another thirty years or so. An entirely new bridge would last for 75 years.
The existing Sellwood Bridge just isn’t worth saving. Since it never carried streetcars, it just wasn’t built as strong as the Hawthorne and the Burnside Bridges.
The Sellwood bridge could be rehabilitated cost-effectively, but such a study has not been done. The studies that purportedly show rehab costing more than a new bridge assume strengthening the bridge to accomodate large trucks and bringing it up to current seismic standards. The assumptions in those studies were determined by those who arranged the studies, but they are preferences, not facts. I should add that the Citizens Task Force appointed to make recommendations on the Sellwood Bridge ratified those assumptions, and did not challenge them in any meaningful way.
Regarding a covered path, I find it curious that it is apparently the protection from rain that brings in the undesirables. Separated, uncovered facilities (e.g. the Springwater trail) are all the rage. In fact, a pedestrian and bicycle bridge across the Missouri River, between Omaha and Council Bluffs was opened this last fall, and it cost $22 million, and is approximately the same length as would be required to cross the Willamette near the Sellwood.
The Golden Gate bridge was recently rehabilitated with an “orthotropic steel” deck. Such a deck is pre-fabricated, and requires a relatively short closure, and weighs less than a conventional concrete deck, thereby strengthening the bridge through weight reduction. This option for the Sellwood was never studied, because at the time, the bubble in steel prices made it look too expensive.
If Portlanders want to come up with the full cost of replacing the Sellwood Bridge, that is fine with me, and I would even vote to send my money there rather than the stupid CRC. Just don’t tell me it can’t be rehabbed cheaply. There was a deliberate choice not to look at that option.
Doug Allen:
I’ve always been a bit suspicious about the cost of the rehabilitation option, but I don’t think the above stated requirements (large trucks and current seismic standards) are unreasonable.
Or maybe I’m misunderstanding you, are you suggesting that they rehab the bridge but maintain the current weight limit? The one immediate plus a new Sellwood Bridge will bring is the ability to run emergency trucks and Trimet over the river in this part of town.
I mean rehab to mean the ability to carry trucks up to the legal limit of 80,000 pounds, way more than the weight of a TriMet bus or a fire truck. This requires a new deck, not a new truss. The studies assumed the ability to carry overweight trucks up to 120,000 pounds, requiring extensive truss strengthening, as the trusses were designed for closer to an 80,000 pound load. A lighter deck would actually allow for heavier loads than the original design.
Certainly the idea of bringing the bridge up to current seismic standards has great emotional appeal, but is it cost-effective, compared with spending the same amount to do seismic upgrades on the Willamette River bridges closer to downtown, which I would consider much more vital?
Of course if you have all the money you need, spend it, but if you don’t, prioritize.
Adding a sidewalk to the truss doesn’t mean putting it inside the truss. It should be fairly simple to put a couple of light-weight 8-foot sidewalks outside the truss on each side, possibly held in place by cables anchored at the top of the truss. It could be like the Steel Bridge crossing deck, not some dark, scary place hidden from view.
An average of about 30,000 cars and trucks use the current Sellwood Bridge on a daily basis. Even with the wildest projections, the numbers of bicyclists and pedestrians added together using a new bridge in 2030 only add up to about one-fourth the number of motor vehicles that use the current bridge today. Yet, with only about 50 percent of the deck surface on the proposed new bridge that would be allocated to motor vehicles, the deck surface for motor vehicles is being rationed while the deck space for bicycles and pedestrians is unnecessarily super-sized. Therefore, bicyclists and pedestrians need to be kicking in a proportional amount of the funding that would be in total, an equal match to the motorist paid highway funds allocated. .
The bicycle portion could be easily acquired by establishing a local and/or statewide bicyclist only paid bicycle tax. Since the majority of pedestrians who will use and receive benefit from the super-sized sidewalks will undoubtedly be from the Sellwood Neighborhood, the majority of the pedestrian funding also must come from the Sellwood Neighborhood. This can be accomplished by establishing a Local Improvement District (a LID) that encompasses not only the Sellwood Neighborhood, but also the bridge impact area on the Westside. After all, it is the residents in Sellwood that are the people insisting on the replacement for the existing obsolete two-lane bridge be yet another obsolete two-lane bridge with some expensive social engineering added for pedestrians and bicycles. Therefore, it must not be the motorists that pay for those extras. Moreover, establishing a LID is the same type of funding mechanism proposed by the City of Portland to fund new sidewalks and other pedestrian amenities in Southwest Portland.
Motor vehicle taxes and fees, including local motor vehicle taxes and fees, must not be drawn on to pay for more than 50 percent of the local dollars needed for this project. An equitable, monetary justice funding package must be required for this project. The only fair way to accomplish that is to establish a proportional split of the funding sources based on the percentage of deck space allocated for each transport mode so that all users pay a balanced share of the costs needed for a new bridge. .
Terry,
Don’t forget that a good portion of motor vehicles that go over the Sellwood Bridge are coming from outside of Multnomah County. Furthermore, there are very few gas stations along their most probable route of travel (99e to Tacoma to Sellwood Bridge to Macadam to downtown… or 26 or I5), so there’s a decent chance that most of those drivers aren’t filling up at Multnomah County either. These drivers are essentially free riders, as a big chunk of the money is coming from the county and the city of Portland. How do we get them to pay their fair share?
Terry,
For further clarification, along the route I mentioned above, there’s just one gas station in Multnomah County, the Chevron on Macadam (westbound side) with just four pumps. There’s also a small gas station downtown as well, depending on which direction they’re going in. If they head south on 43 once they cross the Sellwood Bridge they won’t hit a gas station at all.