I-5 Bridge Replacement - Formerly Columbia River Crossing | Proposed

[tworivers]

Opinion: IBR team hasn’t ‘right-sized’ the project, they’ve just hidden full commitment

Joe Cortright
BikePortland 3/19/26

The Interstate Bridge Replacement Program (IBR) has finally released the cost estimates it’s been promising for more than two years — and the numbers confirm what we’ve been saying since January: this project has more than doubled in cost, from $6 billion to as much as $15.2 billion.

The spin merchants who work for the IBR have packaged the increase as much smaller, claiming that they’re going to just build the “core elements” of the project. That’s led some in the media — including, unfortunately, BikePortland — to report the project is being “right-sized.”

That’s simply not true: IBR is stretching out the project (through the 2040s), but has actually said nothing about giving up on the whole boondoggle, including widening five miles of freeway and building seven intersections. And the way they’ve designed the project, once you start, we’ll have no option to say “no” later on...

continues here

[PhillyPDX]

Originally Posted by snopas

Yes, the plan is to in the near-term build the two bridges over the Columbia River, link them up at either end, build light rail to Vancouver Waterfront, and remove the existing bridges. The rest of the 5 mile corridor is to be phased in afterward. They have also planned for a possible "Step 1" approach should they be unable to close a 2.2 B funding gap, where the bridges are constructed with room for light rail but the tracks and stations are left yet to be built.






Link to full presentation: https://www.interstatebridge.org/media/vtfdtrwx/20260317_esg_meeting_presentation_remediated.pdf

As I expected, that looks like significantly more than half the total project cost. Also, that relatively tight curve at the south approach to move I-5 onto the new bridge looks like a very bad idea as far as Interstate highway 70mph traffic goes (absent being truly temporary for construction phase….but in this case we don’t have full funding guaranteed or even identified potentially). Looks like they need to do that to avoid the longer term connection at Marine drive, which is needed for proper tie-in to existing alignment.

At the north end they are only cutting out like 1.5 miles, which appears to only be adding lanes within the existing right of way. Even at a crazy high $100m/mile that’s only saving like $100-$200m. For reference SR14 in Vancouver widening just completed, added freeway lanes for 2.5 miles, and only cost $28m.

Where is the $8b+ savings coming from?

[mhays]

Thanks snopas.

Regarding the typical cost of widening, the cost can be astronomically varied. Does it involve rebuilding and replacing bridges? Retaining walls? Redoing every ramp? Lots of complex phasing and night work? Temporary construction to reduce traffic inconvenience? Mitigation to avoid construction noise? Are they simply adding or also altering the existing alignment?

[Jakz]

Originally Posted by PhillyPDX

As I expected, that looks like significantly more than half the total project cost. Also, that relatively tight curve at the south approach to move I-5 onto the new bridge looks like a very bad idea as far as Interstate highway 70mph traffic goes (absent being truly temporary for construction phase….but in this case we don’t have full funding guaranteed or even identified potentially). Looks like they need to do that to avoid the longer term connection at Marine drive, which is needed for proper tie-in to existing alignment.

At the north end they are only cutting out like 1.5 miles, which appears to only be adding lanes within the existing right of way. Even at a crazy high $100m/mile that’s only saving like $100-$200m. For reference SR14 in Vancouver widening just completed, added freeway lanes for 2.5 miles, and only cost $28m.

Where is the $8b+ savings coming from?

This is how it's been budgeted all along. The sections north and south of the bridge were being budgeted at around $1 billion per mile, and with costs doubling that's probably gone up to $2 billion per mile. This is consistent with the RQ, which without the caps would be about $1 billion per mile. The other big chunk is the unnecessary replacement of the 8-lane Portland Harbor bridge built in the 80s.

Where it all goes beats me. I'm sure an absurdly large chunk of it is temporary routing, traffic management, staging, sequencing, etc. But still.

It really underlines the absolute foolishness of trying to widen urban interstates. ODOT has been delivering rural/suburban freeway projects at $100-$200 million per mile (OR 217, Newberg bypass, I-205 south of Abernethy budget). It's not an exaggeration to say that $4 billion can buy us 2 miles of widening in downtown Vancouver or 30 miles of widening on corridors like I-205, US 30, Cornelius Pass, OR 217. And those routes are far more useful for regional freight since they don't get nearly as clogged with commuters. Truckers will happily take a 10 mile detour that avoids traffic and has a reliable trip time.

But no one is thinking like this. The planning and funding systems are obviously very, very broken.

*Editing to add that part of the reason the Vancouver segment costs are coming in so high is that the plan is generally not to add one lane in each direction (which all the bridges could accommodate, since they were built in the 1980s with future expansion in mind), but rather two lanes in each direction, which requires replacing all of the bridges. It's madness.

[PhillyPDX]

Originally Posted by Jakz

This is how it's been budgeted all along. The sections north and south of the bridge were being budgeted at around $1 billion per mile, and with costs doubling that's probably gone up to $2 billion per mile. This is consistent with the RQ, which without the caps would be about $1 billion per mile. The other big chunk is the unnecessary replacement of the 8-lane Portland Harbor bridge built in the 80s.

Where it all goes beats me. I'm sure an absurdly large chunk of it is temporary routing, traffic management, staging, sequencing, etc. But still.

It really underlines the absolute foolishness of trying to widen urban interstates. ODOT has been delivering rural/suburban freeway projects at $100-$200 million per mile (OR 217, Newberg bypass, I-205 south of Abernethy budget). It's not an exaggeration to say that $4 billion can buy us 2 miles of widening in downtown Vancouver or 30 miles of widening on corridors like I-205, US 30, Cornelius Pass, OR 217. And those routes are far more useful for regional freight since they don't get nearly as clogged with commuters. Truckers will happily take a 10 mile detour that avoids traffic and has a reliable trip time.

But no one is thinking like this. The planning and funding systems are obviously very, very broken.

*Editing to add that part of the reason the Vancouver segment costs are coming in so high is that the plan is generally not to add one lane in each direction (which all the bridges could accommodate, since they were built in the 1980s with future expansion in mind), but rather two lanes in each direction, which requires replacing all of the bridges. It's madness.

Crap, at $2b/mile that's getting close to tunneling costs. WTF is going on with this?

That is SUCH a wide ROW north of downtown Vancouver (the extents apparently now excluded). I only count maybe an additional 5 total crossings that would potentially need replacement (a few of which are for small 2 lane residential roads). Simple freeway crossings aren't that expensive. Retaining walls aren't that expensive. To be sure, real estate WILL add up, but I don't see that as a huge need here given the wide ROW.

I'd love to see more details on what was/is planned. There isn't much in terms of specifics on the website. This comes as someone who was heavily involved in designs of multi-billion widenings of I-95 in much more dense and expensive construction cost urban areas than this project has, hence my curiosity with this boondoggle.

[Jakz]

Originally Posted by PhillyPDX

Crap, at $2b/mile that's getting close to tunneling costs. WTF is going on with this?

That is SUCH a wide ROW north of downtown Vancouver (the extents apparently now excluded). I only count maybe an additional 5 total crossings that would potentially need replacement (a few of which are for small 2 lane residential roads). Simple freeway crossings aren't that expensive. Retaining walls aren't that expensive. To be sure, real estate WILL add up, but I don't see that as a huge need here given the wide ROW.

I'd love to see more details on what was/is planned. There isn't much in terms of specifics on the website. This comes as someone who was heavily involved in designs of multi-billion widenings of I-95 in much more dense and expensive construction cost urban areas than this project has, hence my curiosity with this boondoggle.

This report has all the gory details:

https://cityobservatory.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IBR_BOE_Fixed-Span-Bridge_08.15.2025.pdf

Two aspects that somewhat alleviate the sticker shock is that 1) we've had like 50% cummulative construction inflation since 2018, and 2) the budget is YOE costs, which inflate the budget by a huge amount for a 20 year project.

But the costs are still astronomical, particularly when compared with the benefits. Like, okay, the Marine Dr. interchange is a little weird and nonstandard, but is spending $800 million (current dollars!) to fix it really a good use of limited funds? It's obvious that zero effort has gone into any kind of cost-benefit analysis.

The process seems to be: Consultants/management set high-level goals like delivering a 10-lane width over the whole project length and remedying all substandard merge lengths. This isn't even a reasonable goal like making all structures that have to be touched wide/long enough for a future 10-lane width. That's a small cost-add. No, this is 10-lane width on day 1, even though the extra space won't be useful for 50 years and potentially never given capacity constraints elsewhere. This causes the budget to double, which no one even realizes because lower-cost options aren't evaluated. The leaders/politicians then just shrug and say "this is what the engineers told us to build."

[PhillyPDX]

Originally Posted by Jakz

This report has all the gory details:

https://cityobservatory.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IBR_BOE_Fixed-Span-Bridge_08.15.2025.pdf

Two aspects that somewhat alleviate the sticker shock is that 1) we've had like 50% cummulative construction inflation since 2018, and 2) the budget is YOE costs, which inflate the budget by a huge amount for a 20 year project.

But the costs are still astronomical, particularly when compared with the benefits. Like, okay, the Marine Dr. interchange is a little weird and nonstandard, but is spending $800 million (current dollars!) to fix it really a good use of limited funds? It's obvious that zero effort has gone into any kind of cost-benefit analysis.

The process seems to be: Consultants/management set high-level goals like delivering a 10-lane width over the whole project length and remedying all substandard merge lengths. This isn't even a reasonable goal like making all structures that have to be touched wide/long enough for a future 10-lane width. That's a small cost-add. No, this is 10-lane width on day 1, even though the extra space won't be useful for 50 years and potentially never given capacity constraints elsewhere. This causes the budget to double, which no one even realizes because lower-cost options aren't evaluated. The leaders/politicians then just shrug and say "this is what the engineers told us to build."

To be fair to engineering consultants (my industry), they are just trying to keep clients happy to meet their contract scope and try to eventually get repeat business. I don't think this was some conspiracy by consultants to keep padding costs. I have been on many jobs where engineer might make a recommendation, be rejected by the DOT, and then "ok, we'll proceed with the original scope". It's not their job, or prudent business practice, to do more than that.

I have been on jobs where consultant and DOT co-present concepts at public meetings intentionally set up to steer public into agreeing with the DOTs plan without even realizing it (give unrealistic bad ideas so public chooses the obvious one DOT wants, then DOT says "see, public wants Option A. We won't go against their wishes"). They won't lie about numbers illegally, but marketing is sly business.

Your statement above does make me concerned about this new reduced scope. How much effort was actually put into potentially building in phases that do not assume future phases get built? If the goal was always 10 lanes, they would have not put much effort, if any, into what this new phase 1 would be. They would consider phasing for construction purposes, as temporary measures, but they would not be developing concepts to say "this phase needs to be designed as a permanent solution if future phases don't get built" (that would cost more to design and build). If they did not fully vet phases like this to date, there could be some additional phase-creep ($$) as they work on designing a truly stand alone long term phase 1. The image I saw from Gov Ferguson almost felt like someone slapped a generic concept on a temporary phasing plan and said it was buildable as a permanent solution. Sure...but is it ok for the long term?

[Jakz]

Originally Posted by PhillyPDX

To be fair to engineering consultants (my industry), they are just trying to keep clients happy to meet their contract scope and try to eventually get repeat business. I don't think this was some conspiracy by consultants to keep padding costs. I have been on many jobs where engineer might make a recommendation, be rejected by the DOT, and then "ok, we'll proceed with the original scope". It's not their job, or prudent business practice, to do more than that.

I have been on jobs where consultant and DOT co-present concepts at public meetings intentionally set up to steer public into agreeing with the DOTs plan without even realizing it (give unrealistic bad ideas so public chooses the obvious one DOT wants, then DOT says "see, public wants Option A. We won't go against their wishes"). They won't lie about numbers illegally, but marketing is sly business.

Your statement above does make me concerned about this new reduced scope. How much effort was actually put into potentially building in phases that do not assume future phases get built? If the goal was always 10 lanes, they would have not put much effort, if any, into what this new phase 1 would be. They would consider phasing for construction purposes, as temporary measures, but they would not be developing concepts to say "this phase needs to be designed as a permanent solution if future phases don't get built" (that would cost more to design and build). If they did not fully vet phases like this to date, there could be some additional phase-creep ($$) as they work on designing a truly stand alone long term phase 1. The image I saw from Gov Ferguson almost felt like someone slapped a generic concept on a temporary phasing plan and said it was buildable as a permanent solution. Sure...but is it ok for the long term?

Yeah, I'm in the industry too, so I get it. I can't fault consultants for looking out for their own bottom lines. And it's not as if the design is way outside of the recommendations of the ODOT Highway Design Manual (or I assume its WA equivalent). In fact this is probably just what you get when you follow every prescription to the letter. So from the engineers' perspective it's a very defensible design. ODOT's manual says to do things a certain way, so they do it, and a beneficial side effect is they can bill for a lot more design work.

It's just painfully obvious that there's no one on the public side with the expertise or incentive to evaluate the proposed designs from a cost/benefit perspective. Decisions are being made at the design level that double the project budget and the leadership doesn't even know.

Also yeah, the current design leaves a lot to be desired from the perspective of making future scope optional or deferring it for decades, which is not at all an unlikely outcome.

[aquaticko]

The whole thing just shows how completely out of line state DOTs are. They're not public agencies dedicated to cost and resource-effective transportation systems; they're highway construction lobby groups.

Any sane examination of Metro Portland's long-term population trajectory would, given the already-existent bones of a regional rail transit system, figure out how to maximize its use (including, yes, significantly improving it). There's a big change in scope of how to make that happen, as it'd obviously have to tie in land use in a way that DOTs don't generally seem to now, but...transportation planning and land use planning are two sides of the same coin.

People rightly point out that ODOT loves to cry poverty while planning multi-billion dollar expansions of urban highways (which, sitting between Portland and Vancouver, this does count as), which are both incredibly ineffective transportation modes AND very poor use of relatively high-value land. No one debates the eventual necessity of replacing the very aged piece of crucial infrastructure that is the bridge, but no one with the power to change the direction of the project seems very interested in pointing out that planning for evermore car traffic on it is always a fool's errand.

Metro Portland is just too populous a region to have everyone drive everywhere without traffic snarls as a daily fact-of-life. especially with the geographic strictures of the Columbia and the West Hills. Additionally, Portland-Seattle is too populous a region to have everyone drive between them (yes, I'm positing that we could build a new intercity passenger rail alignment on this bridge, which I know isn't on anyone's radar and would be a massive-er change with complicated ROW discussions whether I5 or MAX-adjacent; it's all obviously hypothetical for now). There already exists certain amounts of infrastructure to begin resolving both these problems in ways that massively expands the practical population/transportation capacities of both these regions. Mode shift is not only the obvious solution, but the only one. Any infrastructure project that doesn't put that goal first and foremost is misguided.

[PhillyPDX]

Originally Posted by aquaticko

The whole thing just shows how completely out of line state DOTs are. They're not public agencies dedicated to cost and resource-effective transportation systems; they're highway construction lobby groups.

Any sane examination of Metro Portland's long-term population trajectory would, given the already-existent bones of a regional rail transit system, figure out how to maximize its use (including, yes, significantly improving it). There's a big change in scope of how to make that happen, as it'd obviously have to tie in land use in a way that DOTs don't generally seem to now, but...transportation planning and land use planning are two sides of the same coin.

People rightly point out that ODOT loves to cry poverty while planning multi-billion dollar expansions of urban highways (which, sitting between Portland and Vancouver, this does count as), which are both incredibly ineffective transportation modes AND very poor use of relatively high-value land. No one debates the eventual necessity of replacing the very aged piece of crucial infrastructure that is the bridge, but no one with the power to change the direction of the project seems very interested in pointing out that planning for evermore car traffic on it is always a fool's errand.

Metro Portland is just too populous a region to have everyone drive everywhere without traffic snarls as a daily fact-of-life. especially with the geographic strictures of the Columbia and the West Hills. Additionally, Portland-Seattle is too populous a region to have everyone drive between them (yes, I'm positing that we could build a new intercity passenger rail alignment on this bridge, which I know isn't on anyone's radar and would be a massive-er change with complicated ROW discussions whether I5 or MAX-adjacent; it's all obviously hypothetical for now). There already exists certain amounts of infrastructure to begin resolving both these problems in ways that massively expands the practical population/transportation capacities of both these regions. Mode shift is not only the obvious solution, but the only one. Any infrastructure project that doesn't put that goal first and foremost is misguided.

Rehabbing infrastructure doesn't get you election points; new, bigger, best does. It works....at least until something fails catastrophically.