Big Columbia River Crossing (CRC) news, everyone. The experimental “open web” design for the bridge is dead. The governor-appointed expert review panel on the state’s largest transportation project determined over the summer that the planned double-decker, open-web design was untested anywhere else in the world and would require an three years of additional engineering to the estimated tune of $600,000.
In their final report (pdf) released yesterday afternoon, the 16-member panel said the project should kill its poor design and offered three alternative ideas. Governor John Kitzhaber and Washington Governor Chris Gregoire announced just a few hours later that they would order the project to discontinue any work on the current design.
So this bridge? No more.
While it’s a good step forward for the project, it’s a major blow to the design team, since they’re essentially throwing out years of work. The project has already cost over $100 million for planning, including over $30 million on engineering and design consultants. In the immortal words of Kevin “Ug” Lee: “Do it right, or pay the price.”
Remarkably, the three new bridge designs are not only $10 to $100 million cheaper, they’re also (in my opinion) better looking. Those three designs and their pricetags below the cut.
Frankly, anyone who pays taxes in Oregon or Washington should be pissed. A group of 16 experts, called together only because local citizens and four politicians incessantly demanded the bridge design be reexamined, was able to think of three designs that were better and cheaper than the work an entire project team was able to accomplish in far longer.
Okay, here are the three new design ideas. The final report has a breakdown of the bike/ped and other facilities on each, if you want more detail.
$100 million – out of $3.6 billion? that’s no savings. that’s an accounting error. the failure is considering a big-ass bridge of any kind. while it’s not perfect, the 3rd Bridge option is the right approach: upgrade existing bridges while minimizing new construction. we don’t need a huge new bridge; we need to fix the transportation problems. and more road for cars is not that answer.
Minnesota’s interstate bridge collapsed and they had a state of the art new one within 9 months.
The transportation problem is that more people=more roads needed.
Bikes, mass transit and other fantasies must also be resupplied by trucks that drive on roads.
D: So what you’re saying is that we should knock down the I-5 bridge tonight and speed this bitch up? I’ll get the barge, you get the dynamite and we’ll both get the bourbon.
Here’s an idea, convert one lane of the current bridge to mass transit only, fund frequent bus service with a 10 dollar per vehicle rush hour toll and see what happens for a year. Put any left over money from the tolls in a fund to pay back the money that has already been spent planning the ridiculousness that was the CRC megabridge.
Before we start making comparisons to Minneapolis, remember this: ODOT’s 2007 Bridge Condition Report classifies the structural condition of the current I-5 bridges as “fair” while 30 other bridges and bridge structures on I-5 are rated as “structurally deficient.”
The CRC process has been one big circle jerk all along. Sammy’s insistence on an “iconic” structure was one of the main reasons this thing got detoured into la-la land in the first place.
$100 million later, the grown-ups show up and find the kids have run up the credit card on a bad bet on an ass-ugly design.
Jesus, what a bunch of fucking rubes we’ve got in local gubmint.
Are the grandpas in Cessnas at Pearson Field going to clear those first two? I thought that’s what was making this ugly in the first place.
So let me see if I have this straight. In the name of saving money, we’re scrapping $100 million of work in order to save $10-100 million. Net loss: up to $90,000,000. Reminds me of Wisconsin cancelling their stimulus-funded high-speed rail, funds which they now must pay back to the federal government. Fiscal conservativism at its finest.
Build a tunnel already.
An excellently designed bridge is a key component to our city being view as a culturally relevant metropolis, and the first design was most certainly not a well designed bridge. If we are spending this much money on a bridge, it might as well be a well designed statement about Portland’s view on architecture. Sadly, I don’t think the three new options are “well designed statements” either (especially the Composite Truss option), but they are at least better than the originally proposed design.
Yeah, I hear that all the time: “if the I-5 bridge wasn’t so ugly, that Portland would be a nice place to live.” Ugh.
I suggest we knock down the bridge and put in a giant rubber band and launch people from one side to the next. People would flock to Portland just for a good time.
Convert the rest of the buildings on Hayden island into “lottery delis,” thus creating the world’s largest, cheesiest megacasino. Earmark the profits for the new bridge.
Choose the most expensive design you can find, gold-plate the thing for good measure, and put Portlandia right on top.
BTW, be sure to make it a drawbridge so we can keep out refugees from the north after civilization collapses.
I’m diggin’ that triple Fremont…
For years, the highway divisions of Oregon and Washington have mismanaged this project, all the while propagandizing that their proposal is the only solution and dismissing the possibility of alternatives. Now, for the second time in six months, a panel of their own hand-picked experts have discredited the two state highway divisions and promoted alternatives. Bluntly, ODOT and WashDOT have been given another failing grade by their expert peers. The real question is: will the Governors finally bring in competent, reliable management worthy of this important project? Simply referring this latest expert panel’s findings back to the same bungling ODOT/WashDOT management which is responsible for the fiasco (which is all the Governors did last July the last time the experts rang the alarm and the Governors simply responded with more defensive spin) will only bring more of the same waste. First law of bureaucratic physics: an agency that has created a mess tends to spend more energy covering up and defending the mess than cleaning it up. That is exactly what the Oregon and Washington highway divisions have been doing for years and will continue to do until their senior leadership is sacked for their demonstrably poor performance and replaced with a team that can get the job done. And it needs to get done.