That last picture sure looks as if they've moved the river out of the way.

A mere $500 million? Heck, they can make the Columbia River Crossing just a little less ostentatious and probably find the money there.

Of course, there is also the $$$ train / bus / ped only bridge that is supposed to cross the same Willamette River ... I've yet to see anyone at City Hall or Metro suggest combining the two. Why settle for gouging us and making the developer buddies rich once when they can do it twice?

Can someone explain why the hell this seemingly simple span will cost half a billion? Their plans don't seem to call for anything too aesthetically ambitious either... I don't get it.

Maybe instead of floating the PCC bond measure, Multnomah County should have thrown this out there.

Can someone explain why the hell this seemingly simple span will cost half a billion?

If that's today's estimate, you can be sure that it won't. It'll cost twice as much. It's in the same overpriced league as the $6 Bn Columbia River crossing.

Here is an article about the Lötschberg Base Tunnel in Switzerland that opened last year. Twenty-two miles under the Alps, $3.5 Billion after $850 million of cost overruns.

And here is one about the spectacular Millau viaduct in France, 8,100 feet long, the road deck 900 feet above the Tarn River gorge, completed at the end of 2004 for about $500 million (in other words, roughly our Sellwood Bridge estimate).

The legislature approved $250 million in lottery backed bonds for the new Milwaukie light rail line and bridge just down river. That low priority could and should be shelved and the lottery money redirected to the Sellwood Bridge.

Will the new legislature do the right thing?

NO.

Instead they will apporve more bailout money for OHSU/their doctor's "Medical Group" bankrupt building in South Waterfront and other boondoggles in trouble.

If they simply maintained the current alignment, and expanded it to two eastbound lanes (one westbound), they could do it for a lot less money. Granted, they would have to close the existing span to replace it.

And the Sellwood Neighborhood would hate it because it would require removal of the center islands on 9 blocks. They could keep the traffic "calming" devices if they simply condemned the house on one or both side for that 9 block stretch, but that would make it more expensive.

As has been advocated for decades by many, Mult. Co. could retain/update/re-engineer the existing box girder and add a ped/ bike way underneath within the present girders.

But a twist that I advocate would be to move the light posts on the north side to the outside of the present handrail, then add a sidewalk/handrail matching the north on the south side. Then in future years with the added 12 ft. total of the two sidewalk widths
a third lane for express buses, or trolley, or a third lane for vehicles with reverse flow according to rush hour periods could be retrofitted by eliminating the upper sidewalks.

The ped/bike way underneath could also be delayed until the third lane option is needed to help meet present budget constraints.

Structurally rehabilitating the present bridge hasn't been fully explored in Multnomah Co.'s alternatives.

I have the impression they can't upgrade it enough to withstand a moderate earthquake: something I almost never fail to think about when I'm on it.

Retaining and upgrading is one of the options in the latest Mult. Co. huge color foldout.