The Oregon Department of Transportation has hired a company to review the bridge that could collapse should an earthquake occur.
BY JACOB PALMER | OB DIGITAL NEWS EDITOR
The Oregon Transportation Committee is committing $4 million to study and bolster a viaduct crucial to the vitality of the West Coast.
The Mail Tribune reports that the Oregon Department of Transportation selected Portland-based Kittleson and Associates Inc. to identify possible ways to mitigate potential danger should the big one strike.
On the table for possible improvements would be possibly tunneling under Medford or finding routes that would reduce stress done to the bridge caused by local traffic.
From the report:
“We’re stuck with it,” Medford Councilor Daniel Bunn said. “We can either rebuild it or bring it down to grade.”
The Medford-based paper argued that the viaduct has been a source of controversy since it was built in 1962, “because it created a concrete divider that separates east and west Medford, is vulnerable to an earthquake and sits uncomfortably close to Bear Creek and the downtown.”
“It is one of the most critical bridges in Oregon, though there are other bridges that could fail,” [Gary Leaming, spokesman for ODOT], said.
In the Portland area, Multnomah County officials have proposed a 20-year plan to address a possible earthquake.
OregonLive.com’s Tony Hernandez reports on the plan that calls for a $496 million to significantly improve the Burnside Bridge.
Chairwoman Deborah Kafoury offered the proposal Thursday. The plan calls for 52 other projects with an estimated $1.3 billion total price tag. Approximately 200,000 people use the county’s six bridges on a daily basis, according to the plan. Burnside Street runs from Gresham to Washington County. It has been designated by the Oregon Department of Transportation and Metro as a crucial roadway for response after a catastrophe, said Mike Pullen, county spokesman.
The county wants the bridge to structurally withstand a magnitude-9.0 earthquake from the Cascadia subduction zone, he said. The zone sits 40 to 80 miles off Oregon’s coast.
