Drive, pedal or stroll through Portland and it’s easy to see the City of Roses is also a city of bridges.
BY JON BELL
Drive, pedal or stroll through Portland and it’s easy to see the City of Roses is also a city of bridges. Between Sellwood and North Portland alone, 11 spans stretch across the Willamette River. Two more are set to connect east and west — a new Sellwood Bridge and TriMet’s new light-rail bridge — and assuming construction begins in 2013, the $3.5 billion Columbia River Crossing project could replace the Interstate Bridge between Oregon and Washington by 2020. Bridges are key to commerce and transportation throughout Oregon, and maintaining them is constant, something the state’s done over the past nine years through the OTIA III State Bridge Delivery Program. Here’s a snapshot of the size and scope of bridges in the 10-year program.
2,500+ bridges in the state highway system
365 bridges in the OTIA III program
258 bridges completed since 2003
12 bridges currently under construction
94 bridges deemed OK and removed from initial list
1 bridge in design phase
Funding:
$23.7 billion inventory replacement value of state highway bridges
$1.3 billion amount of state funding for bridge repair and replacement in the bridge program
$1.1 billion amount spent on bridge program to date
Cost/benefit:
$123 billion estimated cost to Oregon’s economy had the bridge program not been enacted
$1.2 billion value of contracts awarded to contractors and subs to date
$991 million amount businesses and individuals earned, after taxes, from bridge program since 2003
$20 million savings from diverting materials from landfill over bridge program’s 10-year life
Jobs:
23,000 jobs created or sustained through bridge program by 2013
2,200 average number of jobs created or sustained annually through bridge program
