Bridge review group gets an up-close experience

Group reconvenes today at Vancouver Convention Center

By Erik Robinson

Columbian staff writer

PORTLAND — Five members of a new Columbia River Crossing review panel got an up close and personal view of safety issues related to the current Interstate 5 Bridge on Tuesday.

A small sedan carrying a family of four was heading south at about 4:15 p.m. when it spun out as it approached the curve entering the I-5 bridge. A group of transportation experts, preparing for their first official meeting Wednesday, happened to be standing alongside the roadway as the accident began to unfold.

The careening car vividly illustrated the safety hazard of the area around the bridge.

“It literally spun like a top,” said Diana Mendes, a transportation planner from Washington, D.C.

She said fellow panel members and staff scattered as a tractor-trailer weaved away from the spinning sedan. Fortunately, the family walked away uninjured — and transportation experts got a first-hand view of the most accident-prone stretch of I-5 in the Northwest.

“We’re in data-gathering mode,” Mendes said. “To be there and observe it in action gave us a visual to the statistic.”

The group met Wednesday at Portland’s Expo Center to begin reviewing the engineering, finance and implementation plan of the crossing project. Govs. Chris Gregoire and Ted Kulongoski, who appointed the panel, want an assessment by the end of July.

The panel will reconvene at 8 a.m. today at the Vancouver Convention Center.

The governors appointed the panel in response to criticism by four elected officials in Portland and Vancouver who characterized the current Columbia River Crossing proposal as “unacceptable” as currently designed and financed.

On Wednesday morning, panelist Tim Neuman asked state transportation leaders why there appears to be such fundamental differences of opinion after more than a decade of planning. Neuman, a civil engineer from Chicago who has authored a reference manual on context-sensitive design, noted that the panel’s scope of work is relatively narrow.

“Why are we here if there’s still a question about what this project is?” he said.

Protesters who greeted panelists outside the Expo Center complain that the governors view the panel as a rubber stamp.

Panel chairman Tom Warne, a former director of the Utah Department of Transportation, said the group won’t be able to arbitrate fundamental disputes about the project design, but the review should bring clarity for decision-makers. The state has allocated $750,000 for the review.

“We’re here to listen,” Warne said during a break. “I don’t think we can do our job without a whole lot of listening.”

Now estimated to cost between $2.6 billion and $3.6 billion, the project would replace the two existing three-lane drawbridges across the river with 10 lanes, revamp seven interchanges along four miles of freeway, and extend Portland’s light rail transit system into downtown Vancouver.

Planners are trying to finalize the plan by the end of the year, in time to get it in line when Congress authorizes a new six-year federal transportation funding law. Planners anticipate tapping state transportation funds and bridge tolls to generate the remaining revenue necessary to build the project.

Matthew Garrett, Oregon’s transportation director, told panelists that passions are understandably high over such “a big, complex, noisy project,” but that he is confident planners can bring it to fruition.

“We just have to move across the finish line,” he said.

David Dye, Washington’s deputy secretary of transportation, made it clear that the two state transportation departments are taking ownership in the project. However, he added, state and federal funding will require some level of support from local elected officials.

“If there’s substantial controversy, the likelihood of securing funding to move this project forward seems very slim,” Dye said.

Erik Robinson: 360-735-4551 erik.robinson@columbian.com.