We were crawling north on Interstate 5, and just before we hit the I-5 Bridge, it went up. We waited for the sailboat to float under, trying to calculate how many hours were lost and how much pollution generated by all those idling cars. My husband claims that WSDOT and ODOT have no control over the bridge opening and closing — only the Coast Guard does. Can it really be true that the federal bureaucracy is such that there is no local control over the bridge, even when there are extenuating circumstances such as the I-205 repair work causing unprecedented weekend traffic backups?
— Holly Williams, Old Evergeen Highway
Hate to take sides in a marital dispute, Holly, but in this case, hubby appears to be correct.
The Oregon Department of Transportation actually operates the bridge lifts via a team of onsite bridge engineers and a bridge manager. Their office is literally up in the air — suspended above the southbound lanes, according to ODOT spokesman Brad Wurfel.
“We hope nobody notices them, because we want people to keep their eyes on traffic as they’re passing the site,” Wurfel said.
While ODOT operates the machinery, a legal agreement with the Coast Guard dictates exactly when and why the bridge can be opened: almost anytime, because it’s federal law.
“Federal law dictates that marine traffic has priority over motoring traffic,” ODOT spokeswoman Kimberly Dinwiddie said.
“The bridge is lifted by request of vessels passing through,” Wurfel said. “They radio when they want a bridge lift and our engineers have to comply.”
That’s true no matter what’s going on with freeway traffic, road construction or detours. And it’s true no matter who’s requesting the lift — a barge displacing hundreds of tons or some Saturday yachtsman out for a pleasure cruise. All have equal power to stop traffic while the bridge lifts to let them through.
The only time freeway traffic trumps river traffic is during peak commute hours: from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. on weekdays.
“Outside of those periods, whenever traffic needs a bridge lift, they make a request and we are obligated to make that lift when requested,” Wurfel said. Negotiating little waivers and exceptions to maritime law based on local roadwork just isn’t workable, he said.
The only variable is weather. Winter and spring tend to be wet and the river tends to be high, leading to more lift requests — as many as several per day. Late summer is dry and the river tends to be lower, meaning fewer lifts.
According to a 2009 study of the bridge as an economic “chokepoint,” there are 20 to 30 lifts per month. The traffic backup generated by a 10-minute midday lift can take 30 minutes to clear. Midday lifts miss peak commuter hours but still slow down lots of commercial truck traffic.
All of this is a key reason why federal and local authorities are all keen to replace the bridge. The report notes that the I-5 Bridge’s lift span is “one of the last remaining on the Interstate highway system.”
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