Given the state of the economy and the size of the project, it’s not unexpected that ongoing discussions about the Interstate 5 Bridge replacement center on cost-sharing, tolling and other funding issues. We at Legacy Health encourage fiscal responsibility and the due diligence necessary for such a massive undertaking.
Jonathan Avery is chief administrative officer at Legacy Salmon Creek Medical Center. Dr. Christopher Thoming is an emergency department physician and member of the Legacy Health Board of Directors.
There is an issue, however, that is too often lost in the discussion of the critical need for a new I-5 Bridge. That issue is safety.
Legacy Health is a major nonprofit health care provider in Oregon and Southwest Washington, admitting more than 56,000 people annually to our six medical centers and treating more than 500,000 people through outpatient visits. We employ nearly 10,000 people — with about 10 percent of these in Clark County.
Our patients and our employees cross the I-5 Bridge daily, at all hours, often in moments of crisis and emergency.
It is clear the existing I-5 Bridge is substandard. The bridge can no longer handle the traffic burden, and it remains as the only drawbridge in the nation serving a major interstate thoroughfare. Because of this, medical-related transportation between the states often is difficult and dangerous.
On any given day at Legacy, we never know how long it will take to get a patient to a facility, or a doctor to a patient, or a critical piece of equipment to a site when necessary. Every month, we experience delays in care caused by bridge lifts and the already lengthy gridlock, which now extends beyond rush-hour periods. This can and must be addressed.
A new I-5 crossing will eliminate bridge lifts and provide a higher measure of travel predictability between our two states. This predictability is essential to us in our business of protecting peoples’ health.
There is another aspect of safety we’d like to address.
The number of accidents in the five-mile project area stands at about 400 per year. That’s twice the rate of similar highways in Washington and Oregon. Sixty-six percent of crashes are rear-end collisions, and 14 percent are sideswipes. People are injured in more than one-third of these crashes. We see and treat these accident victims regularly in our emergency departments on both sides of the river.
Far fewer crashes
We know the new bridge, and the accompanying improvements to I-5, will reduce accidents. Engineering studies estimate that collision reduction could be as high as 75 percent.
Specifically, lane additions and improvements at key exit and entrance points — the so-called “add/drop” lanes — will reduce accidents involving merging traffic. Widened shoulders will provide more room for stalled vehicles and for emergency vehicle traffic. Because crash rates increase three to four times during bridge lifts, the elimination of lifts will offer another safety improvement.
It is imperative that this project move forward, including appropriate local-access add/drop lanes, in order to improve safety for all travelers through this key transportation corridor.
Without a new bridge, the current four to six hours of traffic congestion daily would expand to 15 hours a day in the next 20 years, and accident rates in that time frame would double.
As an organization committed to good health for our patients and our community, we realize that good health encompasses more than just health care. We recognize that the Columbia River Crossing project is critical to the good health of our region.
The price of delay is our safety, and that price is too high to ignore.
