Well, to begin with, building a new super highway bridge over the Columbia River in east county is a ridiculous idea. There are no highways to hook such a bridge up to, and there are no destinations in eastern Clark/Multnomah counties to warrant such a thing. This does not mean, however, that we should not build a bridge over the Columbia River in east Clark/Multnomah counties. Here is what we could do.
What we should, or could possibly do, for transportation in this region is build a new highway bridge for Interstate 5 as we planned — a six-lane-each-way double-decker by Hayden Island and downtown Vancouver. Next, we would use one of the old spans of the current I-5 Bridge to bring a light-rail line into downtown Vancouver in the I-5 corridor. Then, we could disassemble one of the two crossings of the current I-5 Bridge, barge the spans upriver, build new pedestals for the spans there, and put a light-rail line across them.
We would end up with two super highway bridges, somewhat of an improvement over what we have now, with three new lanes for traffic in each direction and safety from earthquake damage.
We would also have two separate and “new” bridges carrying light-rail lines into and out of Clark County.
