Columbia River Bridge Replacement Gets Even More Expensive
By Tim Gruver
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Don’t expect the drive from Portland to Washington’s Vancouver to get any cheaper whenever the rickety bridge between them is replaced.
When was precisely the word Gov. Bob Ferguson used at a Tuesday press conference. Flanked by lawmakers and hardhats from Oregon and Washington, he ran some sobering new numbers on the decades-old saga about replacing the Interstate-5 Bridge from Vancouver, Washington, to Portland. At present, the venture is slated to cost around $14.4 billion or about $2.2 billion more than either state (plus Uncle Sam) have budgeted for.
Hence the build-now, pay-later plan from Ferguson and Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek to fund the five-mile project in phases starting with a “core set of projects,” which include replacing the twin spans and light rail access. What they don’t include are new or wider freeway interchanges as previously proposed. That bargain-bin version of the project would cost $7.65 billion and a new I-5 bridge, minus the light rail part, would cost up to $5.9 billion.
The numbers above are nothing new thanks to Portland economist Joe Cortright, who found that officials sat on those figures for months. We at The Observer are old enough to remember when this project went for $13.6 billion in January and just $6 billion in 2022.
https://www.postalley.org/2026/03/20/columbia-river-bridge-replacement-gets-even-more-expensive/
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