This Week in the Mercury
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
News New Willamette Bridge Faces $ Concerns
Posted by Matt Davis on Tue, Apr 7, 2009 at 6:42 PM
Architect Miguel Rosales has been presenting his design for a new bridge across the Willamette at city hall tonight. 
ROSALES' DESIGN: A cable-stay/suspension hybrid...
Tonight's presentation has aimed to boost support for Rosales' design as doubts form about whether Trimet will choose it, after all. The presentation has been organized by the Architecture Foundation of Oregon, the Portland chapter of the American Institute of Architects, and Portland Spaces magazine.
The Willamette Bridge Advisory group—led by former Mayor Vera Katz—chose Rosales' bridge from 10 other designs earlier this year. But members of the advisory group are worried TriMet boss Fred Hansen may choose a more traditional, bulkier cable-stayed bridge because of pricing concerns over the hybrid option.
"Many of us will be extremely disappointed if what has been a very fair and open design selection process is once again trumped by what are now minor budget fears, considering that this bridge will be with us for many decades to come," wrote committee member David A Soderstrom in a letter dated March 6. "I hope other members of the bridge type advisory committee share my concerns and will weigh in to strengthen the resolve of TriMet to build a light rail bridge that enhances the overall project while adding less clutter to the Willamette harbor."
The total cost of the bridge is estimated at around $100m, said Rosales, during his presentation. The difference between a cable stay and hybrid bridge, roughly $10-$15million, Rosales thought.
We'll have more on this story as it develops over the coming weeks.
1
I gotta ask, surely it's been asked before:
What is wrong with the Hawthorne for pedestrian use, and adding tri-met?
What is wrong with the Marquam?
Why can't the new Sellwood be used for this purpose?
Why can't these bridges be added to for the purposes above?
What is wrong with the current steel bridge crossing, then heading south on MLK/Grand?
Are pedestrians/bikers unhappy with Hawthorne? Is there some sort of bottleneck I'm unfamiliar with?
Why do we *need* another bridge in a town overflowing with them?
What is wrong with the Hawthorne for pedestrian use, and adding tri-met?
What is wrong with the Marquam?
Why can't the new Sellwood be used for this purpose?
Why can't these bridges be added to for the purposes above?
What is wrong with the current steel bridge crossing, then heading south on MLK/Grand?
Are pedestrians/bikers unhappy with Hawthorne? Is there some sort of bottleneck I'm unfamiliar with?
Why do we *need* another bridge in a town overflowing with them?
2
3.SrlZqXln, the problem with those existing bridges is that they aren't shiny new projects. You don't get to hire fancy designers, and have "charrettes", and spend $100 million dollars that we don't have to spend.
What would Vera Katz possibly do with her life without these opportunities to obligate local governments to huge new expenditures?
You see, this new bridge is necessary because it goes through the South Waterfront which is the boondoggle to end all Portland boondoggles. When one huge expensive project blows up in your face, you need to add more and more expensive projects in the hopes that it somehow justifies your last expensive screw up.
So Vera and Sam plan out South Waterfront with huge public expenditures, mostly through Urban Renewal. Then to justify it, they need to layer on the other expensive crap. You get the tram going 400% overbudget, now we "need" to bring the MAX through there on a new bridge. It's all self-justifying.
What would Vera Katz possibly do with her life without these opportunities to obligate local governments to huge new expenditures?
You see, this new bridge is necessary because it goes through the South Waterfront which is the boondoggle to end all Portland boondoggles. When one huge expensive project blows up in your face, you need to add more and more expensive projects in the hopes that it somehow justifies your last expensive screw up.
So Vera and Sam plan out South Waterfront with huge public expenditures, mostly through Urban Renewal. Then to justify it, they need to layer on the other expensive crap. You get the tram going 400% overbudget, now we "need" to bring the MAX through there on a new bridge. It's all self-justifying.
3
"A more traditional, bulkier cable-stayed bridge?" Seems like not so long ago cable-stayed bridges were being touted as the new beautiful, elegant, slender and futuristic alternative to shittier, traditional, bulky bridges. But now apparently they're like sooooo 90s.
4
It never occurred to me that adding a new object, like a bridge, could actually lead to the appearance of fewer objects, or clutter, as it were. It still seems a little magical, but Soderstrom, thank you for enlightening me to the possibility. Next time my place is a cluttered mess, I will try building something, something that--quite magically--does not add to the clutter. I've always thought Portland was a pretty magical place.
5
Take a look at that photo again. Is that a pill on the bridge? We don't get the red or blue; we get the nondescript same-color pill to swallow.
6
Why do we need another bridge? All its going to do is encourage those fixie riding, law breakin, east siders to crowd into our pristine west side and create a huge traffic mess! Not to mention the air pollution from all the B.O..
7
3.s etc: There are legitimate reasons existing bridges aren't workable.
Marquam: Can't have light rail on the freeway. Building additional capacity into the existing bridge (i.e., the lower cross-bar on the piers) would cost a lot and would inhibit river traffic.
Hawthorne: It's a drawbridge. Trimet doesn't want to and should not be building drawbridges into the system. Steel is a drawbridge too, but the upper deck rarely opens. The Hawthorne opens multiple times every day.
Sellwood: Structurally unsound. Building a new bridge with light rail would be more expensive than the proposed bridge (either the new Sellwood or the new light rail bridge)
Steel: Pushing against capacity. Once the green line opens it will pretty much be at capacity.
Marquam: Can't have light rail on the freeway. Building additional capacity into the existing bridge (i.e., the lower cross-bar on the piers) would cost a lot and would inhibit river traffic.
Hawthorne: It's a drawbridge. Trimet doesn't want to and should not be building drawbridges into the system. Steel is a drawbridge too, but the upper deck rarely opens. The Hawthorne opens multiple times every day.
Sellwood: Structurally unsound. Building a new bridge with light rail would be more expensive than the proposed bridge (either the new Sellwood or the new light rail bridge)
Steel: Pushing against capacity. Once the green line opens it will pretty much be at capacity.
8
GLV, none of which addresses the *need* question.
I guess the marquam is out of the question.
The Hawthorne used to carry rail. Seems like a natural location, even given the river traffic. I work near the hawthorne and it isn't unreasonably raising and lowering. 750 buses a day handle it fine.
Whatever bridge they place across would also need to take into account river traffic. The land elevation in South waterfront is quite low.
Sellwood seems to me like a great future thinking location for light rail.
The green line confuses me still. I never understood why that line is being built to go through old-town/SW 4th/5th and duplicate what the buses already do much better. Just extend it out from gateway Transit Center? The massive waste of street space just for a train downtown on 4th and 5th is amazing.
Putting Tri-met access point across one of Portland's oldest bridges seems short-sighted as well. The bridge just feels like it is going to crack every time I ride it, and especially in a very earthquake prone area like the PNW.
Ah, well. I like Public Transit, I shouldn't be complaining. Just seems liek there are a lot more priorities, like 99W getting light rail. I was in traffic for 40 minutes last week coming back from the coast in mid-day heading IN to the city. That is not the Portland I signed up for.
I guess the marquam is out of the question.
The Hawthorne used to carry rail. Seems like a natural location, even given the river traffic. I work near the hawthorne and it isn't unreasonably raising and lowering. 750 buses a day handle it fine.
Whatever bridge they place across would also need to take into account river traffic. The land elevation in South waterfront is quite low.
Sellwood seems to me like a great future thinking location for light rail.
The green line confuses me still. I never understood why that line is being built to go through old-town/SW 4th/5th and duplicate what the buses already do much better. Just extend it out from gateway Transit Center? The massive waste of street space just for a train downtown on 4th and 5th is amazing.
Putting Tri-met access point across one of Portland's oldest bridges seems short-sighted as well. The bridge just feels like it is going to crack every time I ride it, and especially in a very earthquake prone area like the PNW.
Ah, well. I like Public Transit, I shouldn't be complaining. Just seems liek there are a lot more priorities, like 99W getting light rail. I was in traffic for 40 minutes last week coming back from the coast in mid-day heading IN to the city. That is not the Portland I signed up for.
9
what a bunch of jack bogs the mercury readership has become. there are much less awesome things than bridges and ballparks that the city could be building, folks...
10
Funny how people like Blabby are against building this new bridge to reduce traffic congestion (compared with having all that traffic on eg the Hawthorne bridge), but are in favor of building the far more expensive CRC to reduce traffic congestion. Hypocrite.
11
If anyone wants to watch a seminar presented by a Trimet Sr. Manager and a Principal at the firm designing the bridge, go to http://www.cts.pdx.edu/seminars/datearchiv… and check Jan 16, "Willamette River Crossing." In the presentation, they show us the alternate bridge designs, and discuss uses, etc.. There's a pdf to download, too.
Spoiler: There's an even more expensive design that they didn't pick!
Spoiler: There's an even more expensive design that they didn't pick!
12
Whatever, just make it functional. We have plenty of uglier bridges and nobody's crying about those 30 or 50 years later.
13
There is one other big reason for building a new bridge, and that is to get buses off of the Ross Island Bridge.
The bridge itself is not to bad, but the west end approaches resemble a parking lot for three hours in the morning and another three hours at night.
TriMet is planning on moving the #9, 17 and 19 lines onto the new bridge. This will greatly reduce the time it takes to get from PSU to inner Southeast Portland. Some riders will see their commute times cut in half.
The bridge itself is not to bad, but the west end approaches resemble a parking lot for three hours in the morning and another three hours at night.
TriMet is planning on moving the #9, 17 and 19 lines onto the new bridge. This will greatly reduce the time it takes to get from PSU to inner Southeast Portland. Some riders will see their commute times cut in half.
14
Chunty, yes, people are crying about our ugly bridges, in fact, here is a group that wants to remove one of the ugly bridges:
http://riverfrontforpeople.org/
http://riverfrontforpeople.org/
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