The ballooning cost of the I-5 bridge between Oregon and Washington is unjustified

Back in 2009, the Washington Policy Center noted that the preferred Columbia River bridge alternative, which included light rail, was estimated to cost $4 billion, with light rail chewing up about $1 billion of that projection. The Oregonian reported the same year that project officials were “searching for ways to make the project affordable.”

Apparently, they didn’t find anything, as recent estimates from this year reveal the projected cost has ballooned to $13.6 billion, a 240% increase, which is yet another blow to getting the project built. A quick history of the project follows.

The current Interstate 5 bridge span between Washington and Oregon opened in 1917, with a second twin opened by 1958. The bridge currently carries 123,000 vehicles on average every day, down from its high of 136,800 in 2019. The bridge is considered “functionally obsolete,” meaning design does not currently meet today’s level of building standards (lane width, deck geometry, clearances, etc.). The bridge, however, is not “structurally deficient,” meaning it's in operable condition as it sits today.

Due to the astronomical, $4 billion replacement, a forensic accountant hired by a concerned taxpayer issued a comprehensive report on multiple facets of the project, which concluded the project had a “severe lack of accountability, transparency, and oversight” in regards to sources and uses of funds, project reporting, contracting practices, task order discrepancies, and non-compliance with records requests, among others.

Yet despite the massive financial hurdles, lawmakers in both states refused to remove the costly rail portion of the bridge, which ultimately led to the defeat of a ballot measure to increase the sales tax rate by 0.1% to fund rail.

As a result of investigations and funding troubles on both sides of the Columbia River, the project met its “demise” in 2013, according to The Columbian. The project was never really dead, however, and the idea continued to be resurrected along with higher costs to date.

The addition of light rail was always a sticking point in the debate, considering the high cost and low utilization of the mode. Opponents attempted to instead enhance bus service across the bridge. Yet even as project cost estimates have risen to $13.6 billion, rail ridership has actually decreased in the region, despite significant population growth in the area to be served by rail.

Ridership on TriMet, the transit agency in the Portland, OR area, has fallen 32% since pre-COVID levels, and 38% since its all-time high in 2012.

Ridership on C-Tran, the transit agency serving the Vancouver, WA area, has fallen about 16% since its pre-COVID level and is down nearly 25% since its high of seven million trips more than two decades ago.

In short, transit demand has fallen significantly while costs have continued to rise.

TriMet’s operating expenses to provide transit services to the Portland area in 2002 were $243.4 million. Yet by 2025, those operating costs grew to $716.2 million, a staggering 194% increase over 2002 levels, despite ridership falling by 26% over that same period. Keep in mind that ridership fell in the Portland Metro area despite a 33% increase in population between 2002 and 2025. C-Tran’s track record isn’t much better.

The transit agencies in Portland and Vancouver are struggling amid high-cost growth and falling demand for services, leading to a wholly unsustainable business model. The Cascade Policy Center recently noted that “every important metric related to productivity, cost-effectiveness, and financial sustainability has steadily declined since 2015.”

Further, TriMet officials appear to focus on expanding the failing system, not bringing it back into sustainability. This suggests that the agency is trying to “build their way out” of financial troubles, to get money infused into the system that will ultimately overpromise and underdeliver once more, putting taxpayers on the hook for out-of-control spending.

Officials should be cautious of a bridge program that may be a “rent-seeking” opportunity for two transit agencies that have seen a decline in their usefulness to the traveling public. Instead, officials should look for practical solutions without light rail to build a new bridge more economically that will last for another 100 years.