There’s a rare opportunity to comment on controversial environmental impacts of the plan to replace and expand I-5 from Portland to Vancouver. by Taylor Griggs Monday, November 18 marks one of the last opportunities to comment on environmental impacts of a current plan to replace and expand the I-5 bridge from Portland to Vancouver. The Interstate Bridge Replacement (IBR) project is currently projected to cost north of $7.5 billion. As the project undergoes evaluation by the US Department of Transportation, the federal agency is reviewing a draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS), a document required by the USDOT to analyze the benefits and potential consequences of the project. This fast-approaching public input deadline is one of the only opportunities for people to share their thoughts on a project that has critics skeptical of whether the new bridge will keep Oregon on track to meet its climate goals. The public input gathered will ostensibly inform the IBR’s final Environmental Impact Statement, which leaders say will be released late next year.  Project planners say the bridge replacement, which will also serve to expand the freeway across the Columbia River, is sorely needed for seismic resiliency and traffic congestion relief, among other concerns. But IBR critics have many concerns about the plan. Project opponents say the current design, which features auxiliary lanes and “safety shoulders,” will increase car traffic capacity, running counter to regional climate goals. They also call out the bike, pedestrian, and public transit plans—some of the project’s main draws—as inadequate.  But those advocating against the current I-5 bridge replacement plan want to make it clear they do, in fact, want to see Oregon and Washington build a new crossing between Portland and Vancouver. They recognize the necessity of replacing the current bridge, which is rapidly aging and unlikely to survive an earthquake, and are eager to see transit and active transportation improvements between Portland and Vancouver.  “We want to emphasize we don’t oppose the whole project,” Chris Smith, a member of the advocacy group No More Freeways, said at a November 14 information session about the IBR’s public comment period.  No More Freeways is a member of the Just Crossing Alliance, which consists of dozens of regional transportation and environmental groups who want to see a “right-sized” I-5 bridge replacement.  “We’re not saying stop,” Smith said. “We’re saying, ‘Do it a little differently.’”  “There's a false premise underlying this whole project.”  Among the top concerns for IBR planners, as outlined in the draft SEIS, are “growing travel demand and congestion” and “impaired freight movement” as a result of that congestion.  “Existing travel demand exceeds capacity in the Interstate Bridge and associated interchanges,” planning documents state. “Daily traffic demand over the Interstate Bridge is projected to increase by more than 35% during the next 20 years, with stop-and-go conditions increasing to approximately 15 hours daily if no improvements are made.”  In order to mitigate the congestion and reduce the impacts on commuters, as well as businesses relying on the I-5 corridor for freight movement, planners want to expand the freeway to include either one or two auxiliary lanes in each direction (depending on the bridge design). The SEIS states the auxiliary lanes would provide a “ramp-to-ramp connection on the highway,” improving safety by “providing drivers with more space and time to merge, diverge, and weave.” The project also proposes wider shoulders on the highway in each direction to accommodate express buses.  But, according to a study commissioned by Just Crossing Alliance, the numbers the IBR is using to inform its design plans are wrong.  An October study written by Norman Marshall, the president of Smart Mobility, Inc., states “widening the bridge would do nothing to improve I-5 congestion and could make it worse.” According to Marshall’s analysis, the draft SEIS “relies on invalid traffic forecast metrics” that “grossly exaggerate future traffic growth” and “fail to account for capacity limitations.”  IBR Project Administrator Greg Johnson rejected Marshall’s report, but the idea that car and freight traffic across the I-5 bridge is actually decreasing has been corroborated elsewhere. In July, the Oregonian reported 15,000 fewer vehicles travel on the I-5 bridge between Portland and Vancouver now than before COVID, and “the rate of growth has slowed to a trickle.”  Joe Cortright, an economist and the co-founder of No More Freeways, reported in October that truck freight traffic across the bridge has gone down significantly in recent years. Cortright asserts the Metro forecast—which the IBR program is using to craft its traffic models—is incorrect.  The massive infrastructure project isn’t just being criticized for bad data. Climate advocates point out that if the IBR’s traffic models did come to fruition, it would be wildly out of step with regional climate goals, which rely on significantly reduced car travel to meet carbon reduction targets.  “There's a false premise underlying this whole project in terms of purpose and need,” Cortright said at the November 14 Joint Crossing Alliance meeting. “[And] the planning behind the IBR project is assuming a wildly different set of traffic than our regional transportation plan and our climate plans. They're utterly inconsistent, and they're taking us in the opposite direction.”  Bridge project promises improved bike and pedestrian, public transit facilities The draft SEIS also emphasizes the importance of improving what are currently “substandard bicycle and pedestrian facilities” on the I-5 bridge, as well as making public transit more accessible and reliable. The plan proposes a shared-use bike and pedestrian path in both directions, as well as a 1.9-mile extension of the MAX Yellow Line into Vancouver.  Transportation advocates say the improved bike and pedestrian features deserve praise, but the design raises concerns. Notably, the draft SEIS configuration shows a large distance between the bike and pedestrian path and the light rail and bus lines. Members of the Joint Crossing Alliance assert the two modes should be adjacent, allowing for more ease of access for users to transition from walking/biking to riding transit (or vice versa).  The current design for the multi-use path also lacks connectivity, particularly on the Washington side of the river, where the path ends at the waterfront and forces people walking or rolling to travel more than 100 feet down or up a spiral path. Bike and pedestrian advocates also want to make sure people traveling on the bridge southbound have access to the North Vancouver/Williams corridor, which is a popular bike route for commuting to downtown Portland.  Project unknowns  While the bridge replacement’s environmental analysis is splayed out in technical detail over thousands of pages, there are still many unknowns. One of these is the project cost.  The IBR program has secured about $4 billion in federal and state funding, including $1 billion commitments from both Oregon and Washington, but it’s unclear what the final project will cost.  In December 2022, the IBR projected the project—once estimated at roughly $4 billion—would cost between $5 and $7.5 billion, and that number will likely continue to rise.   Earlier this year, project leaders said they would release an updated cost estimate last summer. But at a June IBR Community Advisory Group meeting, Project Administrator Greg Johnson said the projection won’t be public until summer 2025.  The project cost is one of several key pieces of information the public doesn’t know as people attempt to share their input with the IBR program. People are also concerned they don’t have full information about the bridge design, particularly its impacts on Hayden Island and downtown Vancouver.  In October, halfway through the public comment period, the IBR team released a series of animated videos depicting what the future of the I-5 crossing between Portland and Vancouver might look like. Even though the project has been underway for several years now, these flyover videos provided one of the first opportunities for people to see, in some detail, what IBR planners envision for the freeway over the Columbia River.  A screenshot from one of the IBR flyover videos, depicting a double-deck, fixed span bridge. interstate bridge replacement program But some people said the flyover videos did not provide enough context for the public to make informed comments about the project, during one of the only opportunities for input. Critics said the IBR team should have released visuals of what the bridge replacement and freeway expansion will look like from the ground.  “Develop and publish visual impact studies as viewed from the Hayden Island, Vancouver Waterfront and downtown. Images shown do not capture these critical views,” Carol Mayer-Reed wrote in a public comment published in Joint Crossing Alliance’s archive. “Images from downtown Vancouver retain existing trees in the foreground that avoid portraying the reality of the impacts from the bridge and interchange proposals. These images are selectively deceiving to the public. Show the reality of heights, materials and structure impacts.” The IBR public comment period ends at 11:59 pm Monday. You can find the full report and submit comments here.