Portland Commissioner Sam Adams issued the following email notice:

Interstate 5 stretches 1382 miles from Mexico to Canada with just one drawbridge, antiquated and unsafe, along its route. That drawbridge is the span you cross today over the Columbia River.

We need a replacement. But it must be the right kind of new bridge. It must be a bridge Portland can be proud of in terms of design, construction, funding, and operations. It must:

• Reduce automobile reliance. The new crossing must permanently reduce vehicle miles traveled, which is Oregon’s primary source of greenhouse gas emissions. We need congestion-priced electronic tolling on both the new I-5 and existing I-205 bridges to prioritize effective freight movement paired with new options like lightrail. Tolls should be collected in perpetuity, in part to help fund needed improvements south of the bridge on I-5 and I-205.
• Produce new federal and state transportation funding. This project is designated one of six national “Corridors of the Future.” That means new federal funding for the region that will not compete against our other local transportation funding requests. The same must hold true for state funding. We will strongly oppose any effort to preempt cities or counties from establishing local transportation funding sources. Given Portland’s $431 million transportation maintenance and safety backlog this assurance is essential.
• Inspire a green, “postcard-worthy” design. This should be the world’s most environmentally friendly bridge in design, construction, and operations. Any bridge is an icon, and this one must aesthetically enhance the world-class grandeur of the Columbia River and Mount Hood. And it must be sensitive to its neighbors by helping knit together the two halves of Hayden Island and downtown Vancouver.
• Be built with local hands. This will be the largest public works projects in the region, ever. Portland is the nation’s leading incubator of sustainable design and technologies making local firms well-prepared to meet project expectations. Local companies, including emerging small businesses, minority- and women-owned firms, should earn as much work as possible.

Portland city council’s vote today is not the ultimate or final “yes” to begin building the new bridge. Approval today only moves the bridge project proposal from one phase of evaluation to the next. It establishes the assumption for the next phase of study that the existing bridge will be replaced with no more travel lanes than exist today and that it must include an expansion of lightrail.

I want to thank the governors of Oregon and Washington, each state’s federal congressional delegation, and local stakeholders for thus far being responsive to Portland’s concerns and goals for this project.

I appreciate the assurance these decision-makers have provided us that Portland’s concerns for planning the remainder of the project details will be addressed to our satisfaction.

But, to avoid anyone being surprised in the future, I want to be crystal clear at this milestone: I will work to stop a final Columbia River Crossing Project proposal that fails to address Portland’s goals. I would rather miss this round of federal funding and live with the challenges and vulnerabilities of the current bridge for the next tens years, than build a bad bridge that could plague Portland for a century.