Legislators on both sides of the Columbia River expressed disappointment Monday after Interstate Bridge Replacement Program leaders failed to provide a long-awaited cost estimate update during their bistate legislative committee meeting.
“I’m hoping you can get us a budget estimate in January so we have something to go by,” Oregon Rep. Thuy Tran, a Democrat representing the state’s 45th Legislative District in Northeast Portland, told incoming IBR Program Administrator Carley Francis during the remote committee meeting. “I’m not expecting you to have a finite budget plan, but you can’t punt this down the road. … I want a date, and I want a report. Otherwise, I would say your team is not doing its work.”
The total cost of replacing the two aging, seismically vulnerable spans of the Interstate 5 Bridge that stretch over the Columbia River between North Portland and downtown Vancouver is unclear. The most recent $5 billion to $7.5 billion estimate is about 3 years old and does not take into account recent inflation or increased material and labor costs…