Despite concerns over what will be a severe lack of accessibility between the Eastbank Esplanade and the new Burnside Bridge, Multnomah County officials have made it clear that a ramp for walkers and bicycle riders is not in the plans for their $895 million Earthquake Ready Burnside Bridge project.
When BikePortland last checked in on this project two years ago, former Transportation Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty was going to bat for a ramp. “I see the city’s role of making sure that we are walking our talk when it comes to climate mitigation, when it comes to access to the water, when it comes to making sure that pedestrians, bicycles and walkers and rollers are safe on any new bridge that will be within the city of Portland,” Hardesty said at a city council meeting before helping pass a resolution that forced the County to take a long, hard look at a ramp.
Hardesty’s work on the issue was needed because County officials have never been eager to build a ramp between the east end of the new bridge and the popular Esplanade bike path — which is classified as a “Major City Bikeway” in city plans. The County initially felt a ramp would be too costly and planned an elevator and stairs instead. But pressure from Hardesty and many Portlanders who were wary of elevators due to their terrible reliability, forced the County to reconsider.
Hardesty added language to project documents that stated, “as a condition of approval, the EQRB [Earthquake Ready Burnside Bridge] program shall provide for an ADA accessible ramp connection to the Eastbank Esplanade from both the north and south side of the EQRB.”
But that wasn’t a legally-binding agreement.
When Hardesty lost her re-election bid to Rene Gonzalez and left city council at the end of 2022, Mingus Mapps was named transportation commissioner. One year later, in January 2024, after the City of Portland and Multnomah County completed a 197-page study on the ramp, Mapps signed a “letter of understanding” with County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson saying the construction of a ramp wasn’t worth the risks.
“The ramp design options were prohibitively expensive and presented a significant risk to project design, construction, and completion and (2) the ramps posed significant environmental impacts to the Willamette River shoreline and shallow water habitat,” the letter reads.
Engineers hired by the County estimated the cost of a ramp between $98 and $132 million, and related work needed to firm up riverbank soils would push it to as much as $300 million. The designs included spiral ramps on one or both sides of the new bridge, similar to the one that currently connects the Morrison Bridge to the river. Another sticking point was the additional permits needed to build it, which the ramp study said would cause a 1-2 year delay in construction.
“It would be a fatal flaw if there is not good pedestrian access to the Eastbank Esplanade.”
– Paddy Tillett, Community Design Advisory Group member
At a meeting of the project’s Community Design Advisory Group earlier this month and at another meeting last week, committee member Paddy Tillett, a retired architect, said “It would be a fatal flaw if there is not good pedestrian access to the Eastbank Esplanade.” “This will not be a Portland bridge if there is no direct access to Waterfront Park or the Esplanade,” Tillett continued.
Guenevere Millius, who represents the Sunnyside Neighborhood Association on the committee, agreed with Tillett. “There’s a lot of disappointment I’m feeling about not being able to connect to the Esplanade. I couldn’t believe my ears when I heard that myself.” Millius acknowledged the challenging issues a ramp poses for the project’s design and permitting, but she said, at the August 8th meeting, “Those are solvable problems.”
“It’s a great missed opportunity to not connect to both Waterfront Park and the Esplanade, which are two crown jewels of public access to the water,” Millius added.
At the August 8th meeting, Multnomah County Engineering Services Manager Megan Neill said they spent four years trying to make something work out. “Ultimately,” she said, “we decided that a connection to the Esplanade would not be a part of this project.” Neill also said conversations with the city about what to do with the existing staircase (which isn’t ADA accessible) are still ongoing.
Multnomah County Director of Community Services Margi Bradway told BikePortland via email today that while the “risks and potential impacts” of building a ramp are “too great to overcome at this time,” the County has worked with the City of Portland to identify an ADA compliant route on sidewalks that will allow people, “to comfortably reach the east end of the bridge.”
But according to Tillett, the architect and urban designer on the community advisory committee, “If you approach from the east side, you walk a full six city blocks before you have any opportunity to get off the sidewalk. That’s a long way on foot.”
For Willie Levenson of Human Access Project, a nonprofit that works to bring more Portlanders to the river and wants to build a large park on the Esplanade adjacent to the new bridge, the County’s decision is, “disappointing.” Levenson told BikePortland the bridge plan is, “An example of the type of project that happens when operating from a scarcity mentality. I am not convinced there is not a viable ramp option that could work for a fraction of the $300 million cost estimate provided by the engineering firm the County hired.”
With the ramp off the table, Levenson is pivoting his advocacy to construction impacts. He fears the bridge construction will close the Esplanade for up to two years and he wants the County to mitigate those impacts.
The Community Design Advisory Group holds their final meeting tonight at 6:00 pm to cement their bridge design recommendation to the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners, who are expected to vote on the final design in October.
Thanks for reading.
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Remove segments of the freeway on the East side of the river. Create a high-line-type park and connect pedestrian and cycling access to the Burnside bridge.
That does seem like the most obvious solution, but I don’t see Portland doing that. Not unless something drastic changes.
The exact same thing was said prior to the Harbor Drive Removal. People often don’t think it’s possible until it happens.
What makes it possible is the political will to do it, as well as having some money at hand (or a willingness to sacrifice something else) to make it happen.
We have an election soon… are any candidates promising to prioritize this, and do they have the ability to deliver?
If not, it’s probably not possible.
Removing Harbor Dr was only possible with the completion of I-405. That said, It may be possible to remove the exit ramp closest to the floating walkway including the segment of ramp that intrudes overhead onto the esplanade. New access lanes and ramp are relocated maybe 40′ east. Eastbank I-5 is realigned to add about 30′ of ground that can become a landscaped high berm that will reduce traffic noise. I seem to recall a ramp design that was straight as an arrow perhaps 100′ long south side only to the esplanade.
Removing a highway does not require having another highway to replace it. You can just remove it, and many cities have done so.
The Marquam is slated to be replaced. There is a lot of support for not rebuilding it, so I did a study on that. The traffic load would be directed to I-405 if possible. My design for “removing” the I-5 exit ramp closest to the floating walkway and relocating a replacement ramp further east are necessary for access to/from downtown and the east side, even without I-5. If there was no I-405, Harbor Drive would be in place today.
Is it possible? That’s a pretty important question in this context. I happened to be driving on I-405 today, off-peak, and it didn’t appear to have a lot of excess capacity.
The old sayings “Can’t see the forest for the trees” and “Why will no one talk about the elephant in the living room?” seem appropriate descriptors of traffic problems. “We can’t build our way out of congestion” is fitting enough. Could there be a better way to build our way out of car-dependency? I believe so.
That doesn’t address the question. Nobody is going to support removing I5 without a clear idea about where the traffic will go. You said you did a study, but glossed over the key issue.
Your question, Watts, “Is (redirecting I-5 traffic to I-405) possible?” An important question. “I was driving on I-405, off-peak, and it did not appear to have excess capacity” is a good one.
My studies were mostly the Eastbank I-5 realignment and/or not replacing the Marquam Bridge. I spend hours regularly walking the I-405 corridor and agree it does not appear to have excess capacity, not enough to predict it could handle additional I-5 traffic.
Your statement “No one will support removing I-5 without a clear idea where the traffic will go” is fair enough and the same can be said about removing Harbor Drive in the 1970’s because the traffic went to I-405.
Right… In the case of Harbor Drive, there was a clear plan for handling the impacts of closing the facility. Any serious proposal to close I5 through Portland will need a similar plan.
Rule out mister Wheeler’s pro-development prospect of an I-5 tunnel (under the Willamette River) as neither possible nor advisable if it were. Its accident rating is off the charts.
A Marquam Bridge replacement is probably unavoidable, 3- or 4-lanes each direction, single-deck, NOT double-deck. My focus for now is on the Rose Quarter I-5 dubious “improvement” project as proposed. Parts of it are salvageable without widening, without lids for “inappropriate” development.
“Tis a gift to be simple. Tis a gift to be free. Tis a gift to come down where we ought to be. And when we find ourselves in the place just right, t’will be in the valley of love and delight.”
Lyrics to an old Shaker Hymn, which made it into the Unitarian Hymnal. Haven’t sung it in 25 years.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=tis+a+gift+to+be+simple+tis+a+gift+to+be+free#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:a8e19c8c,vid:4RPUjuraS5U,st:0
Many thanks, Lisa, for your edit of one of my recent comments. It taught me a thing or two how to edit. Personal accusations will end up on the cutting floor, replaced with careful explanations or accurate criticism, leaving the reader to assume which authority or representative should be held accountable for unacceptably bad engineering (the SW Corridor MAX extension & the Rose Q I-5 so-called “improvement”) and inappropriately located housing (near I-5 freeway on/off ramps on both projects).
Art, you can criticize public employees by name, but calling them criminals and saying they belong in jail goes too far.
Inexcusably bad engineering which puts the public in harm’s way is criminal, Lisa. The Rose Q I-5 “improvement” has salvageable elements which improve public safety at a fraction of the cost.
There are no salvageable elements of the proposed SW Corridor MAX extension. The only sensible transit system suitable for Hwy 99W Barbur Blvd corridor is standard 40′ or 60′ articulated buses with “curbside” stops.
The SW Corridor MAX extension as proposed met NONE of the basic metrics that determine merit: Public Safety, Public Health, Urban & Environmental Impact, gains in transit patronage, development potential and lastly various costs, after other more important metrics are met.
Proposed development on both these projects is located too close to freeway on/off ramps and along a 45+mph corridor where hazardous traffic and (a death toll) is predictable.
Preaching to the choir! Harbor Drive removal was before my time, but I’m sure people did say it couldn’t be done until it was done.
People (may have) said it couldn’t be done until someone showed them how it could be, and then the project was able to move forward.
…because connecting cars (including driverless robot cars) is so much more important than connecting people…
Yet another dumb Portland transportation project, your tax dollars being wasted.
Hopefully they put good protected bike lanes on the bridge. It’s honestly not that hard to ride down to the esplanade if you need to.
So not only is the possibility of a ramp dead, we’re not even getting stairs and an elevator? That’s awful.
By “elevator” you must mean “elevator that is out of service most of the time.”
Note that this is only a problem in Portland. There are manufacturers and contractors all over the world that know how to design and build high-quality outdoor elevators. Portland has just cheaped out for so long, we’ve forgotten what good infrastructure looks like, and advocates now think elevators are terrible. Going with the cheapest option means you get what you pay for.
And Portland the elevators also get trashed. Look at what happens to the Bob Stacey Overcrosing (human feces, non operating status, graffiti, etc).
https://bikeportland.org/2022/02/16/as-frustrations-boil-over-city-of-portland-gives-no-timeline-for-repair-of-bob-stacey-crossing-elevator-348653
https://bikeportland.org/2014/02/28/gibbs-street-pedestrian-bridge-elevator-woes-continue-102272
This problem is not unique to Portland. Public elevators in many US cities (Chicago, NY, Bay Area) are consistently unreliable.
If this is their best idea: should we be concerned about rest of the bridge’s engineering?
If it’s not their best idea: should we be concerned about how this is a passive aggressive way to get out of it?
Yes, we should be concerned.
totally agree! They designed the most expensive, least feasible option to justify dropping accessibility. This is bad faith operating by the County and PBOT.
Kind of like a spite house.
How much do those bike escalators cost compared to an elevator?
Elevators are expensive and fail in many weather conditions; in San Francisco elevators for ADA access to BART have had to staff them with protective services; and even those folks have been accosted in previous years. Once a great idea, elevators are not serving the new culture.
I suggested an escalated which has a slot for the bike, and can be used for wheel chairs as well, see the Netherlands, I didn’t say elevator
Is it possible that governments and transit agencies have a tendency to build the cheapest possible elevators, and that’s why they fail? There are high-quality, reliable outdoor elevators all over the world, including on the outside of some of the most famous skyscrapers. It can be done. Elevators are the original mass transit system, basically vertical automated trains, and we shouldn’t dismiss them so easily.
A long straight not unreasonably steep ramp on the south side is best, alongside a set of stairs similar to the stairs there now. Whoever drew the winding ramp to the walkway may have been involved in designing the Post Office site bizarre bikeway that leads to the dangerous 3-way stoplight. Eastbound bicyclists need only a simple ramp from Johnson to Irving thus avoiding the stoplight. PBOT isn’t into public safety whatsoever. Westbound cyclists can just continue down the Lovejoy ramp and either cross at 9th or avoid the light and take the little cul-de-sac street to Johnson.
Watch they opt for an elevator and they spend just as much money as the ramp and then it never works just like the rest of them
The elevator would get trashed and filled with homeless. It would need a security guard…
When the County built the Sellwood Bridge, the project seemed to do a competent job designing the bridge itself, but a really mediocre job with what happened at its ends. And the way it works for people walking and biking at the west end would have been far worse if not for some extreme pushback from citizens and strong guidance from County Commissioner Gretchen Kafoury and Mayor Sam Adams.
It sounds like a similar thing may be happening here, but there’s no Adams or Kafoury to provide leadership.
Wasn’t Kafoury the one who seriously looked at not having ANY bike or ped access on the south side of the bridge? (everything was going to be on the north side with contra-flow lanes). Don’t know what caused that awful plan to die but I can remember some county official saying they had to look at it purely for the cost savings.
Fred: I would be interested to hear (or rather read in the BP comments) your argument in opposition to putting all the bike and ped facilities on one side of the bridge. (Not saying I would have endorsed that option, but I would much rather have a good, protected, well connected two-way path on one side of the bridge than half-assed efforts on either side.)
The Sellwood Bridge is probably the second best bridge to bike over (after the Tilikum) all things considered. The raised shared use path on both sides is comfortably wide, and the on street lanes offer a faster option for the lycra crowd. I think it’s a bit harsh to call it “half-assed”… it’s better than almost every other bridge in the city, and better than most major river crossings I’ve used that aren’t bike/ped exclusive.
Here’s a (roughly) similar bridge over the Limmat in Zurich. Two lanes of traffic (one for buses) and a dual shared use path. Not so different from the Sellwood Bridge, just (trolley) bus lanes instead of buffered bike lanes and paint separating bikes from pedestrians
Hi blumdrew,
I wasn’t slagging off the Sellwood Bridge: I can imagine a better one, but I agree it’s one of the better river crossings — more of that, please. I should have been more clear in my comment. I was trying to probe the relative merits of two-side and one-side configurations, since Fred seemed to imply that all setups with two-way bike traffic on one side of the auto traffic are not good. The picture is not so clear to me.
Micah,
IMO, the 2-way path on side of the street has couple of faults: The primary is the poor connections to and from the MUP and the delays and extra crossing that comes with that. Secondly, they are frequently built way too narrow to function as a MUP. I would rather have 2 5′ bike lanes and 2 5′-6′ sidewalks versus a single 10′ or 12′ MUP.
Thanks for the reply! It’s not clear to me that it’s easier to connect one way paths than two way ones, but I have not thought deeply about it. Your width comparison is not apples-to-apples. Would you rather have 2 5′ bike lanes and 2 5′ sidewalks or a 15′ two-way bike lane and 5′ two-way sidewalk, all on one side?
I don’t know anything about that proposal or what her involvement may have been.
What stood out with her for me was a final budget meeting where the project staff and engineers proposed some “value engineering” that would have made things worse for biking and walking. She basically chewed the team out–strongly. She asked pointed questions that showed that the team hadn’t considered impacts on biking or walking in nearly enough detail to even consider the changes–and then told them that, and led the vote that rejected the whole package of value engineering changes.
She took her involvement seriously, and could discuss details. She was so accessible (at least in my case) she sent me emails at night before the Memorial Day weekend because she wanted to be sure I went into the long weekend knowing she was handling an issue I’d raised.
Marion Street Bridge in downtown Salem, OR has a nice, reinforced concrete ped/bike ramp. What’s the problem? This is not unique or special.
The height that they need to cover while making the ramp accessible. The Marion bridge is covering what looks like 20-40 vertical feet. It accomplishes the height change in 1.25 spirals. The replacement Burnside bridge arches up much higher than the current bridge because it won’t lift. You can see in the renderings that this would result in three complete spirals to maintain a 1:8 to 1:12 rise over run.
The new Burnside Bridge will still have a lift.
1) WTF? Somehow a car-scale bridge over a major river is feasible, but a human-scale ramp from the bridge deck to the river shore is not? Some engineers.
2) All the acrimony and much of the expense associated with the E end of the Burnside Br. replacement is a side effect of the existence of I5, which has caused and continues to cause so much harm and obstruction. Oh how I despise that road!
Engineers and construction workers don’t work for free. Every project has priorities. This project’s primary object is to span the Willamette in seismically safe fashion. There’s a structural floor you don’t go below to achieve that. If there’s not enough money to *also* do a ramp and primary objective, what do you expect to happen?
Yes, and apparently the project is saying that connecting to the Esplanade isn’t a priority. That’s what people are objecting to.
Everyone knows that.
Not true. There’s a transportation function involved, too.
No idea what that means. Are you thinking people are proposing to cut required structural components of the project away to afford a ramp? Nobody’s proposing that.
What should happen is to see if there are other places to save money within the current budget, or to look at raising the budget. The connection to the Esplanade to me seems like it should be a high priority, especially given the bridge is being built for the next century or more of use.
This isn’t an engineering decision; it’s a political decision about how much such a connection is worth. That decision is made my elected leaders, many of whom are running for office right now. This is our moment of peak political leverage, and it’s only going to decline from here on out.
If any of you contacts the city or county, please let us know!
There are a few other ways that the project could provide access to the river / esplanade.
Water Avenue (Trail) Extension North of Stark.
There is already an ODOT maintenance/access road that runs north of stark. Presumably this will be one of the main construction accesses to the site. Seems like an opportunity to make this a permanent path that could lead to the bridge/esplanade and even to the future Sullivan Gulch trail.
New Connection from NE 2nd.
There is already a gap underneath the freeways in this area that could be improved by some floodplain embankment removal. A short tunnel under the existing railroad would also be needed for this connection.
No explanation as to why a straight southbound ramp is not viable? It would cost a fraction of this.
Given the importance of the Burnside Bridge being a cross county highway that will be a big arterial in a disaster response…the notion of disregarding additional lanes for cargo bikes and pedestrian evacuation paths (think 9-11 when people walked out of Manhatten)…this is extremely short sighted. One wonders why these higher decision making folks did not listen to the Mult Cty Bike Pedestrian advisory committee concerning the need of bike/ped lanes for Multnomah County’s river banks. Failure of County advisory structure? Failure of Policy people not listening? Failure of people without larger Visons? Failure of middle management unwilling to project new solutions?
The Eastbank esplanade is not going to survive a major earthquake that destroys the rest of the bridges, which will fall on top of it and block the trail. Additionally, it is likely the floating section could detach and float downstream.
In a truly major earthquake, there will be little to no car traffic as most roads will proba ly be impassable. Efforts will either be on total evacuation of the city or bringing in relief supplies.
People will not be commuting to work. There will be no gasoline available for motor vehicles.
Think 1995 Kobe, Japan, Christchurch or Katrina levels of destruction.
Politely & partialy disagree with the black and white of most ‘roads impassable’ or ‘Total Evac.” When looking at any war condition, WWII Dresden, Iraq, present Gaza, bikes and feet can get to places vehicles cannot. Communication centers can be placed, medications can be dispersed. Air drops can be done better than America’s attempts in Gaza. Having parts of bridges that people use can occur; Total post disaster bridge and ramps may not support trucks but may support human & bikes. Roads can become a crazy quilt of connections. Even the places you mention, Katriina, Kobe, etc had some arterials available immediately which delivered medics and evacuated people to medical facilities. This new bridge is intended to survive a particular seismic event and partially at higher events (Don’t have the number in my head) and what we have seen in other catastrophies esp from war, is the partial structures becoming rickety but functional and useful present conduits for folks.
I agree with you that people in decision making are thinking about gasoline and commuting as you mentioned and not really understanding needed resources about disaster sequelae of a population needing food, water, meds. etc. AND they are not considering needs of the population who use bike and feet acccess to cross the river both directions everyday. There is lack of vision and decisions only come with thinking about what things look like through a vehicle wind screen or windshield.
If the Burnside Bridge survives a major quake, but the esplanade is blocked by other fallen bridges and a destroyed floating section, there won’t be much need for ramps to get down there. Assuming they are built to withstand a big quake at all, which seems unlikely.
Biking and walking may well be a good way to move about a post-quake city, but people probably won’t be doing it on the esplanade.
In the event of a truly major earthquake, it would *probably* hit while some people are driving. In that case, there would be lots of road traffic. The road traffic would just not be going anywhere because it would be stuck.
Cry me a river, welcome to Portland!
Wow, in Portland we used to get bike paths and cool new parks; now we get cancelled bike paths and social justice marches about events thousands of miles away.
Multnomah county gives us faux compassion for the homeless and heart attack victims travelling in ambulances, but can’t give us a bike ramp on the most prominent road in the city.
Struggling to find the benefits all this progressive politics has given us. I mean shouldn’t the activism also get us bike ramps? Where is Sarah Iannarone on this?
Well it’s not actually progressive politics (just status quo car brain), otherwise we’d actually be getting better transportation options
You sure have a strange idea of what progressive politics is.
When I hear the words Portland, progressive and politics I can’t help but think back to post Election Day 2016 and the summer of 2020 and I don’t understand where that passion went. The passion that (literally) enflamed the city over events that did not affect the city directly in any way. Now that there are serious threats to the actual livability and freedom of movement for the people right in the city there is no passion. Person we don’t like gets elected and there’s damage and protests, someone is murdered far away and the city (and the elk statue which still pisses me off) burns and is vandalized and the city took to the streets(and yes the protests were peaceful, the riots were not). Where is the passion for what’s actually happening in Portland now?
One difference between 2020 and today is in 2020 we’d been locked indoors for months, and protesting was the only medically-sanctioned way to get out. I’m not saying that’s all it was, but it had to have been a factor.
That’s a fair point and goes a length towards explaining the strange energy that was let loose.
Some people really will write a wall of text scratching their head wondering why on earth people would have passion and care about people being killed by police. I guess some people just get more passionate about police killings than bike ramps.
I’m wondering why people so much more passionate in 2020, but not so much since.
Yeah good question, and I think it has to do with exhaustion. Months of protests got nothing, and people just can’t do it forever. I’m sure it’ll come back at some point when conditions are right. I agree also the pandemic may have had some influence on things getting started.
I do think the protests achieved something important — police departments are much more willing than they were to fire/arrest cops when they do something egregious.
Are folks really still exhausted 4 years later?
That I haven’t seen evidence of, but good if true!
Eventually I think something will bubble up again, because yes, it has been 4 years and in some people’s view, police really are still a problem. The recent murder of Sonya Massey might have resulted in something except in this case the cop was charged with murder. I don’t have my finger on the pulse, but if he isn’t convicted, maybe that will bubble up into something.
By exhausted, I mean the protests happened for months and eventually stopped. That’s my interpretation of it. But I don’t think they stopped because they were satisfied with the results. They were waited out.
This is just stemming from the “why is there passion about people being killed by police and not passion about a bicycle ramp to a new bridge” is an absolute nonsense question, that’s all. It wasn’t your question, I’m not accusing you, that was Jakeco. The answer should be pretty obvious.
That’s an example of the change I was describing.
I agree with this assessment.
For context, remember that the Hawthorne Bridge is 114 years old. The new Burnside Bridge will be in service for well over 100 years, maybe even 200 years. The debt on this bridge project will be paid down over the course of generations and the bridge will be used for many generations beyond that.
We should plan this bridge for the future. Currently, the East Bank Esplanade is overshadowed by that hideous freeway, but if trends continue, the East Bank will one day be a miles long waterfront park backed by dense housing and business. Only an extreme pessimist would build this bridge without pedestrian/bike ramps leading to the esplanade.
“The new Burnside Bridge will be in service for well over 100 years, maybe even 200 years.”
Only if they avoid the fiasco that was the Morrison Bridge replacement.
You want a waterfront park?..take half a billion and relocate 6.5 miles of tank farms on unstable west side ground to earquake prepared sites at Rivergate….opens up massive acreage for redevelopment and all the riverfront parks one could want…..and resolves the issue of 90% of the states fuel supply currently at risk of the big quake. River of fire, anyone?
Where would you put the tank farms?
Acres of open land on stable bedrock without adjacent residents.
A lot of those tank farms will not be needed in 20 years due to the electrification and shift to renewables.
LOL!
Given how little progress has been made, it’s odd how confident some people are that meaningful action to lower Portland/Oregon’s greenhouse gas emissions is a certainty..
Sad
The morrison curly-q serves exactly this purpose in what, a 10′ radius all the way up? The designs I see are absolutely ridiculous and should be scrapped. Our leaders have tried nothing and given up.
Don’t give me an elevator you won’t maintain, I can’t fit my cargo bike in them most of the time, anyway.
This whole thing is a great example of government-run capital projects. They agree on ambitious, elaborate designs early on, and then cut them when the budget inevitably gets blown out of the water. If they value-engineered the entire bridge, there would be plenty of budget for ADA ramps on both sides.
The Morrison bridge ramp is not ADA compliant. You could not build that today, period. Anywhere in the United States.
This is infuriating and stupid. Multnomah county is going to end up dumping more than a billion dollars into this when all is said and done and we can’t even get a damn bike ramp tacked on? Give me a break.
I’m so annoyed that they spent all the time and effort on the public surveys that asked people to weigh in on the aesthetics of three largely similar bridge designs. Nowhere in the surveys did they ask people about how transportation modes should be prioritized, nor did the ask how people would feel if existing connections to the esplanade were eliminated. Seems like those are much more important questions that whether or not people think a cable stayed arch fits in with the aesthetics of the waterfront skyline.
Great point, Sarnia. I hope JM won’t slam this comment for being too negative, but usually what we get in Portland is The Illusion of Inclusion™. You get to weigh in on aspects of projects that make no difference at all, but gov’t officials can say you were included.
True, and unfortunately not only in Portland. This is standard bureaucratic procedure for “inclusion.” If we really want them to hear us we have to do more than complete surveys. What actions can we take now to let them know this is unacceptable and they have to go back to the drawing board?
Lobby your elected officials at the city and at the county; they are ultimately the ones who decide, and they are hired by us.
Just remember to oust JVP in the next election cycle. This is largely a failure of Multnomah County Leadership.
Same! It’s infuriating that the elimination of heavily used bike and pedestrian connections wasn’t even mentioned in their design discussions. This makes their public outreach seem completely disingenuous. They let us weigh in on which bridge we thought would be the “prettiest” but never bothered to ask for our input on whether the bridge would be even remotely functional for anyone other than drivers. It feels like the entire premise of this project was misrepresented to the public.
Just imagine if this bridge had been reimagined as a bike/ped ONLY bridge and cars lost access instead, which would also make it dramatically cheaper in the process. It’s practically unthinkable, but removing access to bikes and pedestrians is easily chosen as a cost cutting measure. It’s infuriating.
Their public outreach generally is completely disingenuous.
The most recent survey was largely about aesthetics of the type of support structure the bridge will use. Previous surveys asked about more functional aspects of the bridge, including lane allocation of various transportation modes. I don’t remember if those earlier surveys brought up Esplanade connection options, though.
Why are they so worried about the “environmental impacts” a ramp would have? They do realize they’re building a bridge that requires construction to occur in the water right?
Besides, the river is already filled with algae and pollution, how much harm can a ramp do?
Your money has been squandered.
A Portland specialty.
Antiquated environmentalism that is more concerned with a little shadow and footings in the river while ignoring the big picture environmentally of convenient active transportation facilities that if designed right people will use instead of driving.
I’m as surprised that they don’t see what the value of something like this could be as a tourist attraction. Dramatic infrastructure along a waterside tends to get everyone’s attention, as a place to walk, to hang around and talk, etc.
Really disappointing news. Seems like the shape and look of the bridge was determined first and how it integrates into the city was pretty low on the list of priorities.
How wide are the car travel lanes? Did the trucking industry have any say in the design? Did Union Pacific? And why do we design bridges to accommodate boats when they rarely travel underneath? What boats are moving south that are so important?
This bridge will have a moveable span, so the vertical clearance is probably more constrained by the existing freeway than anything else.
Unpopular opinion:
while a pedestrian connection to the Burnside bridge would be nice, stairs are illegal under the ADA and I don’t think I ever saw anyone use them anyway. So, there was little to no utilization of the existing stair access.
These ramps look to be extremely long. I wonder what their linear length is – a quarter mile?
False: stairs can be built as long as alternate access, like a ramp, is provided.
Stairs are completely legal under the ADA, correct. You just need a reasonable alternate route for ADA. They don’t even have to be in the same place, just another route that eventually gets you to the same place. In this case, though, there aren’t many options.
You can also have stairs and an elevator. No need for a ramp.
I’ve seen people use the stairs
I’ve used the stairs, it’s hard. I’d usually ride around or choose a different route. If there was a ramp I think you’d see lots of people using it.
“Nobody uses this bad thing” is not a valid argument to not build something that people will use.
I’ve used the stairs, and hauled my bike up and down them a few times. Made it all the way to the top one time and found the gate was locked. That was a bummer.
This is so insanely frustrating, and perfectly illustrates how much of an afterthought cyclists and pedestrians are for everyone. If the county were to start with a connection to the Esplanade and work backwards from there, they would surely come up with a design that had a sensible connection. There’s ~1000 feet of horizontal space between the existing Burnside Bridge and the part of the Esplanade with the little steel bridge split. At 5% grade, a straight ramp could ascend 50 feet, which should be plenty of clearance to reach the bridge. Sure, this would potentially make a connection to the north side of the bridge difficult, but it beats nothing. And I imagine some engineer could design a ramp connection below the bridge. Or we could just throw a stoplight onto the bridge for pedestrians and cyclists who want to use that – after all, Portland’s modal hierarchy explicitly states that pedestrians and cyclists are a higher priority than motor vehicles.
And I dunno, it just feels like the one option presented was obviously shoehorned in after the fact. Why aren’t the civil engineers at the county designing in accordance to any of the goals that the city of Portland has laid out? Why isn’t there more institutional pushback on this? It just feels like I’m taking crazy pills over here.
“ Portland’s modal hierarchy explicitly states that pedestrians and cyclists are a higher priority than motor vehicles.”
Pft! Completely false.
“Why aren’t the civil engineers at the county designing in accordance to any of the goals that the city of Portland has laid out?”
Because Portland has completely lost sight of the vision that they laid out.
“Why isn’t there more institutional pushback on this?”
I have asked myself that question since long before I moved to Portland.
One could design and extension form the ramp that goes under the bridge to connects bikes and ped to the north side at a fraction of the cost a a redundant ramp.
The argument that permits for a ramp would delay the project 1-2 years is ridiculous. The county is going to have to get a whole slough of permits to get permission to work in a navigable waterway that has habitat for federally listed endangered species. That lengthy and cumbersome permitting process is already cooked into the project timeline. They wouldn’t have to go through a second round of permitting after completing all of that for the pedestrian ramps. Seems like the project team is doing a whole lot of hand waving to justify a decision that was, apparently, a foregone conclusion.
It’s nearly a mile from the east side of the steele to the Morrison bridge – that’s too far between entry/exit points for an area that’s had its share of violent incidents in recent years. Taking away an exit makes you sort of trapped there between the steele and morrison and really takes away from the safety of the eastbank quite a bit. I am all for arguing bike paths, but I think if we call out the safety issue more eyebrows raise.
How disappointing. But hardly surprising, given what has happened to Portland.
A land value tax would fix this.
/s
That sucks, ever since I saw the render I was really excited to bomb down the hot wheels looking spiral. I also think that if it gets built, it would become a pretty iconic part of Portland
Hearing this is pathetic. We need access to the Waterfront via Pedestrian/Bike. This debate is a disgrace to Tom McCall and all the Native tribes we have stolen this land from. The River is a sacred space for recreation and a gem of access in Portland, an elevator is a joke and if the architecture experts agree. then it’s a disgrace the county and city council wont listen to the professionals.
How many people will they let die in cross walks or heat stroke before appropriate access is given or a green space is developed. Walking 6 city blocks in over 90* to release tension and recreate is insane.
But which tribe? The tribe that was here when Lewis & Clark arrived took the land from a previous tribe. They too took the land from another tribe. ETc.
So how far back do we go to determine which tribe was in fact the original occupants of the land?
Sure. How about all the tribes get credit for original ownership. And every colonizer including L&C don’t
People need to question more the whole premise of blowing a billion dollars on building a new bridge in the impossible event all 10 other bridges are destroyed in an earthquake. The county got sold a bill of goods by these engineering firms trying to create work and plan for the worst imaginable event. Even assuming all other bridges were damaged in the world’s worst earthquake, theres hospitals, fire stations, shelters, etc on each side of the river to remain independent.
So the evidence that there will be a significant subduction earthquake in the next few decades is very strong. Basically, it relates to core samples of sediment (i.e., turbidites) on the ocean floor that can be measured over thousands of years to mark the severity and years with past earthquakes. Here’s a sort of non-scientific article from the Oregonian that gives you a very basic idea about the state of the bridges, many of which (e.g., Ross Is, Steel, Hawthorne) will predictably fail given a significant subduction earthquake.
Normally, I would agree that we should be skeptical when “doom and gloom” is accompanied by profit, but this one is for real.
Are there any engineers in here to weigh in? I agree with damn near all the gripes but I’m not, and I don’t think anybody commenting is, an engineer or someone that can comment on the complexity of a project like this. Increasingly I’m reminding myself, “hey, this is simply not my field of expertise/hey, this is not anything I deal with in my life/hey, I’m actually very ignorant about ____, maybe I should stfu”.
What does an engineer think, just at a glance, about what is happening here?
Surely it’s difficult to do any kind of project designed to withstand a 9.0 earthquake on the soft squishy soil of the Willamette River. But we should also ask if this particular connection even should be able to withstand the Big One. After all, I5 is likely to collapse into the river taking the Esplanade with it. If that happens, does it really matter if the connection to the Burnside Bridge is still standing? Evidently, it may, but if the options are “build a less seismically secure structure” or “build nothing” here it seems a bit silly to build nothing.
If we are looking to make everything in Portland able to withstand a 9.0 earthquake, we will spend a trillion dollars and still come up short. It’s not good policy to never build anything that might not withstand the Big One if it means extremely bad outcomes for the other 99.99% of time.
Also, you don’t have to be an engineer to question a decision made by an engineer! They are good at building stuff, not necessarily considering what should be built (well no better than anyone else that is)
“””Also, you don’t have to be an engineer to question a decision made by an engineer! They are good at building stuff, not necessarily considering what should be built (well no better than anyone else that is)”””
This feels a little bit like I’m Doing My Own Research. I hear you, sorta, I think.
You should do you own research – in the sense that you should have a rough understanding of the constraints a project like this has. The entirety of the east bank of the Willamette is soil prone to liquefaction – hence the “need” for a huge budget for this ramp for preparing the soil. I suppose this could be for reasons beyond liquefaction (I’m assuming it’s not cheap to set piers in a river even if you’re ignoring earthquakes), but there’s still a bigger question to ask: does it make sense to connect the Esplanade to an earthquake proof bridge? Given that the Esplanade is almost certainly not making it through a major earthquake, I think the answer is no.
Anyways, you don’t need a special certificate to roughly understand this kind of stuff. Half the bridges in Portland were designed by guys with what we would consider now to be no formal training. Expertise is nice, but it’s not everything
If the answer is “No”, we probably don’t need to build a new bridge at all.
I mean it’s not practical to make the Esplanade seismically resistant, so what’s the use in having the connection to the bridge be? The new seismically resistant Burnside Bridge is useful for more reasons than just a connection to the Esplanade
Sorry — I think we got our wires crossed, and may have been thinking of different things with the phrase “this particular connection”.
I think we fully agree on just about everything here.
I’m a civil engineer. I’m very thankful no one ever asked me to design a ramp in that space. 100% believe that it’s cost prohibitive in that space. I wouldn’t get anywhere that project if it were offered to me.
Killer, thanks for the input, Paul
Sensible sentiment, but not really the vibe around here.
Why not use the PCEF slush fund for this. Pedal and foot power have a closer resemblance of “clean energy” than half the other grift these funds are wasted on!
I think pcef is actually devoting funding to a lot of important projects. Characterizing pcef as grift is par for the course in conservative circles around these parts. But repetition doesn’t make it true. Regardless, I agree that this would be a great use of the windfall revenues.
Both can be true, and, in my opinion, both are true (though “grift” is probably not quite the right word).
Lovely how you can declare an idea a certain political persuasion you don’t like and then magically not have to consider that idea at all anymore.
I don’t think it is a big deal at all. There is great access to the Eastbank Esplanade from a variety of other entrance points mainly the Steel Bridge, Morrison Bridge, SE Main, Hawthorne bridge, Clay St. etc etc. From the looks of it, that spiraling ramp would look hideous and would be annoying to actually use. If you are a bicyclist then you know that the Burnside Bridge is one of the worst bridges to pedal over because it is a big hill to climb, whereas Hawthorne and Steel are flat at road level thus better options. Let’s keep things simple.
I often use burnside to cross the Willamette. The grade is much easier than the tilikum, which I also use when it is convenient to do so. Yes, there are lots of options to cross the Willamette, but there are more and easier connections for people in cars. If you replace a pretty good bridge for people in bikes with a bridge that is bad for people in bikes, you’ll continue to bias the system even more in favor of car use.
The top deck of the steel bridge requires a big climb and has no bicycle facilities. The bottom deck is good if you’re already at the esplanade grade, but it’s a real pain to access if you need to ascend or descend to the surrounding street grid.
The Morrison bridge is useless from a bicycle or pedestrian perspective unless your destination is the esplanade or the central east side industrial area.
The burnside is, in my opinion, a critical bike and ped connection. It gets a lot of active transportation use.
Agree, not really that big of a deal to not have a ramp connection from Burnside to the Esplanade. I’m really having a hard time imagining a trip where this would be a crucial connection. The esplanade doesn’t even connect to the inner east side until SE Salmon St (south of Morrison bridge) anyway. For any routes that could potentially use these ramps, I think there are more cost-effective (and space-effective) solutions to making the trip more bike-friendly. For example, improve cycling connections and conditions going for Burnside -> MLK -> SE Ankney -> 2nd/3rd -> Water Ave. Similarly, the connections on the west end could use some work (why the f doesn’t the bike lane on Burnside connect to Broadway?). FWIW, we should probably improve these connections regardless of the status of the bridge project.
While these ramps would be nice, I can understand why this decision was made. Too often in the transportation infrastructure planning and implementation process, perfect is the enemy of adequate. This isn’t a bike connectivity project and it also isn’t an increase automobile capacity project. It’s a seismic resiliency project for our city, being built in a world of incredibly constrained funding. The only other seismically resilient Willamette crossing in the city core is for transit/bike/ped only. I can still take the promenade if I want to go north-south. Burnside will still drop me right into the bike network on the east side with a decent connection to a brand new bike/ped bridge at the Lloyd Center. For better or worse, the perfect is the enemy of adequate approach is partially responsible for the glacially slow and crazy expensive transportation infrastructure process that is crippling meaningful progress.
I designed that exact same ramp in roller coaster tycoon classic.
What were the excitement and intensity ratings? Max speed/g-forces?
Saying the current staircase is not ADA accessible is simply a blatant lie. There has always been a wheelchair lift on those stairs, but Multnomah County (or Parks Bureau, whoever owns it) failed to maintain it and it has been non-functional for decades. But it was originally ADA-accessible, and implying that it wasn’t is a lie. They could refurbish it and fix it at any point, they just choose not to.
Also, the staircase was built to accommodate an elevator (you can see where the shaft was located), but it was never actually constructed. And this new bridge could easily have an elevator on either side instead of these huge ramps. Yes, outdoor elevators break down a lot in Portland, but guess what? They don’t in lots of other cities. Just because we allow contractors to build crappy elevators in Portland doesn’t mean they have to be crappy.
I think it’s horrible that they aren’t considering at least doing stairs and elevators, which would be way cheaper than these giant ramps and would at least provide a connection to and from the Eastbank Esplanade.
No one wants Portland building another outdoor elevator, because people know from previous experience that they won’t maintain it.
The counter balanced elevators at Rome’s coliseum impressed me as a reliable and efficient people mover. Is that a possible solution instead of a ramp or maintenance intensive escalator?
It is becoming increasingly clear that the current bridge is fine for now and that we should be tolling all willamette bridges until we can afford replacements that are actually improvements over the standard quo.
those ramp concepts are absurd. No way was this ever feasible
Oh but they look cool. Think how many tourists would go out and walk on those to get a better river view.
Put in a vandal proof elevator, & stop blaming transients for why we can’t have nice things. I swear, this city is paralyzed by people with no knowledge of what is out there technologically
BIg fan of the single straight south-side ramp idea. Never mind, didnt see thread is 3 weeks old.