Multnomah County says a maintenance project will close the Broadway Bridge for six months beginning Monday, October 13th. The closure will have a significant impact on surrounding streets and bridges as folks opt for detours around the closure. All car and truck drivers, as well as Portland Streetcar and bus riders, will need to find other routes to and from downtown.
Bicycle riders and walkers will be able to use the south sidewalk, which will remain open for most of the closure. However, the County says even the south sidewalk will be closed for two hours on two days: Monday October 13th and Tuesday October 14th from 9:00 am to 11:00 am.
To be clear:
- this closure impacts all drivers, as well as bus and streetcar riders, for the entire six months;
- bike riders will share the south sidewalk, which will carry bi-directional cycling, walking, and micromobility vehicle traffic.
- the bridge will be closed to all users — including bikers and walkers — for two hours this coming Monday and Tuesday.
The reason for the closure is a lift deck replacement project. According to Multnomah County, in order to do the work, a contractor will remove small sections of the bridge deck, one at a time, to ensure the movable bridge sections remain carefully balanced and can be opened to river traffic as required by law. New streetcar tracks will also be installed in the section of the bridge deck being replaced.
The last major Broadway Bridge closure I covered was in 2015 when the bridge was repainted. The work zone around that project was roundly criticized by bicycle users.
County officials expect the closure to last from October 13th 2025 to April 11th 2026. Visit the County’s website for more information.
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I like that they are (mostly) keeping it open to people walking and biking. In my opinion, nothing is more fundamental in transportation that the ability to move around using your own two legs (or some variation thereof using a mobility device)
What would be even better is if they used the opportunity to give the streetcar and buses FX2-like signal priority on either end of the bridge, but I suppose that’s outside of the scope of the project.
It would be great to see them at least use this opportunity to evaluate the effects of having a rose lane for the streetcar across the bridge and up broadway. The streetcars get stuck in traffic far too often
On the Broadway bridge itself, the streetcar doesn’t need a Rose Lane, because it has to absolutely crawl over the moveable section. It would be great if they came up with a solution to this problem.
I came here to say the same thing! It is shocking how long the streetcar has to wait to car traffic. The bike signal to go south on Broadway is also very long.
Perhaps a ‘first in the nation’!!!! Thx county WZ planners!!
I have been thinking about the Green Loop article and design flaws a lot over the last few weeks. It finally occurred to me that the Green Loop is really just a marketing tool for developers. Until I realized that, I could not understand why the concepts were so unrealistic and unworkable. The fact that they are closing the Broadway Bridge for 6 months and not making any accommodation for a future Green Loop is proof to me that they are not serious about this as a transportation or recreation concept.
Given that they’re only working on the lift deck and not the entire bridge, what kind of accommodation do you have in mind?
They have planned this closure for a long time. If they plan to run the Green Loop over the bridge, they will need more space to do it. Combining a sidewalk expansion with the bridge deck replacement could make a lot of sense. However, they haven’t even conceptually shown a workable route over the Broadway Bridge, so I am not surprised.
I imagine that if the cantilevered side paths could be widened, this project would only be scoped to widened them on the liftable portion of the deck. So you’d still have a bottleneck on the fixed portions of the bridge.
Given the cantilevered nature of the side paths, making them wider will likely require a full structural redesign and tear down/rebuild.
I don’t know this, but since 90% of the construction funds are federal, I doubt such an effort would be considered in scope for extending the service life and maintaining the service level of the bridge.
Also, I’m curious why the green loop necessitates more space on the Broadway Bridge. My understanding is that the infrastructure that gets built will be primarily to facilitate access to businesses and amenities. I don’t think they’re planning on putting any vendors on the bridge, so it’s hard to imagine it needs more capacity.
Paul H,
The Green Loop is being sold as a 6-mile transportation and recreation lop through the central east and west part of Portland on each side of the river. Part of the pitch is that it will be suitable for a range of users from families walking to commuters on electric bikes. The route is promised to be comfortable (safe), green, and connected to varied recreational and commercial opportunities.
The existing sidewalks on the Broadway Bridge are too narrow. I have been commuting over this bridge daily for the last 15 months, and I have found that the sidewalks works OK because there are basically no pedestrians. The occasional pedestrian is also no problem because they are so infrequent and they are typically single. I have encountered couples or groups of 3 or 4, and the bridge sidewalks are too narrow. Even with a bell and calling out, it is hard to make yourself heard over the road/streetcar noise. IT is narrow enough that peds have to press closely together or go single file for a bike to pass.
I commuted for years along the waterfront path. These provide a model for the concept of the green loop: families out together, maybe with a dog or a kid on a scooter, groups of runners, recreational cyclists, people on e-bikes/ e-unicylces, etc, sometimes going very fast, plus large rental bikes with 4 riders, cargo bikes, delivery people on bikes, and walkers. Its a great mix, but close calls and friction are common even along the widest sections.
If you take the Green Loop boosters at their word- that they are planning to build a transportation and recreation loop- then the Broadway Bridge and couple of other segments are puzzling because they are so obviously inadequate yet they are not even calling for planning level/future solutions. However, if you look at the green loop as a marketing tool to prompt development, the neglect of a functional loop makes more sense. This is my point: to all the people excited about the idea of a functional transportation and recreations loop; beware! This is not what is being planned. They are creating a marketing gimmick that will undoubtedly produce some nice, human-centered urban design, but it will not create functional loop or even functional routes. The City is looking for feedback and input on the Green Loop. If people are interested in developing this as a route, now is the time to provide feedback and encouragement to identify flaws and address them now so they can planned for and designed for.
Thanks for your perspective. I commuted on the bridge for about 5 years when ridership was higher and never noticed much of an issue with space.
If it’s a recreational loop, I don’t anticipate that recreation to occur during peak commute times. Also don’t think that additional width would address the noise issues you’ve identified, especially with the proliferation of noise canceling headphones.
I also don’t think that funding for this recreational loop will ever approach the amounts necessary to redesign and reconstruct the cantilever side paths (would like to be wrong about that).
Getting any investment in critical infrastructure feels way too much like pulling teeth these days.
I’m actually amazed that cyclists were given any notice at all. Probably the fact that cars and transit are impacted caused them to think: Oh yeah – what about the bikes and peds?
In SW Portland, any bike infra will be closed at any time, for any reason, with no notice at all. I’ll be cruising down the separated bike lane on SW Multnomah Blvd and suddenly – presto! A city work truck is blocking the bike lane completely. My only alternatives are to take the lane (not gonna happen on that fast, narrow stretch) or turn around and find another route, which is what I always do.
Your central point is correct: bike infra doesn’t really matter as a serious means of transportation. If transpo professionals inconvenience drivers, that’s a big deal. But bikes? – no big deal.
(Cue JM chiding me for not being grateful that the B’way Bridge is staying open just for cyclists and peds, which is a good thing but the exception in my experience.)
“to ensure the movable bridge sections remain carefully balanced and can be opened to river traffic as required by law.”
This is a little odd — maritime precedence law is very old and strong.
But, there is currently no commercial traffic that requires the Broadway Bridge to be lifted. The most recent traffic was summer 2023 when a chip load of ground tires left the “blazers mural” grain elevators to sail to Asia.
And those elevators are now closed.
It is raised for warships during Fleet Week, but that it just once a year.
The bridge deck is at least 80′ above the river, plenty high for all barges and sailboats.
So I’m a little surprised Multnomah County wasn’t able to get an exemption from maritime law given that there is no current or planned need for a bridge lift in the next 8 months. And just replace the deck all at once.
Ted Buehler
How long of a delay are you proposing? If the bridge needs to be raised in 8 months, there’s not a lot of wiggle room. I’d expect finding funding for, putting out the bid, and mobilizing resources for a full deck replacement would take longer than that.
Maybe a hypothetical crane or pile driver? If some naval training tall ship shows up unannounced they get to go through I guess. It’s the only thing that trumps the railroads’ plenary right of way.
They brought in some big equipment for the Abernethy Bridge on barges.
Well my first trip over on Monday afternoon led to me nearly getting right-hooked (my fault though). They have placed a stop sign at the the top of the east bound approach where cars have to go right and bicycle cross to go east or turn right. It’s going to be important to not roll thru.
Steve, were you riding up Lovejoy? Cars have always been able to turn right here and they are expected to yield to cyclists going straight. Can you clarify: is the stop sign for everyone or just bikes?
I rode across the Broadway Bridge yesterday mid-day. The north side was open. I stopped and spoke with one of the contractors and asked when they would close the north side and limit bikes/pedestrians to the south side.
Surprisingly, he indicated he expected the north side to also remain open with just a limited number of closures.
And I have been riding across the Broadway for 20+ years, sometimes 7 days a week. Pedestrians have rarely been a problem and I just try to be very careful to alert them of my approach. Yes, there is the rare person with ear buds and sound up high but overall just not an issue if you are careful and courteous.