Let's not be lemmings for a bad bridge

Deck-truss proposal chosen for the Columbia Crossing

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Imagine you owned a car that still ran well but was starting to age, and faced the choice of replacing it this year with the wrong choice or next year with a proper one. This year you could have a PT Cruiser with wood paneling. It's ugly, and it's got more room than you really need, but it runs and it's available. Or, next year you could have an ideal Ford Focus or Nissan Altima: a sedan that is better looking, fits your needs better, and costs about the same. Do you go for the ungainly eyesore this year or the right car next year?

That's essentially the debate taking place regarding the Columbia Crossing: wrong and ugly now versus right and beautiful in the near future. A bridge that our design community and ordinary citizens take pride tomorrow, or a slab of concrete now against the wishes of experts and populace.

The states of Oregon and Washington are eager to build a bridge that qualifies for the soonest available federal funding cycle. The business community is largely behind them, as this editorial from the Portland Business Journal indicates:

The Portland Business Alliance gets it. Aesthetic nitpickers don't...At $340 million, the [deck truss] design is by far the most affordable option. A handful of boisterous critics, though, insist the design isn't attractive enough...Some people will never be satisfied."

The writer marginalizes the critics as a "handful" when in reality this opinion arguably represents the majority of citizens. Not only is the design community in support of cable-stayed over deck-truss, but cable stayed has rated better with the public at large commenting in CRC meetings.

It's also an ironic stroke of the keyboard to suggest "people will never be satisfied" after the community outside of the transportation-industrial complex didn't like something it's been begging elected officials not to build for the last two years. People don't like the cheapest, ugliest concrete slab the traffic engineers could find? And have said so continuously? Oh my, they're being so uncooperative!

Perhaps the saddest and most significant part of the Business Journal editorial is the dismissive attitude toward design. If one thinks design is merely aesthetics, then it's forgetting that the discipline is about how something works. Beauty or lack thereof is, while a subjective feeling, inseparable from that idea. It's part of the working. And if this is such a fanciful idea, that our built environment should inspire us, why are the societies beating America economically, like China and Germany, handing over landmark bridge commissions to the world's best architects while our leadership insist these people aren't even needed?

Instead of complaining about a lack of consensus as if this is the problem itself, a truly admirable leader, I'd argue, would be likelier to look in the mirror. Why is there a lack of consensus? It's not because consensus is impossible or requiring a commitment our community is unwilling to give. There is a lack of consensus because the proposal in its current form is unacceptable to many people - including the Urban Design Advisory Group selected by the Columbia Crossing as its trusted advisors.

Highway builders and their allies across America have become an almost unstoppable juggernaut. They seem to suggest if the Columbia Crossing isn't funded in this current funding cycle, then somehow its fate will be sealed forever and Northwesterners will be forced to endure miles of stop and go traffic because we didn't follow their concrete road to a wide-laned Shangri-La.

The reality is quite different. The I-5 bridge over the Columbia is not even the choke point for the Interstate in the Portland area. That is clearly the Rose Quarter, where the road thins to two lanes in each direction and intersects with I-84. (Luckily attention seems to be planned for this interchange.) And it's scare tactics to suggest that the Columbia Crossing has to be built with funds from this funding cycle. Say we build a bridge in four years instead of two, or six years instead of four, with funds from the next funding cycle. Maybe we could actually reach consensus on a proper bridge without creating a civil war of words born from hasty bureaucrats and elected-officials. But to listen to the bridge lemmings, a catastrophe would ensue if we don't fast break with the basketball instead of setting up the offense.

Admittedly, there is the chance for debate on whether we choose a deck-truss design, like the much despised Marquam Bridge over the Willamette near downtown, or a cable-stayed design like most all of the region's design experts favor. (Let that sink in for a moment: all the bureaucrats and concrete layers want to rush. All the design experts want to wait. Whom is the greater expert?) Truly good or great design is in the execution within a set of parameters. Even if a cable stayed bridge is the better type here, hiring a truly masterful designer could make a composite deck-truss bridge work well and look beautiful.

If the governors and concrete layers actually went out and hired a master like Renzo Piano, or even Miguel Rosales or Sarah Graham, it would be easier to get behind that bridge type. But one can't imagine trusting the leaders of this process to actually make such a smart, thoughtful move. Everything Ted Kulongoski, Christine Gregoire and John Kitzhaber have indicated so far, and especially everything coming from their transportation bureaus, indicates that they are unwilling to acknowledge what most people see plain as day: that ugly won't do any more than an non-functional bridge would.

The business community (at least as represented by the Portland Business Alliance and the Business Journal points of view) is advocating for a deck-truss bridge as an economic decision under the notion that aesthetic concerns are frivolous folly. Aesthetics are not just empty values that we can discard when the purse strings get tight. Aesthetics has a major and lasting affect on economic viability. The Marquam Bridge's faulty design has hindered economic development on the Willamette for a generation. It's not just that it's ugly. It's that the ugliness is a hindrance that affects far more than personal taste.

As our elected officials and money people try and intimidate the people of Oregon and Washington into haphazardly laying down concrete over the river where Lewis and Clark floated toward the Pacific, and beneath the shadow of Mt. Hood, we must also consider the influence of the freight industry. Drive on Interstate 5 or any other freeway today and your sedan is likely to be surrounded by 18-wheeler truck traffic. Obviously goods and services have to be moved for the economy to function, but a huge portion of this freight could be move on our woefully inadequate rail system. If we really want to spend billions of taxpayer dollars on transportation, we could lay down separate rail tracks for freight and high-speed passenger rail. That would do as much or more to alleviate I-5 congestion as a bridge over troubled local waters.

It's disappointing when one is a believer in public works projects as a viable economic vehicle yet becomes turned off by the process and the product. If we committed to design excellence in the first place, the region would have already saved hundreds of millions of dollars and would be ending up with a bridge - regardless of whether it's a deck truss or cable stayed - that connects us in ways beyond just concrete, cars and bicycles.

 

Comments

[Justin Wells]

One - we don't actually need a new bridge. According to ODOT, Oregonians are driving less than ever - both per capita and gross miles.

http://daily.sightline.org/daily_score/archive/2011/03/01/whered-the-traffic-go

Two - ODOT is planning on spending between $100 - $340 million to add 1 more lane through the Rose Quarter interchange, a distance of maybe 4 blocks.

http://bikeportland.org/2010/12/14/odot-eyes-major-changes-to-i-5-near-rose-quarter-44469

[Nixzusehen]

Amen. I work right near the marquam bridge, and it's a depressing thing to see. It reminds me of everything we did wrong in this country in the freeway binge era. If I had my one transport oriented dream for the metro area it would be to tear that monstrosity down and tunnel I-5 under the river...

[Jim Heuer]

Brian, you're comments are right on.

Indeed it isn't just a small band of design fanatics who oppose the bridge as currently conceived. Add in a substantial business contingent, the Northeast Coalition of Neighbors, representing the tens of thousands of residents along Portland's I-5 corridor affected by the project, and some of the region's smartest politicians. One has to wonder under what rock the Portland Business Journal has been hiding.

There are so many things wrong with this CRC project it's hard to know where to start. But one thing is clear... the proponents of the bridge are attacking the advocates of a more attractive structure as a smoke-screen for the real issues. They can claim that the cable-stay proponents are frittering away money to make a $340 million bridge more expensive. By making that argument they isolate that one part of the CRC project to make it sound like a relatively modest amount of money, NOT the $3-5 BILLION that the entire project will actually cost (in the lowest of the estimates currently floating around). In the context of the larger project, the bridge itself represents about 10% or less of the total cost and the incremental cost of making it a grand design statement is around 1% or less of the total project! ("One percent for Art" anybody?)

There are certainly many infrastructure issues along the I-5 corridor in the Portland metro area:

• The lack of a light rail crossing over the Columbia


• The age and limited capacity of the rail bridge between Vancouver, WA, and Portland


• Poor freight access to I-5 from the NW Industrial District


• Lloyd District traffic congestion


• Absence of a non-freeway route across the river for local traffic


• And many more

Ask yourself just how many of these issues are addressed by the current plan, and you get a good sense how the current design is a triumph for the highway builders and contractors, and a disaster for the region.

[Dennis L]

Actually I for one have never minded the Marquam Bridge, the simple steel work of the double decker bridge is fine to look at, it is the monstrous interchange that awaits the bridge on the west side of the river that I don't care for, and the same thing can be said about the CRC. As a bridge, the steel truss bridge is fine, it is simple and provides clean lines connecting the two sides, it is going to be the massive off ramp system that is going to be the problem with this highway and make it seem more like a monster spanning the river.

I have never understood why Janzen Beach doesn't have a local access bridge to Portland rather than having just the interstate to use. Actually the city I grew up had one of these Janzen Beach situations within the city when the city was building a new bigger bridge to replace the old one, the city ended up leaving the smaller bridge to provide local access to the island and built a bigger bridge that bypassed the island which actually worked in for the locals because it didn't tear down their old bridge and it didn't build a giant interchange with the new one.

Granted this situation is a little bit different, I just think the amount of preprocess work has been an extreme version of a run around.

[Gregstergmo]

Brian, I have to agree that we should be solving the I-5 congestion problem should be looked at holistically and long term. I don't think the current economy can shoulder the cost at the moment, though. In all honesty, we shouldn't be bothering with the CRC now. Like you pointed out, it's not going to fall into the river anytime soon.

I appreciate the concern for design, but let's not forget that the CRC is a bridge that nobody sees or cares about the appearance of. Comparing the Columbia Crossing to the Marquam bridge is an errant comparison. Marquam is in view of downtown and the inner-east side - areas of large populations and public gathering spaces. CRC goes over a predominantly industrial stretch of a major shipping channel.

Those that would benefit from a snazzy design of the CRC likely don't care and certainly aren't going to bring jobs, commerce or trade to the area as a result. The bridge is a utility and should be treated as such. If we were talking about a Willamette River crossing in or near downtown, then we would be talking about something with great civic value for carefully considered and timeless design. But we're not. We're effectively debating whether or not to doll up a pair of supply and waste pipes.

You mentioned the bigger problem with I-5 near the Rose Quarter. I agree this is a bigger problem that should be getting the attention. My concern would be that there's no likely good, long-term fix for the mess at the I-5/I-84 interchange. It's a complete mess and there are far too many land owners, utilities, rails and roads that overlap and cross through that spot. It needs to be fixed, but that's not what we're discussing.