Interstate-5 bridge replacement plan draws questions on light rail, tolls and local costs

Frank Green of the Interstate Bridge Replacement team and a colleague described the program to the La Center City Council on Wednesday, outlining a multimodal plan that would replace aging I‑5 spans, add active‑transportation facilities and extend light rail into Vancouver.

The presentation said the program targets work across about five miles of the I‑5 corridor, includes a proposed 1.9‑mile extension of Portland’s MAX light rail with three new stations, and would be delivered as many contracts rather than a single job. Frank Green, introduced as an assistant program administrator on the IVR team, said the program is advancing environmental review and design work and that officials are “targeting an ‘in‑water’ construction window in 2027.”

Why it matters: the project would change regional transit and freight access, rely heavily on federal grants already awarded, and — if light rail remains part of the locally preferred alternative — create long‑term operations and maintenance (O&M) obligations that local agencies may need to fund. Those funding decisions could affect local taxes, tolling patterns and transit service.

Program staff showed recent funding awards and targets. The presenters said roughly $5.5 billion in federal and state commitments has been identified so far and that officials were pursuing roughly another $1 billion. Green told the council two large federal awards shown on slides include approximately $600 million and $1.5 billion; staff said a federal Capital Investment Grant (CIG) is the vehicle planned to cover a large portion of the transit capital cost. Green said the light‑rail portion’s cost range is roughly $1.3 billion to about $2.0 billion, with estimates around $1.8 billion used for planning.

Council members and residents used the presentation to press staff on two central issues: how the public opinion work was done and who would pay O&M. Green said an opinion poll of about 1,000 people produced support numbers the team reported for Portland, Vancouver and Clark County, and he acknowledged the pollor’s methodology could be clarified. “The statistical information is on our website,” Green told the council when asked for polling details, and said the team would provide the sampling breakdown on request.

On O&M, the IVR team described tolling and other funding options under consideration. Green quoted draft toll ranges included in the Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement: “The toll rates that we’ve studied right now in our draft supplemental EIS… are between a dollar fifty and $3.50,” charged in both directions, with higher rates at peak times and lower rates off‑peak. He said state law constrains toll revenue use and that toll revenue is intended primarily to support construction financing and the long‑term operation and maintenance of the tolled facility.

Council members said they were concerned La Center residents could face new taxes or share O&M burdens for a project whose transit benefits they said would be concentrated in Vancouver and Portland. One councilor noted South‑Clark County residents had rejected rail plans in prior votes and asked whether tolls and an expanded sales tax were still on the table; Green said multiple funding sources remain under discussion and that some partners had expressed interest in keeping a full set of funding options available for study.

Security and ridership were also discussed. Staff said light‑rail ridership fell after the pandemic and is recovering slowly; Paige Schlup, listed as a colleague on the IVR team, said operations and maintenance planning will affect vehicle and bus service frequency. Councilors asked how stations would be secured; Green and Schlup said security approaches would be developed with transit operators and local police and that TriMet and C‑TRAN use combinations of transit security personnel and police in other service areas.

Several residents and council members asked about alternatives — wider bridge-only designs or different lane counts — and whether changes to the locally preferred alternative would risk existing grant commitments. Green said the benefit‑cost analyses used in federal grant applications included the multimodal package, and that major changes could affect funding and schedule. He also said some grants have timing constraints and that delays could increase program costs.

The council asked the city to host a community poll, and the mayor said the city would add a public survey to its website so residents could give the council direction ahead of a C‑TRAN board decision in March. Green and Schlup offered to return to present additional elements if the council asked.

Ending: Councilors said they want the city poll results to guide the council’s public position and asked staff to forward the IVR team’s polling methodology and the federal grant conditions cited in the presentation.