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The first major interstate freeway construction project in Oregon in nearly 45 years is under way.

The Oregon Department of Transportation kicked off the I-205 Improvements Project on Friday with community leaders, politicians and project team members in attendance. The plan is to increase safety, reduce congestion, replace five bridges, and seismically upgrade four others 鈥� starting with the Abernethy Bridge, which links Oregon City and West Linn over the Willamette River.

鈥淔or decades, the freeway network in the Portland metropolitan area has largely remained frozen in time, even as our population, and congestion, have steadily grown,鈥� stated Kris Strickler, director of ODOT. 鈥淲ith the support of the Legislature and the local community, this project will reduce congestion and make the Abernethy Bridge a lifeline route in the event of a Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake.鈥�

A third travel lane will be added in each direction to the 2,700-foot-long bridge and its surface will be reinforced with steel. But first an engineering feat must be performed.

The project team, led by Kiewit Infrastructure West, in some areas will need to drill more than 200 feet into the earth to allow placement of new foundations 鈥� 12-foot-wide, reinforced steel and concrete columns.

鈥淪uffice it to say these are the biggest foundations that have been constructed anywhere in the Portland-metro area,鈥� said Della Mosier, deputy director of Urban Mobility Strategy, an ODOT division dedicated to travel safety in the metro area.

Underneath the bridge, the soils are mostly sand, silt and gravel, but in some areas 200 feet below there is a basalt bedrock layer. The challenge with the 鈥榮ilty stuff,鈥� Mosier said, is it could cave in. Instead of using three separate pieces of equipment to drill, excavate and place the foundations 鈥� which would require pulling equipment in and out and increase risk of a cave-in 鈥� the team is using only one: an oscillator.

This project鈥檚 oscillator, affectionately named 鈥淥scar,鈥� is being manufactured in Germany. It will be capable of not only drilling, but also excavating dirt and dropping in a foundation column all at once, Mosier said.

Oscar is expected to arrive via ship this fall at the Port of Portland. From there, the machine鈥檚 pieces will be transported by trucks and assembled on-site. It鈥檚 expected to become the largest oscillator in use in the United States.

Abernethy Bridge work is being performed in phase one of the I-205 Improvements Project, which has a six-year construction timeline. Interstate 205 will gain a third travel lane in each direction between Stafford Road and Oregon Route 99E as well as an auxiliary lane between OR 99E and OR 213.

The overall project is expected to cost approximately $500 million, .