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By Chris Regan
Environmental manager, Interstate Bridge Replacement program

For over a century, the Interstate Bridge between Oregon and Washington has been a vital travel and trade route for regional, national and international economies. With one span of the existing bridge now 107 years old, the current structures are vulnerable to earthquakes and no longer meet the needs of modern commerce and travel.

A pivotal milestone

In 2019, governors in both states directed the Oregon Department of Transportation and the Washington State Department of Transportation to launch the bi-state . The IBR program draws upon years of past work from a previous bi-state planning effort called the Columbia River Crossing that was suspended a decade ago. Since 2019, the program has been building on past work to identify what has changed since previous planning efforts. The urgency to replace the aging twin spans of the Interstate Bridge has only grown, and now, we approach a pivotal milestone with the upcoming publication of the Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS).

The Draft SEIS will analyze the potential benefits and impacts of completing the program in three key areas: transportation (river, road and air navigation), community (including cultural resources and neighborhoods) and environment (such as climate impacts, ecosystems and water quality). This document does not identify final design of program elements; rather, it examines the proposed IBR multimodal investments plus design options such as bridge configurations, the alignment of and connections to I-5 through downtown Vancouver, potential park and ride facility locations and auxiliary lanes.

The Draft SEIS addresses the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act. NEPA was created to encourage community members to be a part of a federal agency’s decision-making. It is designed to: 1) ensure that the agencies involved in the project consider potential environmental impacts, 2) keep the public informed about key decisions being made and, 3) analyze the impacts and benefits of moving forward with an approach IBR is referring to as the 鈥渓ocally preferred alternative鈥� vs. doing nothing and making no program investments.

We want to hear from you

The Draft SEIS includes a 60-day public comment period that begins once it is published in the Federal Register in late September. It will be the most comprehensive opportunity for the public to review and provide comments on details about the IBR program, and we will be working to notify the public in many different ways once the public comment period begins.

There will be many topics in which you can provide your input (such as, 鈥淚 prefer the shared use path next to the light rail line since it is separated from high-speed traffic鈥�). If we’ve overlooked an important area of concern, we want to hear about it so that information can be included in the decision-making process.

听Including all voices

For the past several years, we have been collaborating with local, state and federal partners to align the program with regional priorities. We have hosted freight forums and are working alongside the Portland and Vancouver ports to ensure the needs of regional commerce are appropriately addressed in our program. Our community engagement efforts are specifically designed to capture a broad range of perspectives and priorities.

We are committed to minimizing barriers and ensuring the Draft SEIS is easily accessible to community members. This includes ADA-compliant documents, an online document search function, the executive summary translated into eight languages,听ASL interpretation and more. Our goal is to ensure that everyone, including equity priority community members, can contribute their input. This approach is vital to ensuring that the program’s outcomes reflect the priorities of the communities on both sides of the Columbia River.

When the public comment period is complete, the input we receive will be used to update the technical analysis, refine design options and inform future design work. These outcomes will be documented in the Final SEIS and Federal Record of Decision, which provides approval to move to construction, that are anticipated in mid to late 2025.

How to provide your feedback

The IBR program will host in-person and virtual public hearings in Portland and Vancouver, along with other community engagement activities during the 60-day comment period (all of which will be listed on our page). While you can comment at the public hearings, there are additional ways to participate. Once the comment period opens in late September, you can complete a , email to [email protected], leave a voicemail at 888-503-6735, or send a letter to Interstate Bridge Replacement, 500 Broadway, Suite 200, Vancouver WA 98660. Language interpretation and ASL services can also be made available upon request. It is important to note that for a comment to be included as part of the formal record, it must be submitted in one of the official ways and cannot be accepted until the 60-day comment period begins.

Comments provided should be constructive and specific. Generally speaking, this means offering suggestions on what the program could do better, or what it should not do, and why. They should be as clear, concise and specific as possible (for instance, 鈥淭he bridge designers should consider including鈥︹�� instead of 听鈥淚 don’t think we should build a bridge鈥︹��). Comments that are solution-oriented and which provide suggestions and examples will be more effective than those that simply provide an opinion without identifying information from the document that informed the feedback.

听Join the process

In our work to ensure that the community understands how to make their voice heard, we are providing opportunities to learn more about what to expect in this document to help ensure people are prepared to participate.

To learn more about the upcoming public comment process and how community input can impact program outcomes, please join us for our next equity roundtable, 鈥�,鈥� on Tuesday, Sept. 10, from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. The event will be live-streamed and available for replay on our YouTube, LinkedIn and Facebook platforms.

Chris Regan is the environmental manager for the Interstate Bridge Replacement Program. Contact him at 503-897-9218 (Oregon), 360-859-0494 (Washington) or [email protected].