U.S. Coast Guard approval of a fixed-span design for a new Interstate Bridge marked a key regulatory step forward last week, but soaring costs have clouded the project’s outlook.

Cost estimates for the Interstate Bridge replacement program have more than doubled, with a high-end estimate for a fixed span rising to $17.7 billion, according to recently unearthed Oregon Department of Transportation documents.

The documents were obtained by City Observatory, a Portland-based think tank, through a public records request. ODOT hadn’t publicly updated its cost estimates since 2022, when it gauged the bridge’s cost at $5 billion to $7.5 billion.

“I was shocked,” said Joe Cortright, a Portland economist who runs City Observatory.

Cortright added that he expected the project’s cost to rise to $9 billion to $10 billion, far below the actual estimates, which range from $12.2 billion to $17.7 billion. The rise in estimated costs far outpaces overall inflation and construction cost indexes, he noted.

ODOT pushed back, saying the cost figures do not represent a complete cost estimate, which involves an in-depth examination of the costs of labor and equipment materials as well as the schedule.

“The IBR program has been clear with its partners and the public that the cost of the IBR program is going to increase, but since the cost estimating process remains under way, we do not have a final number to share at this time,” IBR program administrator Carley Francis stated in an email on Wednesday.

An official cost estimate is expected in March, according to ODOT.

Infrastructure projects across the nation “are currently experiencing significant price increases,” Francis stated. “We do not expect the IBR program to be immune to the cost increases we are seeing around the country.”

It’s unclear where leaders in Oregon and Washington will get all the funding needed to construct the bridge. In all, the program has more than $5 billion in identified funding, Francis stated.

The states have pledged $1 billion each, in addition to $217 million in existing state funding. Federal grants and toll revenues are also expected to help foot the bill.

“Ultimately, it’ll continue to be a mix of contributions from different levels of government,” said Mike Salsgiver, executive director of Associated General Contractors’ Oregon-Columbia chapter.

Ongoing state and federal sources will need to be tapped for the project, he said.

“With a project of this length, it will be an annual revisiting of federal appropriations and each legislature,” he said.

Salsgiver and other transportation advocates will visit Oregon’s congressional delegation in Washington, D.C., in April to push for continued funding.

“The region will have to continue to make sure those funding streams are open and able to get this project complete,” Salsgiver said.

Cortright cast doubt on federal willingness to pay for the project.

“Right now, the congressional Republicans and the Trump administration — they’re not really favorably inclined toward transit projects generally, and particularly not those in blue states and cities,” he said.

Project backers were buoyed by the Coast Guard’s determination that a fixed span with 116 feet of vertical clearance will provide adequate room for boats to pass underneath. A movable span would have been even more expensive, according to estimates.

“They’re portraying it as a big step forward,” Cortright said. “They dodged a bullet.”

ODOT recently told transportation commissioners that the project is marching ahead.

The IBR program team “will continue working to ensure a successful transition from environmental and planning to delivery and construction,” ODOT interim Director Lisa Sumption wrote in a Jan. 15 letter to the Oregon Transportation Commission ahead of a meeting on Jan. 22. “This includes coordinating with partners to update the construction sequencing and funding strategy to advance the first set of investments towards delivering the full program.”

Tools to address costs could include value engineering, seeking additional federal, state and local funding, and construction phasing. That would mean “building portions of the investments that have adequate funding and working to secure funding for remaining investments in the future,” Sumption wrote.

Cortright has been critical of ODOT for what he describes as a pattern of beginning work on projects that have not been fully funded.

“They basically turn the sunk-cost fallacy into a management strategy,” Cortright said. “They want to create the sense that hey, we’ve started this and we need to finish it.”

2026 is likely to prove a decisive year for the project. Looming ahead is a Sept. 30 deadline to obligate a significant portion of grant funds from the Federal Highway Administration bridge investment program.

Project officials also expect to complete a final supplemental environmental impact statement this year. That will be followed by an amended record of decision that will include an updated cost estimate and financial plan.

IBR program officials are conducting a tolling study for those documents. The study will examine how much tolls will cost, and how much revenue they will raise.

Both project supporters and opponents point to tolling as a potential political vulnerability. Opposition to tolling has been intense, causing Gov. Tina Kotek and legislators to backtrack from a portion of the 2017 transportation funding bill that called for tolling on interstates 5 and 205.

Drivers are unlikely to look kindly on paying tolls for a new Interstate Bridge, either.

“Tolling is a broader challenge,” Salsgiver said.

ODOT’s toll scenarios range from $1.55 per crossing before the bridge is completed to $4.70 post completion, with some offsets for lower-income drivers.

The bridge has been tolled before. Salsgiver recalled as a child that he would throw a quarter into a toll box to cross the existing Interstate Bridge; its second span was completed in 1958.

Today’s drivers have become unaccustomed to paying tolls, Salsgiver said.

“It’s unfortunate,” he said. Removing tolls “taught a generation of Oregonians — and more — that we don’t do tolling here.”

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