Interstate Bridge

Vancouver, WA: Landmark.
Driving upon I-​5 between Seattle and Portland, I must have crossed this green bridge dozens of times. It was my landmark, crossing over the Columbua River, between Washington and Oregon. I can’t remember ever having to stop because the bridge lift was in the «raised» position. I just read that it is actually two bridges. The northbound bridge was completed in 1917 and the southbound side was finished in 1958. It was always a welcome sight in either direction I was headed, as it meant that I was making progress towards my destination.
Thank you, Don B. of Portland, OR, for your informative «first to review» post.

Commute times – 1 star; weekends — -4 stars: viewed from a kayak – 5 stars
You may be unsightly, but you are functional and iconic. You inspire me to commute via bike. I needed the nudge.

In case you are like us and wonder if there is a toll for this bridge (seeing how the traffic was backed-​up until the border when we crossed over); I’m happy to report there is no toll.
That seems proper for an Interstate Hwy.

Pretty useful bridge if you ask me! Not sure why drivers seem to insist on slowing to below 50 mph when driving over it, but that’s not the bridge’s fault.
Did you know the original bridge (northbound) was built in 1917 and that currently the bridge welcomes over 130,000 vehicles on a daily basis?! I’m sure that number is not a shock to anyone who commutes over the bridge daily. #wastingmylifeawayintraffic
At least the view from the bridge in nice. Plus, there are helpful signs letting you know when you’ve crossed into the other state.

The Interstate Bridge separates the states of Oregon and Washington by crossing over the Columbia River. It spans from Portland on the Oregon side to Vancouver on the Washington side.
The bridge nears lots of the important entryways into Portland and Vancouver. That includes the area around the Rose Quarter which will be a gateway into much of the major roads in Portland and in Washington there are exits into Camas, which is good. It has lots of beautiful scenery approaching the Washington side and an urban feel in entering Portland, reflecting how Washington does not get all that urban until you reach Olympia.
In Vancouver, it’s mostly near office buildings while in Portland, it’s near lots of shopping such as Jantzen Beach.
Seattle here we go! Vancouver in British Columbia, Canada, here we go! Five hours north of this bridge is the country of Canada and two hours north is Seattle.
Traffic is often way too much and the bridge is the center of a much due controversy over whether or not to replace it as there are questions over it’s viability.
The Interstate Bridge lets people get from state to state and that’s what makes it worthwhile.

Hmm. what to say about a bridge?
This particular bridge connects Portland, OR to Vancouver, WA. This is how we cross state lines here, and this particular bridge I cross twice a day, sometimes more. Living in WA and going to school in OR can be a pain.
I haven’t ever been on this bridge during a traffic jam, or when the bridge is lifting, although neither sound like a good time. I also wish that the exit for Camas was just a little bit more past the bridge, sometimes it’s difficult to get over.

I like this bridge because of its sentimental value, however during rush hour it is severely inefficient. Oregon and Washington NEED to get along and finally update this transit.

It works!

Yes, we do need a new bridge in place of this senior citizen of a bridge over the Columbia River, but I think I’ll be a real live senior citizen before that happens.
Even though I have a few years to go yet before I’m considered a senior citizen, the Interstate Bridge looms large in my memory. It just awed me at a very young age that it went over the mighty Columbia and was the pathway to another state. I also remember it was a toll bridge for awhile in the early 1960s. My dad always let my brother and I take turns tossing in a quarter every time we went back and forth over the river. A quarter. That amount makes me feel a little older I have to say. What’s kind of cool is that they stopped accepting tolls once whatever debt the bridge had accrued was paid off. I sure don’t see that happening in the future. Once they build a new bridge, we will be paying with tolls forever for its use.
What is the weirdest for me is this bridge doesn’t scare me as much as most bridges. It seems a little lower slung to me and closer to the water, even though it’s considered decrepit by many. I remember riding in the back seat of the car as a child and falling asleep because of the hypnotic effect the way the lights on the bridge played off the steel and made a slow, repetitive reflection. It was oddly comforting and meant that we were getting closer and closer to home, especially when I read the «Welcome to Oregon» sign overhead.
I do hope we get a new bridge sooner than not for everybody’s sake, but in the meantime I enjoy the memories of our Interstate Bridge. She’s done a better job of lasting it out than most thought she would.

Interstate Bridge (¹⁹¹⁷⁄₁₉₅₈)
Pretty cool looking steel work. Two lanes each way but this is the mother of all slow traffic in our area depending on rush hour direction. AM. would be leaving Vancouver WA. & PM. Entering Vancouver WA. The good news is with the massive amount of time you spend in traffic, you’ll have plenty of time to enjoy the beautiful steel work that is the Interstate Bridge. They keep talking about making this a toll bridge but we keep getting outraged and that’s about as far as it goes. I can only imagine the traffic jam a toll booth would take on the masses.

I would love to give this notable landmark a higher rating, but I simply cannot. The traffic during the daylight hours and in winter even longer is horrendous! It gave me flashbacks of LA/​Orange County traffic and that’s part of the reason I come to this area to escape! I swear there is no such thing as rush «hour» as the stopped or snail paced slow traffic lasts for hours on end!
This bridge that connects both Oregon and Washington is crazy dated. I mean the original span (Northbound) accross the Columbia River taking the 5 Freeway from Oregon to Washington was opened in 1917 so it’s almost 100 years old Party Peeps and the other span is not a whole lot better (Southbound) opening in 1958. I do have to give Civil Engineers props though for not waiting too long to transform this important conduit from one lane to three… that still does not keep me from fear though… fear that at any time this 3500 foot long mass can fall apart! I put my trust in these engineers every time I cross this bad boy.
When traveling South on the 5 Freeway this large green structure serves as a most glorious landmark that I am almost to the land of no sales tax and awesome restaurants or conversely when heading home that I am almost home. Boat traffic on the Columbia is much less than one would think and fortunately due to the horrible traffic as it is this drawbridge does not have to raise nearly as often as I’m sure others do!
Most days up here prove gloomy, but when the days are nice this bridge proves nice for photos!

I long for an alternate crossing around this area between Oregon and Washington. The interstate bridge, aside from being in the wrong location in Unilocal’s database, is simply awful. I believe, and please recognize that this is speculative on my part, that a malicious supernatural force influenced the city planners who called this one in. This bridge is somehow capable of bringing ANY sort of substantial traffic to a screeching hault. If you want to travel into Portland, I suggest doing so at 2am or earlier.
If you arrive in Portland and want to return to WA, I’m sorry to tell you that it’s never going to happen. You will be forced to sit in your car, JUST passed the Jantzen Beach exit, staring at the Hooters restaurant billboard, awaiting the zombe apocalypse. And yes, it will happen. Everybody knows that a deadlocked freeway is a death trap when everyone else starts to turn. All it takes is one asshole in the front of the line to get out of the car to «see what’s going on» and everybody behind him is completely screwed.
I’m not sure what my point was in this review other than to say that the bridge itself is only slightly more enjoyable than being eaten alive by humanoid monsters.

Washington commuters invariably want more lanes added to this rapidly aging and deteriorating eye-​sore and more importantly, they want someone else to pay for it. Even with a bunch of squinting and magical thinking it shouldn’t require mystical incantations to figure out what they really want: they want you and I, fellow Oregonians, to foot the bill. That might be a bit more of a tolerable thought, dear-​hearts, were it not for the readily observable fact that any given time of day, it is mainly vehicles w/​WA plates clogging up traffic on this bridge, as well as on 205.
Oh, they could have had more lanes, maybe even another bridge or two by now. But they’ve faithfully shot down every ballot measure since Glenn Jackson to scrape together the dough to do so.
What makes the I5 bridge especially pernicious is that, whenever you are on a tight time schedule, you can be very sure that the draw bridge is coming UP, delaying you for another good half an hour or so. Set your watch to it, ‘cos it’s comin’ up! Too bad if you were just going to Jantzen Beach, you’re gettin’ stuck in it along w/​all our lovely tax-​dodging neighbors up north.
(Pertinent aside: since Washington voters are pretty reliably Democrat-​leaning, as are Oregonians in the I5 corridor, you’d think they’d jump at any opportunity to raise taxes… isn’t that their solution to everything? Raise taxes? Oh wait, I’m forgetting myself: by definition, and sweeping generalization, these are folks known for wanting the public services, but moreover, more to the point, insisting that someone else foot the bill for them. Not unlike how a precocious adolescent would reason. Case in point. Res ipsa loquitor.)

I used to think these bridges didn’t need replacement. Today I biked over the northbound bike/​pedestrian corridor. It is extremely narrow, at about half or a third of the size of the one on the Broadway or Hawthorne bridge. I managed to survive it, but if a pedestrian was ever in the way of a bicycle, things could get really dangerous really fast.
There are some very narrow pieces at the draw span where I almost «ate pavement» but slipped through.
The best part today was seeing myself going as fast or faster than the cars in the right lane. I’m not sure why there is always such a bottleneck here, but there is.
In case you were wondering, the original 1917 one is the span going north. The span coming south is the 1960s era duplicate. In case, y’know, you’re ever trapped on them in an earthquake or something.

I’ve crossed this bridge so many times. As a former Vancouverite it was my portal to fun and the big city. I commuted by from Portland to Vancouver a few years, going over it everyday. I would look east in the mornings, watching the sun rise over Mt. Hood. In the evenings I would look west at the railroad bridge and the now vacant hotel. Biking over it is no fun with a narrow path that is shared by walkers and can collectors making to make some money in Oregon. Walking over is loud and hectic but can be enjoyable. I was going to originally give it three stars but with all the memories conjured from writing about it the bridge gets that extra star. Also it’s nicer looking than the monstrosity of the 205 bridge and it’s the only draw bridge on all of I-​5.

Oh the Interstate Bridge. The bane of existence for many a Vancouver-​dwelling commuter. A structure that, while serving it’s purpose of getting cars across the mighty Columbia from Oregon to Washington and vice-​versa, is at the same time a maddening bottleneck and, in at least my opinion, an eyesore.
This bridge has been the most perpetual landmarks in my life. A nomad of the Northwest, I have been traveling up and down the I-​5 corridor ever since I was a baby, and of all the things on our many trips up and down the west coast, we always would see the towers of the big dirty green monster pop up on the horizon and we knew we were making progress toward our goal regardless of which direction we were headed.
Now that I live in Portland, I have the distinct pleasure of crossing this bridge more and more often, and each time I do, I marvel at both the engineering prowess that created this huge, long-​lasting span, and at the same time, I wonder when they’re going to replace it with something bigger, wider, better, more functional, and hopefully much more æsthetically pleasing. With federal stimulus money coming down the pipe and plans in the works, it will probably be sooner than later.
The impending demise of this big green bastard will be a little bittersweet for me. While I do look forward to something more versatile and less bottleneck going in, some little part of me will miss this… thing.
A couple of commutes across the bridge at rush hour will probably solve that though.
So how do you rate a bridge? 1 star for the looks, 2 stars for the functionality, 5 for the memories. In my fuzzy math, that works out to a 3.