Update on Center Street Bridge Seismic

On the front page today is an important update on the Center Street Bridge seismic project. It's behind and running over budget. Readers here will already know most of the information.

Front page today

There's been a steady drip of delay and overrun especially at MWACT.

SRC Geological Addendum, Sept. 2016
(inset detail added)

But two points deserve more emphasis.

• ODOT failed "to conduct a geotechnical analysis before the cost was estimated." But the unstable soils were known during the whole SRC process. The same failure on the Center Street Bridge would also have affected the SRC and raised its costs. ODOT's ploy, not some inadvertent failure, is to look away from complications early in projects so they can lowball the public with underestimates.
  
• ODOT has a very large funding gap and shifting funds to the contested I-5 Rose Quarter (over)widening means taking funds for "smaller" project like this. The Portland widening mania means less funding for life-critical seismic, preservation, and smaller road safety work. ODOT could right-size the Rose Quarter and Interstate Bridge replacement projects and have more money for seismic work and other safety projects. At last week's Oregon Transportation Commission meeting they discussed a suite of cancellations, which will have a cascading effect.
  

Finding funding for I-5 Rose Quarter overrun (Dec. OTC)

ODOT's own decision making and priorities led us to this, and it's not just some unfortunate accident of fate.

See previous notes on the Center Street Bridge retrofit here.