Sauvie Island Bridge move scuttled

The Sauvie Island Bridge has a date with the scrap yard.

In a Wednesday morning press conference punctuated with attacks against Mayor Tom Potter, Portland City Commissioner Sam Adams said a $2.8 million loss of gas taxes scrapped his plan to move the bridge to Northwest Portland.

The shortfall has been caused by consumers buying less gas as a result of rising fuel prices.

Content Continues Below

"I'm not confident that we can be doing the project for the $5.5 million," Adams said. "That project will not be moving forward."

Adams said the Sauvie Island Bridge is "dead and buried and it will be scrapped."

Adams, though, did not rule out the building of a bridge over I-405 at Northwest Flanders Street in the future, adding a bridge proposal is still part of the Burnside-Couch Couplet plan.

Adams said he will ask the City Council to transfer $500,000 budgeted for the Sauvie Island Bridge proposal to the future bridge project.

Calling the Flanders Street and Interstate 405 area "the most dangerous corridor in the city," with 210 accidents and 14 deaths in the last 9 years, Adams took issue with published comments from Potter that the area was safe.

Adams said the city had been anticipating a $700,00 to $800,000 gas tax shortfall and did not learn until recently the shortfall would be $2 million more.

In addition to abandoning the Sauvie Island Bridge plan, Adams said the Portland Office of Transportation in the next 30 days will review all transportation projects for possible cuts.

The 30-day review also would have forced the contractor on the Sauvie Island Bridge replacement project to delay work, which Adams said he did not want to happen.

Adams planned to ask the City Council on Wednesday to create a "rainy day" fund for the transportation department, saying "it is raining now."