Metro’s Plan for Burnside Bridge “Road Diet”

July 31 Metro bond vote would cut eastbound auto capacity in half. 

By Connor Roberts

The new “Earthquake Ready Burnside Bridge” lane designs, backed with funding by the Metro Council, are intended to force Portlanders out of their cars. Metro will be meeting on July 31st to vote on and pass the Step 1A.1 Regional Flexible Funds Allocation bond, which includes the Burnside Bridge among other “road diet” projects.

The current Burnside Bridge serves approximately 58,000 people daily, more than 45,000 of which are car passengers. The current bridge features five lanes of travel, comprising two westbound lanes, two eastbound lanes, and an eastbound bus-only lane. In the design for the new bridge, they plan to remove an eastbound car lane. This reduces a five-lane bridge with four lanes for cars, with a four-lane bridge with three lanes for cars.

While Metro’s stated goal is to promote “multimodal transportation,” they plan to achieve it at the expense of nearly four out of every five people using the bridge. If 100 people were crossing the bridge, 78 would be stuck in a bottleneck after a long day of work. Another 12 people would ride the bus, 7 would bike, and 3 would walk. Why should 78 people have to sit in traffic so that 12 people can get ahead on a bus?

Metro should reject funding for the Earthquake Ready Burnside Bridge until the lanes have been redrawn, and designs changed to make room for four out of every five bridge users.

Connor Roberts is a Research Associate at Cascade Policy Institute, Oregon’s free market, public policy, research organization.

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