The
Interstate Bridge, as its
bland official name goes, is in
reality two
parallel bridges. The eastern of the two was constructed originally in
1917. In face of increasing
traffic, the second was added in
1958. Each of the two
bridges has three
lanes, and the structures also have a
sidewalk for
pedestrians and
cyclists to cross the bridge on.
The bridges are becoming inadequate to carry the large traffic load of commuters going between the bedroom community of Vancouver, WA and jobs in Portland, OR and Washington County. While the possibility of adding a third bridge has been proposed, this is not a very practical idea as their is not a corresponding freeway infrastructure on the Portland side for the bridge to connect into. It has been hoped that MAX light rail would be expanded and extended across the Columbia to Vancouver, but in the past funding has failed to be approved by voters. However, I suspect that such a connection will be in place before 2010.