New Burnside Bridge design to be decided in October

Burnside Bridge, which is nearly 100 years old, is set to undergo a five-year seismic rebuild, likely beginning in 2027. It’s a major travel route as the only bridge in Portland that touches all four quadrants of the city.

Multnomah County has put forth two potential designs: a tied arch bridge like the Fremont Bridge and a cable-stayed bridge like the Tilikum Crossing. Project managers asked for public input on the designs back in early July.

The survey was open for a month and gathered over 19,000 responses, with the majority of the public choosing a tied arch bridge. An article by architecture and design journalist Brian Libby explains that, according to lead project designer Keith Brownlie, the tied arch bridge is typically the most popular design amongst a general population of non-architects.

The Multnomah County Community Design Advisory Group, composed of local architects, designers and other experts, will provide a recommendation to the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners who are expected to vote on the final design in October. Libby joins us to share more about the design process.

Note: This transcript was computer generated and edited by a volunteer.

Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. Portland’s Burnside Bridge is nearly 100 years old. It is not likely to withstand an earthquake, so county leaders have been working on plans for a new bridge. The likely $900 million project is now in the final stages of the design selection process. Members of the public weighed in earlier this summer, and a community design advisory group will make its recommendation to the county commission soon.

Architecture and design journalist Brian Libby wrote about the design finalists for Oregon ArtsWatch recently, and he joins us now to talk about them. Brian, it’s good to have you back.

Brian Libby: Thanks for having me again.

Miller: We have had two new bridges in Portland in the last nine years, both of them not that far from where we’re sitting right now. There’s the replacement of the Sellwood Bridge, which didn’t get a ton of public attention design wise, and Tilikum Crossing, which did. Can you put the Burnside Bridge in context here? How is this project going to compare in terms of its impact on the city?

Libby: I think it’s a lot more impactful bridge. No offense to those other two. Those other two, in a way, are only nominally downtown. Even Tilikum Crossing is in South Waterfront, which may or may not be called downtown. And the Burnside is arguably the center of the city in a certain sense. Burnside Street is the only street that touches southwest, southeast, northwest and northeast. Keith Brownlie, the architect of the new bridge, called it the pivot point of the city. And that’s why it was identified by the county as the one bridge that they wanted to survive the Cascadia subduction zone earthquake, when they are making an educated guess that every other bridge would collapse if the earthquake was as bad as they predicted.

Miller: We’re going to talk about the differences in the designs that are under consideration in just a second. But to me, this process has been notable for just how similar these different designs are. So what do they all have in common?

Libby: Well, when I write about bridges, it’s kind of surprising to me that it comes down to these types. And I always think, “Can’t you be a little more creative than that? Do you really have to stay in these types?” Occasionally, there’s a hybrid of a couple of different kinds. The Brooklyn Bridge, for example, is like a cable-stayed and a suspension bridge. But usually, they’re just one of these types. I think even Keith Brownlie said in a lecture I watched that there are only about six types in existence.

Multnomah County is deciding on one of two types – either a cable-stayed bridge or an arched bridge. And we have at least one of both in the city. The arched bridge, I think everybody basically knows what that is like. The best example in Portland would be the Fremont Bridge carrying I-405 to I-5. And a cable-stayed bridge is like Tilikum Crossing. I would describe it maybe as kind of like two arms up in the air, like a football official signaling a touchdown, with some very thin cables tied to the deck from there.

Miller: That’s a helpful shorthand, more like the Fremont Bridge or more like Tilikum Crossing. But there’s a catch, because whether it is that arch or the cable-stayed, that really most noticeable design element is not really going to be over the river, it’s going to largely be over I-5. Why is that?

Libby: It’s a weird situation. It’s gonna appear asymmetrical whether we choose an arch bridge or a cable-stayed bridge. It has to do with the robustness of the bridge necessary for an earthquake, and it has to do with the fact that on the east side, the bridge has to go over Interstate 5 and train tracks. And so regardless of which of these two types we choose, it’s going to seem a little bit strange to the eye.

You think of the bridge’s main task as being over the river, but the raised portion of the bridge, be it an arch or these cable-stayed towers, will really appear to be mostly over Interstate 5. And so it’s going to be a little bit strange because it’s going to seem like the portion that goes over the river is like an extended flat ramp that leads to this bridge over Interstate Five. I think part of the decision making process about these two types is do you want to kind of apologize for that asymmetry? Or do you want to own it?

Miller: What does that mean in terms of the design choices? Apologizing for that or owning it? What do you mean?

Libby: Well, Keith Brownlie, the architect talked about this, that the arch would appear to extend a little bit further towards the river, into the river a little bit, and it’s these kind of stronger forms. Whereas, if we chose the cable-stayed tower, these two tower arms going up into the air would be more over the Interstate 5 and kind of appear to be at the east end of the Burnside Bridge. But the cable-stayed would own that asymmetry because it would create this more vertical tower presence at the east end, where the arch, in Keith Brownlie’s eyes and maybe to my eyes as well, would be going “well, we can stretch a little bit more.”

Miller: Oh, I see. So, in your mind, it’s a kind of design honesty that the arch extends a little bit into the water, making it pretend to be a bridge that’s over the water – with that design element over the water. And you’re saying with the cable-stayed, it’s not pretending, it is what it is, and it says “we are a part of the bridge that’s only over I-5.”

Libby: Put it this way, I’ve actually been to one bridge that this designer designed in Newcastle, Great Britain. And it was a beautiful arched bridge, and he even said it was the most unique bridge of his career. It’s this pedestrian bridge that has a beautiful arched form. And yet Keith is going “nah, I don’t really think we should do an arch bridge in Portland.” He’s definitely in favor of a cable-stayed bridge because he says bridges are about context. He pointed out that this bridge in Newcastle that I went to was responding to an iconic arch bridge that was already there. So he really favors a cable-stayed in this situation.

Miller: That was part of his design consideration, the bridges that were already there. There are a lot of bridges that are already here. How do you think about the future bridge’s existing neighbors when you think about what should replace the current bridge?

Libby: Well that’s a good question, because we’re this city of bridges downtown. We’ve got a big collection like you say. But the bridges that are most immediately adjacent to the Burnside Bridge would be the Steel Bridge to the north, with which Keith Brownlie went out of his way to say he loved. And then the Morrison Bridge to the south, which has some elegance but was built in the fifties and is a little bit more like a kind of flat highway bridge, to some degree.

The cable-stayed tower, that’s the other thing about it – it’s more of a vertical presence to the eye. I think it would be a bit of a nod to the Steel Bridge. I think maybe that’s also part of the designer’s thought process, he really was complimentary towards the Steel Bridge, which is this really kind of big heavy industrial presence. I think Keith Brownlie loved that. Even though the cable-stayed would be a lot more thin and elegant, the verticality of it would be kind of in some ways responding to the Steel Bridge.

Miller: The county, as I noted in my intro, did ask residents to weigh in on their thoughts and what had been a longer list at the time of design proposals. What stood out to you in what the public said?

Libby: When I interviewed Keith, he kind of said, “I could have saved him the trouble of doing that survey because the public always chooses an arch bridge.” There’s just something about the familiarity of it they like. And he technically was right in that the public did choose an arch bridge, but only about 55-45. And then there was a secondary vote. There are these six subtypes, we really have six choices not two. Either the cable-stayed or the arch, each one comes with three subtypes. And so when the public was asked to vote on these six subtypes, it was actually a cable-stayed bridge that won. I believe it was called the V Tower, like if you imagine arms going not straight up but kind of at these 45 degree angles.

Miller: So the particular bridge that got the most votes was the cable stayed, but the type that got the most votes was the arch type. Right now, the community design advisor group, they’ve narrowed their choices down to two cable stay options and one arch. They’re going to have their final meeting tomorrow. Have members of the group given any indication where they’re leaning?

Libby: I heard a lot of different opinions when I watched the meeting last time. But I think they’ve been trying to wrap their heads around what’s called the inverted Y cable stayed bridge, because that is specifically Keith Brownlie’s preference. He says it would be the most unique in Portland. And Keith Brownlie has also cautioned the advisor group and the public to not treat these renderings that they’re using as a guide as a gospel, that there can sometimes be a little bit of nuance. He thinks the rendering of the V tower would not be quite as appropriate.

I think the design advisory group was maybe favoring the V tower a little bit. But I think maybe they have been influenced by Keith Brownlie’s preference for the inverted Y tower, which visually I would compare to like the emoji for “thank you” or hands clasped in prayer. It’s at an angle on the lower portion of the bridge and then they meet in a single portion going straight up. That’s what the designer prefers. And think what I heard is that the advisory group is kind of working their way towards that, perhaps.

Miller: And then it’ll be up to the Multnomah County Commission, a group of elected officials who are in the thick of it with questions about homelessness, and fentanyl overdoses, and behavioral health, and emergency response, and a deflection center. There’s a lot that they’re doing in addition to this vote on a bridge design. Is it your assumption that they’ll just go with the recommendation from their advisory group?

Libby: Honestly? I don’t have the foggiest idea, Dave. It depends also maybe on cost. I think a couple of these cable stayed options are slightly more expensive. But somebody on the advisory group made an impassioned speech that it’s a negligible cost difference, and so we should pick the best bridge. If I were a member of the Multnomah County board, I would feel inclined to go with what the bridge designer thinks is best. Honestly, I almost wish we’d let the designer pick, but that’s not going to happen.

I hesitate to pick these things. It’s just like a Keller Auditorium, the decision coming up with City Council. I wish I could trust politicians to do the right thing.

Miller: You want artists and designers to make decisions, not bureaucrats?

Libby: Uh-huh, uh-huh.

Miller: But that’s not the world we live in, I guess. Brian it’s good to have you on today. Thanks.

Libby: Thank you.

Miller: Brian Libby is a freelance architecture and design journalist.

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