January 2008
The Southwest Portland Post. • 5
NEwS
Sellwood Bridge type deemed less important than location, width
By Lee Perlman
The Southwest Portland Post
The Sellwood Bridge Community
Task Force completed its work, at least
temporarily, last month. Having made
their recommendations as to “bridge
type” for a proposed new Sellwood
Bridge, outreach coordinator Elaine
Cogan said, the group would cease to
meet while project staff analyzed and
developed the options selected for
further study.
These include refurbishing of the
existing span, building a new bridge
in the same location, or building a new
bridge that would swing to the north,
avoiding some housing developments
in Sellwood and accessing the west
side at the location of Staff Jennings
marina.
One option also calls for a sepa-
rate, smaller bridge exclusively for
bicycles and pedestrians. The Task
Force would begin meeting again in
the spring to review this work.
As its last task, the group recom-
mended “bridge types” that could
be used with each of the proposed
options.
A week later the Project Advisory
Committee, composed of representa-
tives of participating jurisdictions,
recommended box girder and delta
frame designs as “moderate cost”
options, deck arch and through arch
for higher cost, and cable stayed and
stress ribbon for the bicyclist and pe-
destrian bridge.
Multnomah County public affairs
coordinator Mike Pullen reported that
the subject had been aired at a public
open house in November, and in an
e-mail survey. The strongest vote get-
ter was the through arch design, with
a deck arch second. For the bike-ped
bridge, “a suspension type was by
far the first preference,” Pullen said.
However, he added, “It was by far the
lowest turnout of our open houses.”
There were 69 people in attendance,
80 percent of them from Sellwood, as
opposed to 230 at an earlier session
at Sellwood School. “Even those who
came indicated they weren’t particu-
larly interested in bridge type,” Pullen
said. “I think we engaged people so
much on where the bridge should go,
and how wide it should be, that they’re
focused on that.”
More than 1,000 people took the
e-mail survey, where they favored a
The old Sellwood Bridge as seen from the
east bank of the Willamette River in June,
2007. (Post file photo by Don Snedecor)
delta frame design. Even here, how-
ever, they indicated that the bridge’s
durability and other issues were more
important than its design.
Many of the Task Force members
had a similar view. Barbara Barber
later told The Post, “I’d like to see a
pretty bridge here; who wouldn’t. But
it’s a luxury issue.”
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