Starting the week of May 13th, crews will be collecting soil samples in Tom McCall Waterfront Park near the northern edge of the Burnside Bridge. Crews will drill a six-inch hole that goes down 200 feet to collect the soil samples. This work is part of the Earthquake Ready Burnside Bridge Project which is now in the Design Phase. It’s an important step before construction, to help engineers know what’s in the soil and how to best construct the safest and most structurally sound foundations.
This work will require the use of large trucks and drilling equipment and is expected to last a week. Crews will be doing this work on weekdays.
Multnomah County is leading an effort to replace the Burnside Bridge with a crossing that’s immediately usable after a Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake. If you’d like to schedule a time to meet project leaders, ask questions and get a better understanding of the project, email: burnsidebridge@multco.us. For project information, visit: https://burnsidebridge.org/.
Multnomah County maintains five Willamette River bridges: the Sellwood, Hawthorne, Morrison, Burnside and Broadway Bridges as well as the Wapato Bridge over the Multnomah Channel. For information, visit: https://www.multco.us/bridges.