A group of elected and appointed policy makers from the region who oversee Multnomah County’s Earthquake Ready Burnside Bridge project will meet on June 21 from 2:30 – 4:30 pm in the Multnomah Building’s first floor boardroom at 501 SE Hawthorne Blvd. The meeting is open to the public and includes time for public comment.
The Policy Group is co-chaired by Multnomah County Chair Deborah Kafoury and Commissioner Jessica Vega Pederson. It makes recommendations to Multnomah County, which owns the bridge, and to the Federal Highway Administration, which must approve the final environmental study.
The agenda for the June 21 meeting includes:
- An update on project progress since a feasibility study was completed at the end of 2018
- Information about recent work by the project’s Community Task Force, including their development of preliminary Evaluation Criteria topics to compare bridge alternatives
- A recommendation by the Policy Group on which temporary bridge option to study
- A status update on the Alternatives Refinement process
Multnomah County will file a Notice of Intent to the Federal Highway Administration this fall to formally begin the project’s environmental phase. That phase will identify the preferred alternative, which is expected to be confirmed by the Federal Highway Administration in 2021. Design and construction will follow.
The purpose of the project is to create a seismically resilient Burnside Street lifeline crossing of the Willamette River that will remain fully operational and accessible for vehicles and other modes of transportation immediately following a major Cascadia Zone earthquake.
For more information, visit www.burnsidebridge.org or follow us on Twitter @MultCoBridges. Meeting materials are posted to the website following meetings. Multnomah County maintains the Burnside Bridge and leads the Earthquake Ready Burnside Bridge project.