After six months of complex and meticulous work, the Broadway Bridge now has a new lift span bridge deck.
“The previous lift span, made of fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) structural members, was deteriorating," Multnomah County Project Manager Mark Knierem said. “The deck on the movable spans was retaining water and the structural fiberglass beams were beginning to fail. As a result, County Bridge Maintenance often had to make temporary repairs to the driving surface.”
The $21 million project replaced the existing FRP deck on the movable portions of the bridge with a lightweight steel and concrete deck, which is durable and expected to have a longer lifespan than the previous deck. The Portland Streetcar tracks were also replaced as part of this project.
“This was a particularly challenging process to replace the bridge deck because the bridge needed to stay balanced at all times to still open for river traffic during construction,” Knierem said.
Knierem says in order to complete the complex work, the deck had to be replaced one section at a time which creates a longer construction process and closure time of the bridge. In October, 2025, the Broadway Bridge closed to all motorized vehicles and the Portland Streetcar for six months. The south sidewalk remained open during the majority of this closure for pedestrian and cyclist access.
“We know people who walk, bike, and roll rely heavily on the Broadway Bridge every day to commute to work and other destinations,” Multnomah County District 2 Commissioner Shannon Singleton said. “Understanding this crucial need to maintain access, the County successfully balanced this safety improvement work while minimizing access impacts to people who don’t use cars to get around our City.”
The bridge reopened to all motorized vehicles and the Portland Streetcar on Sunday, April 12, 2026.
“This project, which finished on time and on budget, showcases the important work of County Transportation to keep our aging bridges safe and usable,” Multnomah County District 1 Commissioner Meghan Moyer said. “It is crucial to maintain our Willamette River bridges for the community to use every day across all forms of transportation and I am proud we maximized accessibility to walkers and bikers during this maintenance.”
For project information, visit: https://multco.us/info/broadway-bridge-lift-deck-replacement.
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.