Lars Larson: Dire warning on Portland’s doomed $10B bridge

By Lars Larson
NW and national radio host,

The Northwest Nonsense

Be afraid. Be very, very afraid.

Economist Joe Cortright delivered that warning to the Portland City Council about the single biggest public works project in the Pacific Northwest.

Cortright points out that the man leading the soon-to-fail Interstate Bridge Replacement is hiding new cost estimates that seem likely to push the project past ten billion dollars.

Oregon and Washington plan to start the bridge next year

They have absolutely no idea how they’re going to pay for it.

Greg Johnson, the IBR czar promised a cost estimate a year ago in June, then promised summer of this year.

Now he says it may come late this year or even next year.

Why hold it back? Cortright points out ODOT has a bad history of cost overruns. Abernathy bridge, still not finished and not paid for, ballooned from 200 million to 800 million. Hood River bridge more than doubled.

Now, ODOT now claims it’s broke and needs a taxpayer bailout.

The last estimate on the Interstate Bridge came in at 7.5 billion 20 months ago.

No wonder Greg Johnson is hiding the ball.

When the Bridge project dies, so does his quarter million dollar salary for leading it to failure.

That’s the Rose City Rap. Join me at noon on KXL for First Amendment Friday. I’m Lars Larson