Marquam Bridge

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Marquam Bridge

Carries	Interstate 5
Crosses	Willamette River
Locale	Portland, Oregon
Maintained by	Oregon DOT
ID number	08328
Design	Cantilever truss
Longest span	440 feet (134.1 m)
Total length	1043 feet (318.2 m)
Width	57 feet
Vertical clearance	<35 feet northbound
Clearance below	130 feet
Opening date	October 1966
Maps and aerial photos Street map from Google Maps or Yahoo! Maps Topographic map from TopoZone Aerial image or topographic map from TerraServer-USA Satellite image from Google Maps or Microsoft Virtual Earth

The Marquam Bridge is a double deck cantilever bridge that carries Interstate 5 traffic across the Willamette River south of downtown Portland, Oregon. It is the busiest bridge in Oregon, carrying 135,600 vehicles a day as of 2004.^[1] The upper deck carries northbound traffic; the lower deck carries southbound traffic.

The bridge was designed and built by the Oregon Department of Transportation at a cost of $14 million. The lower southbound deck was opened on October 4, 1966 and the upper northbound deck on October 18, 1966. The main span of the bridge is 440 ft. long and the two side spans are 301 ft. each. The vertical clearance of the lower deck is 130 ft. and the upper deck is 150 ft. above the lower. The bridge is named after Philip Marquam, a state legislator and Multnomah County judge, who owned much of Marquam Hill where Oregon Health & Science University and the Veterans Affairs Medical Center now stand. At the eastern end of the bridge, on the lower deck, is a ramp stub which was intended to connect to the cancelled Mount Hood Freeway. As it has great importance, the Marquam was the first Portland bridge to undergo a seismic retrofit in 1995.

It was built with economy in mind and the public reacted unfavorably to the structure's aesthetics, including a formal protest from the Portland Arts Commission.^[2] (In particular, it obliterated the view of downtown from the Union Avenue Viaduct.) This led to public input in the design of the Fremont Bridge. During Mayor Vera Katz's State of the City address in 2001, she said

“

It’s like having the Berlin Wall dividing east and west, with all the subtle charm of the Daytona 500 smack dab in the middle of our city.^[3]

”

A view of the bridge at night

[edit] References

^ . "Historical Traffic Data" (PDF). Oregon Department of Transportation. Retrieved on 2006-11-06.
^ Wood, Sharon (2001). The Portland Bridge Book. Oregon Historical Society. ISBN 0-87595-211-9.
^ Hamilton, Don (January 18, 2002). East-side story (PDF) 2. Portland Tribune. Retrieved on November 6, 2006.

[edit] External links

	Bridges in the metropolitan area of Portland, Oregon See also: Transportation in Portland, Oregon
	Across the Willamette River (north to south) St. Johns Bridge - Burlington Northern Railroad Bridge 5.1 - Fremont Bridge - Broadway Bridge - Steel Bridge - Burnside Bridge - Morrison Bridge - Hawthorne Bridge - Marquam Bridge - Ross Island Bridge - Sellwood Bridge - Lake Oswego Railroad Bridge - Abernethy Bridge - Oregon City Bridge
	Across the Columbia River (west to east) Burlington Northern Railroad Bridge 9.6 - Interstate Bridge - Glenn L. Jackson Memorial Bridge