The Bull Run Bridge is in bad shape and must be replaced. Everybody knows it.

The problem is finding the estimated $14 million to pay for it.

The Clackamas County Board of Commissioners may have taken a step in that direction May 10 when it approved a request to reallocate $2 million in previously awarded ODOT (Oregon Department of Transportation) design funding from the Dodge Park Bridge to the Bull Run Bridge.

“I think it’s great,” Vice President of the Bull Run Community Planning Organization Julie Stephens said. “It will move the project forward with the completion of design, environmental and right of way, while allowing them to continue applying for future funding sources and partnerships.”

Stephens said the CPO has advocated for years to receive ODOT State Transportation Improvement Program support. A recent low rating of 2 has given the Bull Run Bridge higher priority than Dodge Bridge.
Over the past several years, Clackamas County has applied unsuccessfully seven times for federal highway money, only to lose their bids in a competitive market, Bull Run Project manager Joel Howie said.

The $2 million will help complete the design and right of way acquisition phase of the Bull Run project, Howie said. It will help the county as it applies for future grants.

Engineers have finished approximately 30 percent of the design, which he hopes to have done in a year and a half, thanks to the reallocation.

Plans for the new two-lane bridge, which will be built either upstream or downstream from the old bridge, call for a steel-splintered bridge to span 250 feet over the river. If full funding were in place today, the bridge would complete construction in 2027.

Heavy truck traffic has taken its toll for nearly a century on the historic bridge, built in 1926 using spare parts from Portland’s Burnside Bridge, made in 1894. Significant deterioration to the Bull Run Bridge has occurred over the last 25 years.

The Bull Run Bridge provides a key access point to the Bull Run Reservoir, which provides clean water to more than 800,000 customers in the Portland area and access to about 160 households in the Sandy area.
In January 2023, ODOT performed an updated load rating calculation that resulted in the county having to ban vehicles weighing more than 12 tons from crossing the bridge.

Smaller ambulances and fire trucks are still able to cross the bridge to respond to medical and fire/wildfire emergencies, but heavier loads must use a detour route of approximately 30 miles through Multnomah County that includes two bridges that are already restricted for some specific heavy truck configurations.
The heavier loads that cannot use the Bull Run Bridge include Portland Water Bureau trucks in the Bull Run Watershed, trucks used for logging operations on private and public lands, full size county-operated snow plows and sanders and garbage trucks. Further deterioration of the structure could require the bridge to be closed to all traffic in the next 5-10 years if it is not replaced.

The county funded and completed a 30-percent design study that analyzed the best location to build a replacement bridge based on cost and environmental requirements. However, the county does not have the additional funding needed – estimated at approximately $14 million – to fully fund replacing the bridge.
The Local Agency Bridge Selection Committee (LABSC) has given its word that it would approve moving the $2 million of design funding from Dodge Park to Bull Run if the county formally requests it. Both bridges are good replacement candidates, but Bull Run carries more truck traffic, has a significantly longer detour to Sandy and is in poorer condition with a lower load posting.