Sellwood Bridge wins federal financing

Kari Chisholm

Whew.

After Clackamas County voters rejected a $5 vehicle registration fee that would fund the Sellwood Bridge project, it looked like local residents were going to have to keep doing that little personal debate each time they considered crossing the bridge - "does it feel like an earthquake today, in the next five minutes?"

After all, when a bridge scores a 2 out of 100 on a federal safety benchmark, that's not really a bridge you want to travel every day.

But now we've got news that the federal government has awarded a $17.7 million grant, very nearly closing the funding gap, and ensuring that the project to build a new Sellwood Bridge will go forward.

From the O's Kate Mather:

"We were finally able to convince the federal government that it's a worthwhile project," [county spokesperson Mike] Pullen said. "It's sort of a relatively small project in the nation's psyche but it's such a needed project in our region."

The discretionary grant comes from nearly $527 million that the U.S. Department of Transportation will dole out this fiscal year. Referred to as a Tiger grant, the money goes toward projects that are "multi-modal, multi-jurisdictional or otherwise challenging to fund through existing programs," the department's website said.

By Kari Chisholm Dec. 12, 2011