Economist Joe Cortright expresses his frustration with the delays in announcement of updated cost projections for the I-5 Bridge replacement project

Joe Cortright
City Observatory

The Interstate Bridge replacement project is once again delaying releasing a new cost estimate.  It’s an ominous sign that the cost is going to be much, much higher.

Interstate Bridge Replacement Program (IBR) leaders have known since January of 2024 that costs were going to be even higher – but repeatedly they’ve delayed releasing a new estimate.

In testimony to the Portland City Council, IBR Administrator Greg Johnson announced that there would be yet another delay, until late 2025 or early 2026 – in telling the Oregon and Washington legislatures and the public how much the project will cost.

The project cost estimate, which jumped from a maximum of $4.8 billion in 2020 to as much as $7.5 billion in 2022, has grown increasingly stale.

Vintage 2022 ODOT forecasts have experienced 40-60 percent increases; a similar increase would easily put the Interstate Bridge replacement project in the $9-$10 billion range.  

Even as the Oregon Legislature has debated, and now held a special session on transportation finance, ODOT and WSDOT have held off disclosing the new higher cost of the Interstate Bridge project.  So much for “accountability.”

20 months of delayed cost estimates

In January 2024, the Interstate Bridge replacement project acknowledged that costs were rising, and that a new estimate would be done in about six months.  Administrator Johnson told Oregon Public Broadcasting  “costs are going up.  We are going to be reissuing an overall program estimate probably later this summer.”

That didn’t happen.

Instead, at the June 13, 2024 Community Advisory Committee meeting, Johnson confirmed the project’s cost was going up again, but that it would now be summer of 2025 – a full year later – before they would reveal the actual price tag:

“. . . it will probably be around this time next year that we will have that final process completed with a more rigorous and up to date number for overall construction costs.’’

So that estimate was promised for  about June 2025.

That didn’t happen either.

On April 21, 2025, Johnson told the project’s community advisory groups that it wouldn’t be until September that a new estimate would be forthcoming.

“We are in the process of starting another cost validation process, cost estimating validation process, CEVP, and those things are keeping some of our folks up at night to try and understand what the tariff picture will look like, what it will mean for the price of steel. There are so many variables. Once you start pulling at certain threads, you can unravel a whole blanket, basically, because there are so many things that you have to consider. So our team is getting all of that preliminary information so we can start putting a new estimate together. We’re hoping by the end of summer, right around September, that we will have new pricing that takes into account all of the variability of tariffs, escalation that we see, that we’ve seen over the last two or three years since we last did an estimate. So we’re looking at it, we’re looking at it closely, and trying to pick what is the right index that can be used to accurately project these costs are going to be.’’ – Greg Johnson, April 21, 2025, IBR Community Advisory Group/Executive Advisory Group

What’s particularly alarming is that Johnson says that they are only now, in April of 2025, going to “start putting a new estimate together.”  This is more than 16 months AFTER Johnson told Oregon Public Broadcasting that the IBR was working on a new estimate, and that it would be higher.

Oh, and that isn’t going to happen either.

It appears that the shelf life of Johnson’s “right around September” deadline was less than two weeks.  At the May 8, 2025 Oregon Transportation Commission, Ray Mabey, the IBR’s assistant program administrator, said that the new cost estimate would take even longer, i.e. until the late 2025.

The latest news is we may have to wait until 2026 to see a new cost estimate – essentially two full years after Johnson first conceded a new, higher price tag for the project.  At the Portland City Council, Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, on August 11, 2025. Johnson testified to a further delay.  The IBR provided a graphic that showed a new cost estimate and financial plan would be available in “Late 2025/Early 2026.”

Later, while answering questions, Johnson claimed that there was nothing unusual about the delay, blaming slow federal review of the project’s Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement.  He said:

“If I could take just a moment to correct a misperception regarding when the release of our estimate is coming out.  We do what WSDOT, nationally recognized, its called cost estimating verification [sic] process (CEVP).  And this is a months long process and we were waiting until we got through the draft supplemental process and that got delayed out of our control several times, and so we had to wait until we got  that and then go into this process, so we have not been purposely holding back information from anyone so we know that the cost of this program is going higher.  We see it all across the country so this is no big mystery or some smoke-filled room.  We had to wait until we had the draft supplemental and the input answering  questions before we could say, okay, this is what we’re estimating, so that is the reason why this cost estimate has been delayed.’’

(CEVP is the Cost Estimate Validation Process).

Most importantly, Johnson concedes that the project cost is going up – although he refuses to reveal by how much.  Beyond that, Johnson’s excuse for delaying a new cost estimate is pretty transparent.  First, there’s nothing in the SDEIS  (“draft supplemental”) that directly changes the cost of the project.  The cost estimation process proceeds independently of the environmental review, and nothing in the SDEIS changes any material factors relating to cost estimation.  Second, the SDEIS document itself was done more than a year ago:  IBR publicly released the SDEIS in September of 2024, but had a fully finished internal document complete in June 2024.

What is really going on is that IBR is working on a new cost estimate, and it knows that the numbers look very, very bad.  Ever sensitive to public relations, the IBR is putting off for as long as possible revealing how bad the news is.  And what is indisputable is that a new and higher cost estimate for the project is a politically inconvenient fact while the Oregon Legislature is considering raising taxes, and ODOT is pleading it is broke.

I-5 Bridge replacement project is headed into the $9-$10 billion range

It’s a very, very bad sign that the IBR staff have repeatedly delayed releasing this news about higher project costs. Get ready for a new and much higher cost estimate, when it finally does come out.  As we predicted more than a year ago, the new number is likely to top $9 billion, and with each passing day seems more likely to end up in the $9-$10 billion range.

At City Observatory, we’ve been carefully tracking ODOT cost estimates for more than a decade.  ODOT regularly and routinely low-balls pre-construction cost estimates, so much so that we’ve been able to chronicle a “reign of error” showing cost overruns of 100 percent, 200 percent and more on major ODOT projects.  Not only is this problem continuing, it is getting worse.

Keep in mind that the current project estimate was prepared in 2022.  Since then, ODOT has “updated” a series of other 2022-vintage cost estimates for major projects:  all of them have shown stunning increases.  Two projects, Rose Quarter and Abernethy, have seen costs increase by 43 percent and 64 percent, respectively, since 2022.  The Hood River Bridge replacement, technically not an ODOT project, but one which the state is a financial partner, and poses very similar risks as the IBR, has more than doubled since 2022.  Even an increase at the lowest end of this range (of say 33 percent or more) would push the price-tag for the I-5 Bridge replacement project over $10 billion.

More danger signs

There are other signs that the news will be bad.  Without explanation, the Washington Legislature bumped the total amount of bonding it would allow for its share of the IBR budget to $2.5 billion.  Except for one Representative, John Ley, the Washington Legislature apparently didn’t think to ask how much the total project would cost, or how it would be paid for, before authorizing a huge increase in debt.

Meanwhile, the Oregon Legislature is wrestling with its own transportation package and despite a multi-billion dollar shortfall, there’s been absolutely no mention of the rising cost of the I-5 Bridge or how it will be paid for.  ODOT’s financial plan for its Urban Mobility Strategy simply leaves out the cost and financing of the Interstate Bridge Project – the state’s largest single transportation project.

Big changes in Washington, DC seem likely to be a further risk to the project:  Oregon and Washington haven’t even applied for the $1 billion they expect the federal government to pay towards the cost of light rail, and the Trump Administration has signaled its animosity to transit projects generally, and to blue states in particular.

ODOT and WSDOT are playing the classic Robert Moses game of driving stakes, selling bonds, and delaying the bad news about cost increases.  Once the I-5 Bridge project is started, once the bonds are sold, the two states will have no choice but to come up with however much money is needed to complete the project.  It won’t matter how much money tolling provides, or whether the federal government comes up with a $1 billion contribution for the light rail portion of the project:  Oregon and Washington will be on the hook.  As far as the state DOTs — and their high priced consultants — are concerned, this isn’t a bug, it’s a feature.

Chronology of Delayed Cost Estimates for the IBR

• January 2024: (Oregon Public Broadcasting) IBR Administrator Greg Johnson acknowledges rising costs and states a new overall program estimate would be reissued “later this summer.”
• Summer 2024 (expected): New estimate does not materialize.
• June 13, 2024 (Community Advisory Committee meeting): IBR Administrator Greg Johnson confirms costs are still rising, but the “rigorous and up-to-date number” won’t be available until “around this time next year” (summer 2025).
• Summer 2025 (expected): New estimate is again delayed.
• April 21, 2025 (Community Advisory Group/Executive Advisory Group): IBR Administrator Greg Johnson informs advisory groups that a new estimate won’t be ready until “right around September” due to ongoing “cost validation process” and market variables.
• May 8, 2025 (Oregon Transportation Commission): IBR Assistant Program Administrator Ray Mabey indicates the new cost estimate will take even longer, pushing the release to late 2025.
• August 11, 2025 (Portland City Council Transportation & Infrastructure Committee).  IBR Administrator Greg Johnson says a new estimate will be available late this year or early next year.