Letter to the editor: Burnside Bridge is a real-world example of one-lane travel

Published 11:06 am Friday, July 25, 2025

The current Burnside Bridge has five lanes of travel, with two lanes westbound, two lanes eastbound, and an eastbound bus-only lane.

In the design plans for the construction of the new bridge, instead of removing the bus-only lane, they will remove an eastbound car lane. This will replace a five-lane bridge with four lanes for cars with a four-lane bridge with three lanes for cars. A reduction in lanes will cause a delay for nearly 45,000 people who drive across the bridge daily. Those 45,000 will be pushed aside in favor of the 7,000 who use public transportation, and it is not a democratic allocation of resources.

An example of one lane of travel on a busy road would be the Portland Airport on July 23, 2025. Due to construction on Airport Way, there was only one lane of traffic, causing congestion to swell, adding a 63-minute delay. This caused over a dozen people, who had accounted for over an hour of traffic, to miss their flight. Drivers may not have been warned ahead of time about the traffic delay, but people have had ample warning about the one eastbound lane on the new Burnside Bridge.

The goal of Multnomah County and the Metro Council is to get you out of your car and onto public transit. Multnomah County must redraw the lanes on the new bridge proposal, removing the bus-only lane and making the bridge designed for all modes of transportation.

Connor Roberts

Portland