Sauvie Island Bridge

Friday afternoon my wife and I drove downtown to the Wicke's warehouse to pick up a piece of furniture. While we are waiting for warehouseman, I am looking around outside and I see this bridge where there should not be a bridge. Okay, so maybe I don't get downtown that often, or maybe it's a bridge I've forgotten about. Portland has a bunch of bridges over the Willamette River that runs through downtown, but is certainly odd that there is a bridge there.

I read the paper this morning and it turns out that it is the new Sauvie Island Bridge. They built it at an industrial site just North of downtown. It is now finished and they have jacked it up fifty feet in the air and they are going to haul it down river on a barge and set it in place. Except the wind was a little high today, so maybe they will do it tomorrow.

Sauvie Island Bridge being barged underneath the Burlington Northern Railroad Bridge

Map showing Wicke's warehouse, the Willamette River, Terminal 2, where the bridge was being built, and the location of the old Sauvie Island Bridge where the new one will be installed.


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Update September 2016 replaced missing picture, added photo of bridge being transported, deleted dead stuff.