By DANA TIMS/YachatsNews.com
The Yaquina Bay Bridge is one of the most photographed and recognized architectural structures on the West Coast. Its image adorns everything from international travel magazines and business logos to the sleeve patches worn by Newport police.
But for all that adoration, there is also the growing concern that, with the iconic span’s 100th anniversary on the horizon, the bridge isn’t going to last forever.
The combined tsunami of a brutal coastal climate, relentless daily use, existing weight limitations and the harrowing prospect of a major earthquake pulverizing the unreinforced bridge already are exacting a toll.
Now, with the city of Newport updating transportation plans that will guide its economic future, local officials are asking the state with increasing frequency and intensity – what’s the plan for replacing the bridge?
The city, in a recent letter also signed by Lincoln County commissioners, chided the Oregon Department of Transportation “about what appears to be a lack of urgency” on the state’s part to plan and pay for a new bridge across Yaquina Bay.
“The Yaquina Bay Bridge is the linchpin around which the entire planning effort revolves,” the letter stated. “While we appreciate the maintenance investments the State is making, it is unrealistic to expect that a bridge constructed in 1936 can be kept in serviceable condition indefinitely.”
Newport Mayor Dean Sawyer told YachatsNews that city officials realize there is only so much money available to tackle such an immense project. But in urging that a replacement plan be launched now, he added, “This is a project that could take 20 years from start to finish. We need to get their attention now to be part of that conversation.”
The numbers are challenging
State transportation officials say they are well aware of both the bridge’s fragility and the city’s desire to address it. In fact, they point out, bridge-replacement discussions between the parties date to at least the 1997 update of Newport’s transportation plan.
“But at this point, there is no formal plan to replace the Yaquina Bay Bridge,” said James Feldmann, a senior transportation planner in ODOT’s Corvallis office. “But with the maintenance we are doing now, we expect it to be in service for at least 20 years, if not far longer.”
Just a few numbers illustrate the challenge of replacing the bridge.
State officials put the bridge’s replacement cost at more than $200 million. Others familiar with the bridge and its history say the real cost could easily be $600 million to $800 million.
By contrast, the Oregon Transportation Commission and ODOT have allocated approximately $300 million for all bridge work for all of Oregon for its 2024-2027 funding cycle. And even that level of funding, they add, will still result in the decline of state bridge conditions statewide.
“Certainly, that bridge is going to need replacing at some point,” said Lincoln County Commissioner Doug Hunt, whose own discussions with ODOT about the bridge date back more than five years. “But the cost has always been daunting. There’s just no way getting around that.”
Cathotic protection
With no overflowing pot of replacement money lying around, bridge engineers are relying instead on the state’s bridge maintenance budget to keep the span as sturdy and rust-free as possible.
In addition to the distinctive green-colored paint that protects the steel from the coast’s battering weather, the other key tool they have is known as cathotic protection. The first North American use of cathotic protection was, in fact, employed more than two decades ago on the Yaquina Bay Bridge’s northern approach on U.S. Highway 101.
Restoring the bridge’s cathotic protection is currently underway, a four-year $30 million project that includes concrete repair and seismic improvements and explains the 11-story scaffolding and shrouding meant to protect workers from the weather.
Cathotic protection tackles what Ray Bottenberg, Oregon’s assistant state bridge engineer, calls the “Achilles heel” of the many historic steel-reinforced concrete bridges gracing the state’s coastline.
If left untended, salt from seawater begins penetrating into the bridges’ massive supports, where it attacks the metal rebar that’s critical for long-term bridge strength. As the rebar rusts, it expands, which in turns blows the surrounding concrete into the water.
Cathotic protection consists of, essentially, turning the bridge into one giant electrochemical cell. A sprayed-on coating of zinc turns the concrete into the cell’s cathode, with installation of a direct-current power supply acting as the anode.
“The DC current forces salt ions toward the zinc and away from the rebar,” said Bottenberg, who has published books about both Oregon’s coastal bridges and those spanning the Willamette River in Portland. “It keeps the rebar in an electrochemical state that doesn’t want to corrode.”
Had cathotic protection been around even a few years earlier, he said, it might have provided enough protection to keep the Alsea Bay Bridge at Waldport serviceable today. Instead, concrete degradation serious enough to ban boaters from lingering under the structure resulted in that bridge’s replacement 30 years ago.
“Cathotic protection, along with painting, are the two big-ticket items to keeping the Yaquina Bay Bridge serviceable,” Bottenberg said. “That’s what ODOT can pursue, even though we are not in position to replace it anytime soon.”
One of 21 coastal jewels
The Yaquina Bay Bridge is just one of 21 Oregon coastal bridges designed by Conde B. McCullough, the legendary state bridge engineer whose work at the intersection of art and engineering produced a string of bridges famous around the world.
Between 1934 and 1936, McCullough, then the assistant state bridge engineer, oversaw the design and construction of the five major bridges along the Oregon coast that replaced river ferries and made motorized travel along the coast possible.
These spans, along with eight other McCullough-designed coastal bridges still in operation, are at Newport, Florence, Reedsport and North Bend. The fifth – the Alsea Bay Bridge at Waldport – was replaced in 1991.
McCullough once referred to collection as “jeweled clasps in a wonderful string of matched pearls.”
During his 18-year career, McCullough also designed dozens of bridges elsewhere in Oregon. That body of work won national design awards for its innovative incorporation of artistic elements drawn from classical, Gothic and Art Deco/Moderne elements.
“All these years later, his bridges still remain as impressive as ever,” ODOT’s Bottenberg said. “To the extent we’re still on the map for our wonderful bridges, and we are, it’s pretty much thanks to Conde McCullough.”
A lesson from Portland?
If city and county officials need a guide in how to even start thinking of replacing something as costly and monumental as the Yaquina Bay Bridge, they need look no further than Multnomah County. There, the county and city of Portland, with help from the state and federal governments, managed to replace the failing, 1925-era Sellwood Bridge with a new span that took “only” a decade to plan and construct.
Key to financing was a $19-per-year temporary increase in vehicle registration fees for county residents, said Mike Pullen, a county spokesman. That fee raised $163 million of the project’s $330 million total. Portland residents chipped in an additional $75 million. In all, two-thirds of the bridge’s replacement funds came from local residents.
County Chair Deborah Kafoury cited four elements she called critical to the new Sellwood Bridge’s success: momentum, funding, leadership and communication.
“It takes anywhere from 10 to 20 years to get a bridge from development to completion,” Kafoury said. “That means you need extraordinary continuity in leadership, messaging and community buy-in to be successful. Looking back, we had all those elements in place and they proved critical in our ability to rebuild the Sellwood Bridge.”
The road ahead
There is no shortage of opinions when it comes to discussing the fate of the Yaquina Bay Bridge and what should happen next.
Brodie Becksted has his own personal and professional history with the bridge. His grandfather, Bert Becksted, worked on the bridge during its 1934-1936 construction. And now, Brodie’s Newport Brewing Company features the bridge on its logo.
“It’s a landmark for this town and replacing it would be just wrong,” he said. “But I also hear it has a bad safety rating so I’m sure there are a lot of factors to take into consideration.”
Don Davis, Newport’s long-retired city manager, said the area has many more pressing issues to deal with, such as water, sewer and other infrastructure-related problems. Concerns about the bridge should be plowed into the maintenance efforts already underway, he said.
“The only way that bridge is going to fail is if we have a thousand-year earthquake,” said Davis, 93. “And there wouldn’t be a need for a bridge anyway. No one will be left alive.”
Rep. David Gomberg, D-Otis, whose House District 10 seat includes much of the central coast, said he has talked about the situation with ODOT for years.
“The bridge is actually in pretty good shape,” said Gomberg. “But in the long term? People will be driving less and they’ll be using far lighter vehicles. There are a lot of things to consider in looking that far down the road.”
Three decades ago, when now-Mayor Dean Sawyer was a Newport police sergeant, he went to his chief and asked if what Sawyer considered the “generic, non-descript” sleeve patches worn by officers could be updated with the bridge’s image.
“He said, ‘Fine, do whatever you want,’” Sawyer said. “And the bridge is still on patches worn today.”
Like so many, he’s not sure where enough money can be found to fully replace the bridge.
“What I do know is that if we don’t start having this conversation now,” Sawyer said, “that absolutely nothing is likely to get done anytime soon.”
— Dana Tims is an Oregon freelance writer who contributes regularly to YachatsNews.com. He can be reached at DanaTims24@gmail.com
Yaquina Bay Bridge facts
Location: Mile Post 141.68, Oregon Coast Highway
Average, year-round daily traffic count: 19,300 vehicles
Type: Steel half-through arch
Length: 3,223 feet
Main span’s length: 600 feet
Cost (in 1936 dollars): $1.3 million
Materials: 30,000 cubic yards of concrete and 3,100 tons of steel
Depth of timber pilings: About 70 feet below sea level
Main arch height: 246 feet above sea level at its crown
Status: Placed on the National Register of Historic Places, Aug. 5, 2005
Opened for traffic: Sept. 6, 1936
— Oregon Department of Transportation