Oregon and Washington’s governors met Monday in a downtown Vancouver high-rise overlooking the Interstate Bridge to express unified commitment to replacing the aging green drawbridge that loomed over their shoulders.

The bridge meeting marked the most high-profile public show of solidarity between the two state leaders since the Columbia River Crossing project formally died in 2014. That project would have replaced the bridge with a new span equipped with light rail and bolstered by reconfigured interchanges on both sides of the Columbia River. A handful of Washington state legislators killed the bill in Olympia by declining to fund the state’s $450 million share of the project. The light rail extension and threat of tolls were two principal factors cited by Washington detractors.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee sat shoulder-to-shoulder with Oregon Gov. Kate Brown, and the duo said they planned to see the bridge project through this time.

“We are restarting the effort,” Inslee of the bridge project before signing a non-binding memorandum of intent alongside Brown. “I could not be more excited about an endeavor that ignites the energies of two states,” he added, describing bridge projects as “monuments to optimism.”

The Democratic state executive shared some of the same talking points. Both cited the region’s economic and population growth as significant factors driving the need for revisiting the project. Both discussed a potential Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake as of critical concern. While both have publicly supported light rail in the past, on Monday they said merely that “high-capacity transit” must be included.

“Both Oregon and Washington are currently experiencing unprecedented population, cultural, and economic growth,” Brown said. “This joint effort to replace the interstate bridge is critical to the safety and economies of both Oregon and Washington, and an important step forward as we invest in the growth of our region.”

It took several years of courting to get the two leaders back to this point.

Inslee, who was seeking the Democratic party’s nomination for president until as recently as August, said he’s optimistic something will happen this time.

He tacitly acknowledged Washington’s Legislature played a role in killing the previous project, a nod to the Republican lawmakers who stymied state funding in 2013 and ultimately derailed the two-state plan. Inslee said the legislative makeup in Olympia has changed, there’s consensus to do something now and there’s broader recognition that the bridge is getting older and it poses a seismic risk.

“There’s no other option,” he said. “This has to be done.”

Brown alluded to Washington’s role in killing the previous project, saying the ball was in Inslee’s court to restart the process.

“I have a serious commitment from our partner,” Brown said.

The states have chipped in a combined $44 million to set up a new bridge project office. A full report on how to revive the bridge project is due by Dec. 1, 2020.

The Democrats sat flanked by their respective state transportation leaders and in front of a room filled with regional elected officials, trade union representatives, bureaucrats from both sides of the river, Vancouver Mayor Anne McEnerny-Ogle and media members. No member of Portland’s City Council attended. Transportation Commissioner Chloe Eudaly and Mayor Ted Wheeler cited “scheduling conflicts” but expressed support for the revived talks.

Questions still abound. The previous effort, while it failed, moved forward thanks in large part to a $850 million federal grant toward the light rail extension. That money is no longer certain, though Inslee said the I-5 bridge is of national importance and will be “top echelon” as the feds consider big-ticket transportation projects. He added that a separated public transit lane, be it bus rapid transit or light rail, is critical.

“We intend this process to be a data-driven, transparent process,” he said.

Tolls remain a big question-mark, too. The letter of intent says the states “shall assume that some costs” of the new bridge “may be covered by tolls.”

It’s also unclear if the states will move forward with all the various interchange projects at the same time. Kris Strickler, Oregon’s department of transportation director and the one-time director of the Columbia River Crossing project, said the states will look to phase-in those projects in the five-mile congested corridor if possible. “Some portion of the bridge needs to move forward as quickly as we can,” he said.

Neither governor put much credence on building a new bridge to speed up commutes.

One thing the governors didn’t mention was the previous $140 million in federal cash spent planning the failed bridge effort. The states have said they faced a key deadline to restart bridge talks or risk repaying that debt. Federal officials in September gave the states an extension, citing the $44 million in legislative support to reopen a new project office as a sign of progress. The states have said they plan to start construction on a new bridge by 2025. Oregon and Washington have already been granted an extension and had requested a 10-year extension this time but were granted half that.

But Joe Cortright, a Portland economist who was a vocal critic of the Columbia River Crossing project, said the states were not truthful about the reimbursement timetable.

He said Oregon and Washington wouldn’t owe feds a penny if they chose instead not to build anything at all.

“It’s dishonest of the state departments of transportation to tell people there’s a $140 million penalty for not moving forward with this project,” Cortright wrote on his blog, citing an instance involving a Salem bridge project where the state walked away from it and was spared federal repayment. “The Columbia River Crossing has a long history of lies,” he wrote. “The effort to revive the project shows that its proponents are just as mendacious as ever.”

Don Hamilton, a state transportation spokesman, said the “no-build” option is “always available” but Oregon is not interested in pursuing that option for the I-5 bridge.

He said walking away from the project would ‘betray” the approval of local interests on both sides of the river.

“The bridge is one of the worst freeway bottlenecks in the country, a seismic risk that would collapse in a major earthquake, has no high capacity transit option and insufficient bicycle and pedestrian facilities. A new bridge could address these problems,” he said.

State officials say both spans of the I-5 bridge, the northbound built in 1917 and the southbound constructed in 1958, are deemed seismically vulnerable and would likely collapse in magnitude 9.0 rupture of the Cascadia Subduction Zone.

That doesn’t mean the bridge is in poor condition, though state officials estimate there are at least $282 million in maintenance costs on the existing bridge scheduled to take place by 2040 if no new bridge is built.

According to Oregon’s bridge inventory, the state owns 2,755 bridges. Just 43 of them are in poor condition.

The interstate bridge is listed as being “in fair condition.”

As of the most recent traffic counts, the bridge carries roughly 138,000 vehicles per day, less than the Glenn Jackson Bridge on Interstate 205.

-- Andrew Theen

atheen@oregonian.com

503-294-4026

@andrewtheen

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