Bruce Ely/The Oregonian

By Lizzy Acker

Portland has both so many freaking bridges and also, nowhere near enough bridges.

Monday, it was announced one of those bridges, the Morrison Bridge, would be closed for two weeks. Some (this author) expressed surprise at the announcement. They (I) thought the Morrison Bridge was already closed. That's what the gridlock on the Hawthorne Bridge at 7:45 a.m. would lead one to believe. But no, now, apparently, it will be even more closed, snarling traffic on the other bridges even further.

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Don Ryan/The Oregonian

When outsiders think of Portland’s bridges, they imagine a postcard of outline drawings, the romance of Bridge City. But commuters know two truths: 1) There are also bridges across the Columbia River into Washington that no one puts in their drawings. And 2) Portland’s bridges are pretty but also, they are a menace.

Here they are, in order from best bad bridge, to the absolute worst, as subjectively rated on three criteria: Safety, Usefulness and Beauty. Please note: This awesome KGW list provided most of the earthquake information mentioned below.

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1: Fremont Bridge, opened in 1973

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Kristyna Wentz-Graff/The Oregonian

Safety: 5

Usefulness: 9

Beauty: 8

Total: 22

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Dave Killen/The Oregonian

From the perspective of our environment, cars and the oil industry that support them are objectively bad. Without cars, maybe we wouldn’t be in this mad scramble to try to stop sea ice from melting (*”mad scramble” means posting about it once every six months on Facebook as the planet burns around us). Still, if you have to drive a car over the river, the Fremont Bridge is going to get you there the fastest, with a low-ish likelihood of death due to earthquake infrastructure issue.

Also, unlike some freeway bridges (MARQUAM), it’s pretty to look at from a distance.

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2. St. Johns Bridge, opened in 1931

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Photo by Melanie Kaplan for The Washington Post

Safety: 4

Usefulness: 6

Beauty: 10

Total: 20

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Mike Zacchino/The Oregonian

The beauty of the St. Johns Bridge almost outweighs its major problems, namely, it is super scary to ride your bike across. But also, dang, it is pretty. And, it’s the only bridge that far north, which honestly seems ridiculous. A lot of people live in North Portland. Maybe we could throw up a couple more bridges out there?

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3: Sellwood Bridge, opened in 2016

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Rich Morgan

Safety: 9

Usefulness: 5

Beauty: 5

Total: 20

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Rich Morgan

The new Sellwood Bridge should be a lesson to us: It’s possible to replace a dangerous old bridge that is making life worse and put in something that is earthquake safe and useful and looks good. My only real complaint with the Sellwood Bridge? It’s in freaking Sellwood. Let’s start rebuilding bridges in the city center maybe? Or that impact major commuter routes? See: the rest of this list.

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4: Tilikum Crossing, opened in 2015

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Stephanie Yao Long/The Oregonian

Safety: 10

Usefulness: 3

Beauty: 6

Total: 19

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Kristyna Wentz-Graff/The Oregonian

Tilikum Crossing is named after a murderous orca, which is a mark in its favor. Otherwise, this very new pedestrian/bike/transit bridge is mostly aspirational. Like, wouldn't it be nice if the bridge went to somewhere a lot of people live or work, on either side of the river? Wouldn't it be nice if it did something more extreme to alleviate commuter traffic? Wouldn't it be nice if Portland honored the Chinook people in a way that was more compelling than naming a bridge a word in their language that was much better known as the name of a murderous orca?

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5: Broadway Bridge, opened in 1913

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Randy L. Rasmussen/The Oregonian

Safety: 1

Usefulness: 8

Beauty: 8

Total: 17

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Randy L. Rasmussen/The Oregonian

If you can look past the fact that the Broadway Bridge is just another certainly-going-to-collapse-in-an-earthquake bridge, you might note that it is relatively adorable and orange and has protected bike lanes.

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6: Hawthorne Bridge, opened in 1910

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Dave Killen/The Oregonian

Safety: 1

Usefulness: 9

Beauty: 6

Total: 16

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Photo courtesy of City of Portland (OR) Archives

From a distance, the Hawthorne Bridge looks cool, especially when it's up. But from the bus going over the bridge, at a crawl, morning or afternoon, one can't help but imagine one's water death among smelly strangers, as the ancient bridge collapses during the Big One.

Though, in some ways the big one is less scary than the texting commuters in cars, crossing the Hawthorne’s treacherous metal gated surface in wet weather and trying not to swerve on the bicyclist-covered sidewalk.

One thing that can be said about the Hawthorne: It truly gives you a choice of horrors to consider, every single morning.

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7: Glenn L. Jackson Memorial Bridge, opened in 1982

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Dave Killen/The Oregonian

Safety: 6

Usefulness: 9

Beauty: 1

Total: 16

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Bruce Ely/The Oregonian

Two things you can say about the Glenn Jackson is that, hey, at least it isn’t the Interstate Bridge! At least you can ride your bike across it without taking your life in your hands!

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8: Steel Bridge, opened in 1912

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Mike Zacchino/The Oregonian

Safety: 1

Usefulness: 9

Beauty: 5

Total: 15

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The Oregonian

Steel Bridge pros: The very cool walkway under the bridge, the multilevel design that separates trains, pedestrian-types and cars. The central location and connection to the Esplanade.

Steel Bridge cons: It's definitely going to collapse in a an earthquake.

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9: Marquam Bridge, opened in 1966

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Dave Killen/The Oregonian

Safety: 5

Usefulness: 9

Beauty: 1

Total: 15

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Bruce Ely/The Oregonian

Oh, the Marquam. With a name that is impossible to spell and zero accessibility unless you are on the freeway, is it even fair to call this a bridge, this bridge has a lot going against it. But it has two points in its favor: It's a little bit earthquake-safer than other bridges and, it does give you a good view of the city, if you can take the time to enjoy a good view while you are trying not to die in the narrow lanes at top speed.

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10: Burnside Bridge, opened in 1926

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Luke Hammill/The Oregonian

Safety: 3

Usefulness: 7

Beauty: 4

Total: 13

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Stephanie Yao Long/The Oregonian

Unless you are like, deep in a great podcast and have a zero emissions car, don’t go down Burnside during rush hour. Even though the bridge is wide open, with big lanes and nice, safe feeling, during busy hours it and the whole street it shares a name with are basically a parking lot.

On the plus side, the Burnside Bridge is only expected to suffer "extensive damage" during an earthquake, not total collapse!

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11: Ross Island Bridge, opened in 1926

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The Oregonian

Safety: 1

Usefulness: 9

Beauty: 2

Total: 12

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Kristyna Wentz-Graff/The Oregonian

Unfortunately, this workhorse commuter bridge is likely to collapse in an earthquake, meaning you might want to carry oxygen in your car so you can survive when the bridge crumbles during your morning drive to work and you are stuck at the bottom of the Willamette River.

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12: Burlington Northern Railroad Bridge 5.1, opened in 1908

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Mike Zacchino/The Oregonian

Safety: 4

Usefulness: 2

Beauty: 5

Total: 11

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Kristyna Wentz-Graff/The Oregonian

The Railroad Bridge is fine, sure. It’s a bridge for trains, and only trains, which probably made sense in 1908, but ... times have changed. We have other modes of transportation now and it seems like, a little self-involved? To have a bridge dedicated to just one thing? When a lot of us think every day about how Portland could use another bridge, further north, across the Willamette River?

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13: Interstate Bridge, opened in 1917

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AP Photo/Don Ryan

Safety: 1

Usefulness: 4

Beauty: 3

Total: 8

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City of Portland Archives

On an average weekday in 2016, 135,496 trips were taken across this bridge that connects Oregon and Washington. Should a bridge that was half built only nine years after Henry Ford began production on the Model T really be responsible for that kind of traffic?

Most people think it shouldn't. The bridge is rated "functionally obsolete." There's a pretty much constant back and forth about how to replace this bridge and, it will definitely collapse in an earthquake, one of which is definitely coming.

But, for now, unless someone gets serious about the water slide solution, we are stuck with this monstrosity.

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14: Morrison Bridge, opened in 1958

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Kristyna Wentz-Graff/The Oregonian

Safety: 3

Usefulness: 1

Beauty: 1

Total: 5

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Kristyna Wentz-Graff/The Oregonian

The Morrison Bridge is a nightmare where you are running away from a horde of zombies that are players from your high school men’s soccer team and you are naked and your feet won’t move -- in bridge form.

After a just-over-one-year-old no-skid surface started coming apart in 2013, The Oregonian/OregonLive once wrote, "the Morrison might as well be a drawbridge across the River Styx."

Most of the lanes of the Morrison have been closed since May 2017, two hundred years ago. Now, the entire bridge is closed. The 15 bus, which used to, according to ancient lore, travel across the bridge, is basically permanently rerouted.

Is it time to just accept we made a mistake, explode the bridge and start over? Literally anything -- a canoe-based ferry system even -- would be better than this.

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Mike Zacchino/The Oregonian

A rainbow appears over the Hawthorne Bridge, Oct. 4, 2016.

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