Multnomah County commissioners unanimously blessed a plan Thursday to dramatically raise vehicle registration fees to pay a portion of the estimated $550 million to $850 million project to replace or seismically retrofit the Burnside Bridge.

A final vote on the fee increase is scheduled for Dec. 5. If approved, annual fees would rise to $56 on Jan. 1, 2021. The current yearly fee is $19, less than similar costs in Washington and Clackamas counties.

Motorists aren’t billed an annual fee, rather they’ pay it once every two years when renewing their vehicle’s registration. Drivers are likely unaware of the fee, as it’s bundled into existing DMV or DEQ charges when renewing vehicle tags.

While the actual bridge construction is likely years away, commissioners said approving a portion of the financing plan today sends a strong signal that the county is serious about replacing the Burnside Bridge.

Multnomah County Board Chair Deborah Kafoury said the government would look for ways to lessen the financial blow for low-income residents, many of whom, she and other commissioners acknowledged, might not be able to pay the higher cost.

But commissioners said it’s critically important that the county move forward quickly with a plan to make the Burnside Bridge seismically sound. In the event of a Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake with a magnitude of 9.0, all of Portland’s bridges in or around the downtown core are expected to be unusable for weeks, if not months or longer.

Only the Tilikum Crossing, which allows buses and light rail as well as bikes and pedestrians, was built to withstand a strong earthquake. The remaining downtown bridges are all decades old, with the youngest in the city core, the Fremont, built in 1973.

“We are woefully unprepared in our community for when the Big One hits,” Kafoury said, “and this is a crucial step.”

Kafoury said the county has the experience in making big projects happen, citing the Sellwood Bridge, the Health Department headquarters and the still-under-construction courthouse building.

“Building infrastructure is costly and it takes a lot of hard work, but we can do projects that are hard,” she said.

The county plans to issue $270 million in bonds to fund a portion for the bridge project and use the increased car fees to repay that debt. The Metro regional government, which plans to put a $3.1 billion transportation bond before voters next November, set aside $150 million for the bridge in its preliminary project list.

Metro is still determining how it will pay for the dozens of projects outlined in the 2020 regional transportation package, but a separate $59 vehicle registration fee that would apply across all three counties, is one potential revenue source. That fee would be in addition to any existing county charges.

The county would also expect to receive federal support for the Burnside project.

Commissioner Lori Stegmann called the proposed fee increase “a small price to pay” to protect lives and property across the region.

Burnside was selected as a regional lifeline, meaning it is expected to play a significant role in the Portland area in the event of a natural disaster and it must be navigable for emergency personnel if, or when, the city has to rebuild post-earthquake. Burnside runs nearly 19 miles from east to west, and it was selected as the best lifeline because of its central location spanning the Willamette River and the likelihood that a seismically buttressed Burnside would survive post-earthquake.

Commissioners watched a widely circulated video Thursday that showed the likely catastrophic consequences of a major earthquake on the existing Burnside Bridge. The bridge is expected to collapse in a number of ways if an earthquake strikes, and it would block river traffic and cut off Gov. Tom McCall Waterfront Park, the Red and Blue MAX lines, Naito Parkway, Interstates 5 and 84, the Eastbank Esplanade and railroad lines.

What a new, or retrofitted, Burnside actually looks like is still years away. The county is expected to decide next summer which plan – either seismically retrofitting the 93-year-old bridge or building a new span altogether – to pursue.

On Thursday, commissioners also approved a blueprint to move forward with studying just a handful of options: A retrofitted Burnside Bridge, a new drawbridge on the same footprint as the old one, or a new drawbridge reconfigured on the east side to eliminate the “S” curve at Northeast Couch Street.

Mike Pullen, a county spokesman, said community members are eager to see the project move forward. “The most common thing we hear,” he said, “is, ‘Can you go any faster?’”

A new bridge isn’t expected to be finished until 2028 or 2029.

The total project cost varies wildly, depending on if the bridge is seismically retrofitted or replaced altogether and whether the county opts to build a temporary bridge during the construction phase to accommodate traffic. The temporary bridge would add roughly $100 million to the total cost.

The county first instituted a vehicle registration fee a decade ago to finance the Sellwood Bridge. The Legislature in recent years authorized the county to use those fees on other Willamette River bridges.

According to Pullen, the county still has $132 million in debt obligations on the Sellwood to pay off. Those payments are expected to end in 2033.

Pullen said the vehicle fee is expected to support paying off the Sellwood and financing the Burnside project in the coming decades.-- Andrew Theen

atheen@oregonian.com

503-294-4026

@andrewtheen

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