Clackamas Water Environment Services’ 82nd Drive Pedestrian Bridge Improvement Project

About the Program

Category: Risk and Emergency Management (Best in Category)

Year: 2020

The 82nd Drive Pedestrian Bridge, which connects the cities of Gladstone and Oregon City, reopened on April 10, 2020 to play an important role in Clackamas County’s future. After years of planning and design, the seismically-retrofit bridge is now capable of withstanding a magnitude 9.0 earthquake. Seismologists warn that such a quake will strike the region sometime within the next 50 years. The bridge is now the only span in the area up to seismic code.The bridge can now provide passage across the Clackamas River for emergency vehicles and other appropriate personnel should such a catastrophic earthquake occur. Already a vital piece of infrastructure, the strengthened bridge also provides stronger protections for sanitary sewer pipes, a gas line and a link of the Clackamas Broadband Express fiber-optic communications system that it carries across the river. Owned by Clackamas Water Environment Services, the bridge greatly bolsters Clackamas County’s ability to recover from and adapt to a disastrous earthquake, which could include a dramatically-altered landscape with roads that are no longer navigable. County leaders can now develop emergency plans that include a bridge that will be able to provide vital passage across the river should such a cataclysmic event happen.