(The Center Square) - A lawmaker from Vancouver, Washington, who sits on the bi-state legislative committee for the Interstate Bridge Replacement Project is calling for a reset of design and construction plans.
“We found out in late March with Governor Ferguson in a press conference…the cost of the I-5 Interstate Bridge is going to be on the order of $13 billion to $15 billion,” said Rep. John Ley, R-Vancouver in an interview Tuesday with The Center Square.
The IBR is a bi-state project to replace the aging Interstate 5 bridge over the Columbia River between Portland, Oregon and Vancouver, Washington.
As Ley noted in a Sept. 6 opinion piece in Clark County Today, it was September 2020 the Washington State Department of Transportation signed a $44 million contract with WSP Global on the IBR.
When the federal Department of Transportation issued a Record of Decision on July 1, the IBR had spent $321.7 million to achieve that milestone.
“The ROD came roughly two and one half years later than originally promised with a seven-fold increase in cost. The lucrative contract appears to have been amended at least seven times,” wrote Ley in his op-ed.
After Ferguson acknowledged the exploding cost for the project, Ley said planners said it would be built in phases.
“The IBR team came out and said, “well, there's not enough money to build all of this, so we are going to break it into phases." And phase one, they are proposing would be between a $5.5 and a $7.5 billion dollar project. The problem is, the IBR team, their engineers and financial people, are saying we are still short by $2.2 billion,” Ley said.
The Vancouver lawmaker likens the ballooning project to Boston’s “Big Dig” or California High Speed Rail debacle.
“It is a case study in consultants getting rich,” said Ley.
“You promised you could do this for $44 million. You signed on the dotted line. It's now being delayed, and we reward them with seven times the amount of money they said they would do it. That's ridiculous in and of itself,” Ley told The Center Square.
He was referring to what program administrators now say costs will be, adding that administrators are also guaranteed they will make a very good return.
Ley is not the only lawmaker on the bi-state committee voicing displeasure about the delays and skyrocketing cost estimates.
“I want a date and I want a report, or I would say your group is not doing its work,” said Oregon state Rep. Thuy Tran (D-Northeast Portland), during a Dec. 15, 2025 meeting when project staffers failed to deliver new cost estimates and timelines.
Oregon Journalism Project revealed weeks later that IBR staffers had new cost estimates as of August 2025 but did not produce them.
“Frankly, it is shocking to realize that they lied, on the record, not only to me, but to the committee and, by extension, the public at large,” Tran told OJP.
In addition to a new bridge, the project includes stretching a MAX light rail line to Vancouver and rebuilding several on- and off-ramps extending five miles along Interstate 5.
Ley is pressing fellow members of the bi-state committee to reassess the entire project.
“You would not start building a house if you didn't have enough money set aside to build the whole thing. And in this case, you're looking at about 35% short of the money to build just phase one. It’s just ridiculous.”
He noted that some of the federal funding for the project could be in jeopardy if they don’t scale things way back and prove to the Trump administration that extending rail across the bridge is necessary.
Ley is not convinced they need rail across the bridge.
The Center Square reach out to the IBR program for comment on Ley’s criticisms, but did not receive a response before publication.
The next bi-state meeting of IBR lawmakers will be held Thursday, September 17 from 1- 3 p.m. and broadcast on TVW.
