Engineering and Design work has started on Pedestrian Bridge!

Apr 26

After two rounds of public input and lots of hard work by city staff, we have narrowed down the design options for the new Pedestrian bridge to connect Sherwood East to Sherwood West and the high school.

This bridge will truly be something special. The geography, the need to span not just 99W but Elwert and Kruger roads, has resulted in a design that will be one of a kind. Additionally, this design is the most cost-effective solution because of the efficiency of a tall arch steel structure. Talk about a win-win situation!

We will continue to engage with the community to identify artistic elements for the bridge. Community outreach has placed a strong desire on making the bridge a "Gateway to Sherwood" feature.

When we started working on this project, it was important to me to find ways of paying for this bridge without raising taxes on our residents or businesses. Sherwood sends a lot of taxes outside the City; it is only fair that some of those taxes come back to Sherwood. After extensive lobbying in Salem and, as I call it, "Speed Dating" trips to Salem to advocate with State Senate and House representatives, we were able to secure four million dollars in lottery funds. We also set up a new Urban Renewal Agency to bring in funds to Sherwood from the region without raising taxes on residents. These efforts and others have allowed us to identify all the funding required for the project.

Finding the revenue is only half the battle. We also worked hard to ensure the project was as cost-effective as possible. ODOT initially estimated that this project would cost 20 million dollars. We reduced that to $13 million by getting creative and thinking outside the box. For example, We worked with ODOT on preliminary concepts to build the bridge without modifying 99W by utilizing drop in place pre-fabricated bridge spans. This method is significant; if the project had required modifications to 99W, it would have added high costs because of the required state and federal oversight. Whenever you "Federalize" a project, you can safely assume a 30% increase in prices; we were able to avoid that.

We are also working hard to get this project started quickly; construction inflation has been and will continue to be very high for government construction projects. Therefore, starting this project as soon as possible helps keep costs down.

We hope to have all the engineering work completed this year and find a construction company to build the bridge. Then, if all goes to plan, we could see construction starting next year.

I should note that this is not the only pedestrian crossing project we are working on. We are in the early process of creating a grade-separated crossing at Cedar Creek near Meinecke. This project will require raising 99W to restore the stream corridor and make room for a pedestrian path that would connect the Tualatin Wildlife Refuge and homes to the trail systems on the east side of Sherwood and the middle school. Creating a safe way for kids to cross is critical as far as I am concerned. Unfortunately, for the reasons I noted above, this will be a much more expensive project! More to come on this.

Lots of great work is happening in the City; I am very proud of the city staff and my peers on the council for staying focused on the needs of our community and driving results for Sherwood! I also want to thank Courtney Neron, our House Representative, for her advocacy on our behalf for this project!

Most importantly, I want to thank all of you in the community that has supported this project. Hundreds of you responded to my "Call to Action" on this vital project. That effort resulted in over 300 individual notes to our lawmakers in Salem on the importance of this project. So a big thank you, Sherwoodians, you made this happen!