A road sign alerting drivers to a change in traffic patterns is seen on northbound Naito Parkway Sunday, Jan. 27, 2019. Construction on the Multnomah County Central Courthouse occurs in the background.
Bryan M. Vance / OPB
Starting Monday, Jan. 28, congestion can be expected around the Southwest Madison Street entrance of the Hawthorne Bridge and the surrounding area due to construction of the new Multnomah County Central Courthouse.
From 8 p.m. Monday night to 6 a.m. Tuesday morning, the Southwest Madison Street entrance ramp onto Hawthorne Bridge, heading eastbound, will be closed to vehicle, bicycle and pedestrian traffic.
After Tuesday morning, Southwest Madison’s left lane will reopen to let traffic leaving downtown onto the bridge. The right lane will remain closed until at least late February. Multnomah County communications coordinator Mike Pullen said the construction will certainly cause congestion.
“In the afternoon leaving downtown, the Hawthorne Bridge is going to be more congested, and for most of the day, traffic can get by on one lane, but there’s a couple hours a day, like 4 to 6 p.m. on weekdays, where it’s probably going to back up traffic for a block or two into downtown,” Pullen said.
An alternative to using Southwest Madison to enter the Hawthorne Bridge eastbound is to come up northbound from Naito Parkway, though that’s not convenient for most people leaving downtown, Pullen said.
The construction on Southwest Madison Street is to remove the remnants of an old on-ramp that closed in 1997, and make way for a staircase slated to be built from the Hawthorne Bridge ramp to the sidewalk on Naito Parkway, in front of the new courthouse.
“The part that is being worked on now is a little piece of ramp that connected up onto the Hawthorne Bridge. There’s extra width that the ramp used that’s no longer needed and it’s kind of in the way of the stairs they want to build,” Pullen said.
Along with the closures to the Southwest Madison Street entrance to Hawthorne Bridge, there will also be closures to southbound and northbound lanes of Southwest Naito Parkway, which runs underneath the bridge, Pullen said. Though, he added, Naito Parkway will be open during peak hours.
Signs alerting drivers and pedestrians to road and sidewalk closures due to the ongoing construction of the Multnomah County Central Courthouse in downtown Portland are visible on Sunday, Jan. 27, 2019.
Bryan M. Vance / OPB
“Those [closures] will only happen at night from mid– to late-February. Then there’ll be a few lane closures during off-peak hours — after the morning commute but before the evening commute,” Pullen said.
Construction on the Southwest Madison Street ramp is expected to be completed in mid-May of this year. The new Multnomah County Central Courthouse is expected to be completed by 2020.
