The City of Bend and the Oregon Department of Transportation are putting the finishing touches on designs for the Hawthorne Overcrossing, a planned $33 million bicycle and pedestrian bridge to span U.S. Highway 97 in the middle of town at Hawthorne Avenue.
The agencies plan to share new details about the bridge landing space, nearby street connections and other aesthetic features later this month. ODOT and the City plan to host an open house on Tuesday, Oct. 20, from 4:30 pm to 7 pm at Open Space Event Studios. An online open house will also launch that day and stay on ODOT’s website until Nov. 3.
According to a City webpage on the project, design work will continue into 2027 before beginning construction in the fall. The bridge is expected to be completed in fall 2028.
The footbridge is the centerpiece of an effort to improve bicycle and pedestrian crossings over f U.S. Highway 97, also known as the Bend Parkway and the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway, which form a major transportation barrier splitting the city east and west. It’s also highly anticipated by developers and early investors in the Bend Central District, an old industrial area just east of the Bend Parkway, where the City envisions dense redevelopment.
The City plans to use $26 million in federal funding, $6 million in state funding and $1 million from a transportation bond voters approved in 2020.
Exactly what the bridge will look like — and exactly how much it will cost — has been a question.
In August 2024, the Bend City Council voted to move forward with a bridge featuring a tall steel tower splitting the highway and holding the bridge deck with cables. But last fall, the City realized that concept would cost $5 million more than initially expected. So the City pivoted to a bridge featuring steel trusses shaped to emulate the Cascade mountains. It’s expected to cost between $30 million and $37 million.
That includes the cost not just for the bridge itself, but for redesigning Hawthorne Avenue on either side of where the bridge lands. Preliminary designs presented by the City in January show plans to build new promenade-style streets with heavy landscaping, wide pedestrian and bicycle paths and one-way car traffic.
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I’m still not exactly sure why we’re spending multiple millions of dollars on a bridge for bicycles, when they ride wherever they want in this town. And nobody seems to care.
What we need is a southern Crossing vehicle bridge to alleviate traffic and allow for movement For the traffic that we have, the traffic that we will have with all the expanded housing and when there is a forest fire.
The City of Austin, Texas was somehow able to complete a long desired and outstanding pedestrian bridge over the central city lake for just under $25 million with unified community support, while the City of Bend wants to use over $30 million to build a much more simple and speculative pedestrian bridge to basically nowhere. Key phrase in this article-“highly anticipated by developers.” Who is running the show around here?
Check out the Wishbone Bridge and Unity Underpass in Austin to see what $25 million can do.