Interstate Bridge - Traffic Stop for a Quick Lift 

I've managed to catch it a couple times! But most of the time its already in the middle of a lift. Catching the warning lights and sirens sounding and the lights going to red... that was just too perfectly timed to not record it!

Absolutely Rob; love your channel. Go right ahead! (Sorry for the shaky camera work haha)

Incidentally that's exactly why I wanted to start recording when I saw the bridge lift warning signs. I just don't see enough videos of the actual lift process, especially not from the driver's perspective.

@@jordansean18 AWESOME JordanSean! Thank you so much! (What name should I use for credit, e.g. "(Name) was driving on I-5 and saw the bridge lifting...."?)

@@RoadGuyRob you can just say "Sean Bates". This is not an anonymous account (though i don't have the name always rendering consistently. ) Thanks for asking!

Lol yup. Makes for an easy tripod to carry in the car!

It's apparently to get your attention because the green light doesn't show up until you're already on the downhill toward the gates... And it's a 50mph bridge lol

Oh I get stuck behind it a couple times a year just out of coincidence. Was terrible when it made me late for a test at Clark 😅

@@jordansean18 haha I bet. I was griping to my wife crossing over one today and was like you know what I’m going to look up what that damn thing looks like open 😂

Lol yeah I think he was already trying to stop. If he had kept at speed he definitely would have gotten through just fine. Portland has us all afraid of the light turning red after we enter the intersection because of red light cameras.

Those STOP signs are still there today (though about a year ago someone hit and destroyed one of the 4 main ones). I don't remember when the lights went on, but I wanna say late 90s (about the same time the Hawthorne bridge in Portland switched it's STOP signs out for lights)

@@jordansean18 have they replaced the destroyed sign with a new signal. Can you get a video of the bridge now going north into Washington

I think it's mostly just the bridge operators that blow the horns around here. This bridge has a bunch of horns and sirens all over 😅

@@jordansean18 I think it's both the bridge and vessels, they do that on a lift bridge in Duluth, MN. I believe it's tradition to do this as the bridge tender knows well in advance that the vessel is coming.

no that horn is on the bridge bridges have horns

@@garbagemanbear406 did you see the part where the truck overran the barricade? It's actually more like a Railroad crossing arm. That chain net is what would actually stop a runaway vehicle from diving into the river.

It sure does! I love a sound like that, so that I can hold on to my sweet bonbon when I hear it!❤

3t22

They usually come over from the other side of Hayden Island, so I don't think it was going very fast at the time

Hahaha yeah Rob made sure to clip that part in the intro to his video 😅

Yes it dos

That's actually a retractable chain net barricade that gets lowered down to deck level. That barricade would (hopefully) stop a highway speed truck from going into the water!

Especially useful on the northbound side where you're trying to slow from 50-60mph on a steep downhill.

No kidding! The first time I saw this bridge with all of it's work lights on, I had to take a photo. It's still up on Wikipedia 🥰 (Also I just realized the wiki page is missing the latest updates to the bridge.. guess I got some editing to do!) en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Bridge

@@jordansean18 Can you do another video of this bridge in action 🎬?

@@truckspotting7473 I'm not sure how often it's going up right now. I might see if I can post some of my older videos of it in daytime.

Exactly right! Though in fairness to the trucker, this gate is at the bottom of a steep bump in the bridge

@@jordansean18Ah, I see... Hard for me to tell since I've never been there (in fact I've never been in the States at all. I'm Dutch, thus European, you know), so I gotta take your word for it, and I guess it's indeed pretty hard to get a truck to stop from the situation you describe.

Eh at least he backed up so the barricade could close 😅

Between Oregon and Washington

@@jordansean18 ok, thank you.

Oregon and Washington to let ship pass.That was so cool to watch.

I don't know sirens, but it's a loud little guy about the size and shape of a fire truck siren

@@jordansean18 yeah, i saw it when i went downtown a week or so ago

Columbia river; between Portland, Oregon and Vancouver, Washington

You can learn more about it on Wikipedia, article is just called Interstate Bridge

Air siren is to alert highway drivers, and the horn is blasted as a signal that the bridge is opening so the boats don't sleep on it 😅

I think the bell was just the door chime on my car. I don't recall hearing any bells on this bridge, just the horn and sirens.. and maybe the beeps from the pedestrian gates

@@jordansean18reference to railroad crossing

The air sirens are located near all the highway warning signs, and the horns are near the motor houses on each of the two lift spans (I think? Might be on the control booth between the spans)

Lol to be fair it's a Red Light on an Interstate Freeway 🙃

@@jordansean18 Yep... looks weird to me as a Dutchman to have such limited advance-warnings in place. We have multiple bridges in motorways in The Netherlands, but when they are about to be opened, electronic signs up to something like 900 meters away will light with lowering maximum speeds per portal (distance between them is something like 300 to 400 meters if I remember right), down to 50 km/h max at the last portal as the lights that secure the bridge are the next one will encounter. Usually, an electronic sign with the icon of a bridge opening will light up as well so traffic knows what the speed-reduction is about. Downside is that ever more people decide they can't deal with the wait and speed up significantly. I've had a few close calls with idiots that decided to floor it while I was down to 30 km/h and preparing to stop in front of the barriers that were about to come down. Fortunately, ever more bridges get equipped with ANPR cameras that catch drivers who think the red flashing lights have no meaning at all...

haha, was that you that came through? I was driving home from portland an hour ago and there was a bridge lift.. couldn't see what boat called for it! Sail boat?

@@jordansean18 no it wasn’t me

@@jordansean18 Are you from United Kingdom? (a.k.a the short is UK)

They converted the old highway into an interstate back in the 50s

Between Portland, Oregon and Vancouver, Washington

@@jordansean18 Ok thanks!

And this is after a steep downhill too, which is why they had lights and sirens ahead 😅

Yeah they're currently drafting a new set of proposals. You can follow it at www.interstatebridge.org/

And only about 40% of the bridge pair is the original bridge. The rest was built in the 50s. ...so... like 60-70 years old for the rest haha

You could take I-205 if that survives. Otherwise, the closest bridges are Bridge of the Gods in the Gorge or the Astoria-Megler bridge in Astoria.

@@busterman5557 Also the Lewis and Clark Bridge between Longview, WA and Rainier, OR.

@@hwyfan True. Don't know why I didn't think of that bridge.

It was here before there was an interstate 😉 they doubled and reshaped it but occasionally large vessels require a lift

Lol yeah its a 100 year old bridge that was upgraded and retrofitted to carry the interstate freeway

@@jordansean18 the fact that it basically shuts down the expressway gets to me. Traffic after that will be senseless

@@daeone1514 they pretty much would never dare open it during rush hour. Its been referred to as "the last red light from Mexico to Canada" because its literally the only traffic control on the whole way. ...wait is that still true now that California has interstate customs? *scratches head*

@@jordansean18 yes California has customs on inbound Interstates with stop signs and all that

​@@jordansean18 California still has a state inspection checkpoint for agricultural purposes near its north end and a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol checkpoint near the south end. But the agricultural purpose checkpoint, for the most part, doesn't stop cars for that long (the more detailed inspections are for trucks), and the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol checkpoint is rarely activated.