Portlanders don’t need a traffic study to know these merges are dangerous.
We feel it in our grip on the steering wheel.
We see it in the sudden brake lights.
We experience it in the daily near-misses that somehow don’t make the news.
Two spots stand out as uniquely hazardous:
The west-side Ross Island Bridge on-ramp merge and the I-5 to I-84 East merge at the Marquam Bridge.
Different places, but they share the same flaw: designs that reliably put drivers into conflict with one another.
The Ross Island Bridge Merge
The west-side approach to the Ross Island Bridge forces drivers into tight, high-pressure decisions with limited visibility and little room for correction.
This isn’t a one-off problem or a recent issue. The corridor has appeared repeatedly in crash records and incident archives for years.
The state itself has acknowledged the risk. Portions of the Ross Island Bridge corridor were included in Oregon DOT safety programs that are triggered only when crash patterns exceed what’s considered normal. Safety improvements don’t happen by accident—they follow documented danger.
And yet the core merger problem remains even as talk of a new Major League Baseball stadium is heating up. Since the Ross Island Bridge will be the main direct vehicle link to the west-side, fixing this danger is more urgent than ever.
The Marquam Bridge Merge
If there is a single merge that Portlanders dread, it’s the one from northbound I-5 onto I-84 East at the Marquam Bridge.
This interchange has a long history of crashes, sudden slowdowns, full lane closures, and chain-reaction congestion. The design mixes high speeds, abrupt braking, and last-second lane shifts in a way that all but guarantees rear-end collisions and sideswipes.
ODOT has tried to mitigate the danger with warning systems that flash real-time advisory speeds. That alone tells us the state recognizes the problem.
But warning drivers about a bad situation does not fix the situation itself. Just relax, you are approaching what could be just a merge or merely a tragic end for you and other motorists like you, caught in this infamous I-5 stranglehold.
This Isn’t About Bad Driving
When the same locations produce crashes year after year, across every type of driver and vehicle, the issue is no longer behavior—it’s infrastructure.
Both merges rely on forced, high-risk lane changes with insufficient view to safely change lanes baked into their design. ODOT requires way too many bridge motorists, especially non-native unsuspecting drivers. These two danger spots need to be fixed as soon as possible. Both forced merger areas afford far too little margin for error.
This is not about bad driving. And it’s not a problem signage can fix, as no amount of signage will ever overcome design flaws that amount to motorist traps. Portlanders and unsuspecting visitors deserve better.
Why This Matters Now
Every year these merges stay as they are means more preventable crashes, more injuries, more blocked bridges, and more chaos rippling through the city.
Portland can do better than treating well-known danger zones as unavoidable facts of life, especially as Portland looks to add a Major League Baseball team near the east side of the Ross Island Bridge. As for the Marquam Bridge? It has been a death trap for decades, way too long.
“Purge the merge” isn’t a slogan about inconvenience. It’s a demand to eliminate designs that reliably produce harm.
We know these merges.
The data knows them too.
It’s time to fix them.
If you’ve been injured in one of these crashes, speaking with a Portland car accident attorney can help clarify what happened, how liability is assessed, and whether roadway design played a role in your case.
Get in touch with our attorneys to learn more about your options.
