Matthew Vilhauer does not remember crashing. He remembers getting on his bike and preparing to cross the I-5 Interstate Bridge. And, he remembers waking up the next day, in the hospital, with a concussion and five stitches across his forehead.

Vilhauer is one of the 160 cyclists who – on an average day – brave the bridge’s narrow bike paths to commute across the Columbia River, from Vancouver, WA to Portland, OR. While Portland’s bike facilities are heralded as the nation’s finest, the I-5 Bridge is a dangerous weak spot. The path, arching high over the river, is only four feet wide in parts. Sandwiched between busy car traffic and a long drop into the river, cyclists have little room to maneuver around each other, pedestrians and debris.

Plans are in the works for this section of road connecting Oregon and Washington. The states want to replace the six-lane freeway and its narrow bike path with a “world-class facility” called the Columbia River Crossing (CRC). After years of work, the current plan is to tear down the green side-by-side north-south bridges across the river and in their place, build a $2.6-3.6 billion 10-lane freeway and a light rail line connecting Portland’s MAX to commuters in Vancouver. The project plans to spend $150 million building a 24-foot wide, two-way bicycle/pedestrian path running underneath the car lanes. When the new bridge is built, CRC staff estimates that biking across the river will increase anywhere from 240 to 1700 percent over current levels.

While expanding the path from 4 to 12 feet in each direction is certainly an improvement, bike advocates are worried about the project.

Oregon’s Bicycle Transportation Alliance (BTA) quit the bridge committee in fall of 2009, saying their input was falling on deaf ears. Spoke cards reading “CRC WTF?” are spinning in wheels around town and cyclists have been core members of every major protest of the bridge project so far.

“A covered path has its upside in terms of protection from the elements, but our biggest concern is safety and maintenance,” said Shana Rehberg, who represents Portland on the bridge’s Pedestrian and Bicycle Advisory Committee. “As a woman alone, I want to bike through even short underpasses quickly,” she said. “We’re calling this a world class facility and I don’t know if it will end up being one by our standards.”

A path underneath the car lanes will be noisy and could be dark and dangerous. The bike advisory group is asking the project to commit to strong investments in lighting, cleaning and security.

Rehberg remains optimistic about the process, however. “We might not get everything we ask for, but it’s going to be a lot better than what we have now,” she said.

Former BTA advocate, Michelle Poyourow, wasn’t as optimistic when she quit the bridge planning process last fall. “It became clear that our input was being dismissed,” said Poyourow. For her, a world-class bike facility would be open, close to the water and as far from car sounds and fumes as possible. She envisions a floating dock across the river (like sections of Portland’s Eastbank Esplanade) that would work as a drawbridge when needed.