Bridge closure cut off Mount Rainier. Can changes restore access in a few years?
The fight to restore access across the Carbon Canyon has now reached Olympia.
Both chambers of the Washington state legislature are hosting hearings this week to discuss two bills – one in the Senate and one in the House – that aim to replace the state Route 165 Carbon River Fairfax Bridge, which permanently closed on April 22, 2025.
Senate Bill 5987 has a hearing scheduled for Tuesday, Jan. 27 at 4 p.m. while House Bill 2645 has a hearing scheduled for Wednesday, Jan. 28 at 4 p.m. Both hearings will be in each chamber’s transportation committee.
The News Tribune previously reported about a House bill introduced in December ahead of the legislative session, which would allow the state to declare the bridge closure an emergency.
Since then, the original House bill, HB 2149, has not advanced since being referred to a first reading on Jan. 12. However, it has been replaced with HB 2645 and SB 5987, which are nearly identical.
Jayme Peloli, the mayor of Wilkeson, told The News Tribune she has met with Andrew Barkis, one of the three Republican legislators sponsoring the bill, and is unsure why legislators introduced new bills.
“I think they’re really trying to make this right and I think because of that, there’s a lot of moving pieces to it,” Peloli said.
Josh Penner and Cyndy Jacobsen are the other two sponsors on the house bill.
Peloli told The News Tribune in December that the bill would be a major step forward for allowing the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) to circumvent red tape that would prevent a timely response to the closure.
“It’s basically creating a roadmap for this particular situation to bypass the red tape and get something going on this bridge, and paying for a new one, putting it up and not waiting – because right now, there is no process and that’s why there are no answers,” Peloli told The News Tribune in December.
The closure of the 103-year-old, single-lane bridge has had a huge impact on surrounding communities. The bridge was the only way for residents to access key areas of Mount Rainier National Park from state Route 165, such as Mowich Lake, Tolmie Peak and Spray Park. Local businesses in Wilkeson that relied on the tourist traffic to the park are struggling to stay afloat. Neighbors who live on the other side of the bridge, in the Carbon Canyon, are isolated by the closure. An alternate route has provided limited access for those residents.
Peloli previously asked the Washington State Auditor’s Office to look into the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT)’s lack of repairs to the bridge, which had not been painted since 1988. WSDOT previously told The News Tribune this was due to a lack of funding from the legislature to address the hundreds of bridges across the state that needed repairs.
“Right now, there’s no legislative bill or anything that’s put in place for state-neglected transportation or anything that was neglected by the state,” Peloli told The News Tribune in December. “Essentially, you cannot declare it an emergency – it has to be hit by a truck, or bombed, or some kind of natural disaster. There’s no legislative pieces that support the infrastructure if it’s neglected by the state or it’s the state’s fault. There’s no roadmap to fix that.”
To learn more about testifying in either hearing, visit the websites for the Senate committee or House committee at app.leg.wa.gov.
What will these bills do?
Both bills direct WSDOT to come up with a solution to address the closure on state Route 165 as soon as possible.
“The legislature declares the failure of the Fairfax bridge and its permanent closure on April 22, 2025, created an emergency that requires immediate attention,” the text of both bills says. “The department is directed to restore access via state route number 165 across the Carbon river as soon as possible.”
Barkis, Penner and Jacobsen are sponsoring the House bill.
“My goal is not to have this be an 8- to 10-year project window. It’s too long, the people cannot wait that long to have this bridge replaced,” Barkis told The News Tribune. “We need to expedite that in the next couple of years.”
Barkis pointed to other bridge incidents across the state, including the Aug. 18, 2025 closure of the White River Bridge between Buckley and Enumclaw. Gov. Bob Ferguson declared the closure an emergency on Aug. 29, 2025 and crews were able to reopen the bridge to traffic in October.
“In Washington state, it takes a long time to build projects. It takes a long time to go through all the normal processes,” Barkis said. “What the bill is hoping to do is anywhere they can find to expedite — whether it’s in the planning, the permitting, the environmental — that is what the bill is directing them to find.”
The bill does not name specific processes to expedite, Barkis said, because right now, it just acts as an order to start that process. He did say that the bill’s language could change as it advances through the legislature.
Barkis’ original house bill, which he introduced in December, said the state of emergency would allow WSDOT to use funds from the state’s climate investment account to build a new bridge. The climate investment account stems from the state’s quarterly carbon auctions, where the biggest polluters in the state buy allowances for their emissions. Funds from these auctions go into the account, which supports projects related to climate resilience.
“During the 2025-2027 and 2027-2029 fiscal biennia, the legislature may provide full funding for the emergency replacement of infrastructure on state route number 165 caused by failure to adequately address the impacts of climate,” the text of the original House bill said.
Barkis has since introduced a new house bill that does not list the climate funds as a method of building the new bridge. The bill is otherwise identical to its original counterpart.
The News Tribune asked Barkis why he struck out the language around using climate funding. He said it was because the legislature is thinking of other ways to use climate funds across the state, and because he didn’t want to narrow the funding to one source.
“I’ve had many conversations. Climate Commitment Act dollars are being contemplated in a myriad of ways this budget cycle, and we didn’t want to complicate either those other ongoing negotiations around those dollars,” Barkis said. “We didn’t want to have a specific apportion in this bill because I don’t want to narrow the ability to utilize other resources. So if we’re able to use federal dollars or other resources in the budget, I didn’t want to narrow it down to one source of appropriations from the Climate Commitment Act. So that’s why I agreed to pull that and drop a new bill.”
The News Tribune asked Barkis what other methods of funding legislators are thinking of using if the bills are passed. He said it’s a mix of reallocating state dollars, and asking for federal help because the bridge connects to a national park.
“Sometimes, if we move money around between different accounts, it’s called supplanting. So, you could take money out of a different account and backfill it with, say, Climate Commitment Act money,” Barkis said. “We’re going to be talking with our federal delegation because this is an access point to Mount Rainier. It’s a very iconic, important access point to a national park.”
The Senate Bill, SB 5987, is identical to Barkis’ original bill, which does include language around using climate funds. Republican Phil Fortunato and Democrat T’wina Nobles are sponsoring that bill.
The News Tribune asked Barkis why there are two bills being heard in the legislature, one with language around using climate funds and one without the clause.
“The bill that Senator Fortunato has introduced is basically my bill with the pretense of that appropriation and typically, you wouldn’t run two different kinds of bills, you would have a companion,” Barkis said. “So, I was a little surprised the senate had decided to hear it.”
What would solutions for replacing the bridge look like?
When the bridge first closed, WSDOT launched a $1.5 million planning study that identified seven options for the future of the Carbon Canyon. The seven options had different costs and timing estimates.
In August, WSDOT announced they had narrowed it down to two options:
- Build a bridge replacement north of the bridge’s existing location.
- Tear down the existing bridge without replacing it with a new one, essentially keeping the area inaccessible.
Building a bridge replacement to the north would cost about $160 million and take six years, WSDOT previously told The News Tribune.
The option for tearing down the existing bridge and not building a replacement would cost $70 million to $80 million and take about three years. WSDOT does not currently have a source of funding; these time frames would start from whenever officials were able to identify funding.
Earlier this month, WSDOT announced that it will take about two years to complete the design and environmental review phase, where they will analyze the two options to see which is more feasible.
WSDOT said the 24-month timeline is because they need to collect geotechnical information to see if it’s possible to build a new bridge there. In order to do this, the agency has to navigate hurdles such as the area’s heavy forests, steep hillside and presence of endangered species.
“This timeline is dependent on securing environmental permits to remove some trees in this scenic canyon area for drilling. Our environmental team has identified the location as habitat for Spotted Owl and Marbled Murrelet,” WSDOT said in a Jan. 8, 2026 post on their website. “There are only certain times of the year we can remove trees to avoid nesting for both species. This early engineering work is used to start environmental review for the project.”
If the bill passes, what will happen?
The News Tribune brought up WSDOT’s two-year planning timeline to Peloli and asked what would change if the bills passed. She said that this is an unprecedented situation and it is hard to say.
“This really just gives the secretary of transportation a little more leverage on how to make decisions and where they can adjust timelines. But this has never happened before, where a national park is cut off from state-failed infrastructure,” Peloli said. “So, I don’t think they really know exactly what the implications will be, but it is intended to remediate this process to move it forward quicker.”
Peloli said the specifics would likely be ironed out after the bills’ passage.
“Making it an emergency is the first step and then we will get more people back to the table and have that conversation based on what things we can and cannot move,” Peloli said. “I think if the bill passed with the emergency declaration, I believe that will speed up the process — up to what extent, I’m not sure. I’m hoping [it will be] a three- to four-year window, which is better than a five-to-seven.”
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include comments from Rep. Andrew Barkis.
News Tribune archives contributed to this story.
This story was originally published January 27, 2026 at 2:56 PM.
