Tacoma street East of the bridge wasn't gonna get any wider no matter how many lanes wide they made the bridge (which is mostly one lane each way). It would make no sense to widen the bridge beyond the width of Tacoma.
The road to the east of the bridge narrows to one lane each direction for 100 yards, then returns to two lanes wide. And there is clearly room to make that hundred yards two lanes wide.
And worse, eventually PDX is going to wake up and realize they need to widen key surface streets to address their traffic hell. That will be expensive enough on it's own. But after you already blew $300M on a bridge to ensure it will always be the bottle-neck, it will be far more expensive.
And then returns to two lanes, rinse, repeat. Not sure how you think widening Tacoma would happen. You'd need to tear down most houses and businesses that line the street. I live in Sellwood, trust me, the bridge is not the bottleneck.
I've driven over it many times, it's clearly a bottle neck. And read my post again, the worst part is they spent hundreds of million on a bridge that will become THE bottleneck if they ever try to improve traffic flow in Sellwood itself.
And worse, eventually PDX is going to wake up and realize they need to widen key surface streets to address their traffic hell. That will be expensive enough on it's own. But after you already blew $300M on a bridge to ensure it will always be the bottle-neck, it will be far more expensive.