This morning Mayor Durkan announced that the city will move forward with repairing the cracked main span of the West Seattle Bridge, with the expectation that it will reopen by mid-2022, restore the bridge to its original expected lifetime, and push out building a replacement for up to 40 years. However, she also said that SDOT will start studying an eventual replacement strategy now, and it will approach Sound Transit about jointly building a third span to West Seattle that could incorporate light rail, bicycles and pedestrians.
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West Seattle Bridge cost-benefit analysis released, and the options are clear (even if the report isn’t)
Today SDOT finally released the long-awaited “cost-benefit analysis” on the various options for repair or replacement of the West Seattle Bridge. It’s 89 pages, it’s dense, and it wins the award for “worst executive summary.” SDOT had to publish a “reader’s guide” today to help people make sense of it. But in the end it tells us what we need to know in order to decide whether we should repair or replace the bridge. Here’s what it says.
Continue readingSDOT publishes analysis of “modes of failure” for West Seattle Bridge
Last week SDOT released a consulting engineer’s report that answers the question, “if the West Seattle Bridge were to fail, how exactly would it fail?” The department asked the question to help it plan for emergency procedures — including an evacuation of nearby areas — if it determined that a failure were imminent. While a failure of the West Seattle Bridge would likely not be quite the spectacle that the collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge was, according to the engineers’ analysis it would still be a sight.
Continue readingPedersen requests audit of SDOT bridge conditions and maintenance (updated)
Last Friday, Council member Alex Pedersen sent a letter to the City Auditor, requesting that he complete an audit report “to assess the physical conditions and maintenance investments for the major bridges owned by the Seattle Department of Transportation.” (UPDATE 4/29: at end of story)
Continue readingSDOT gives update on West Seattle Bridge, and the news is not good
This afternoon, the Seattle Department of Transportation gave an update on its efforts to preserve and repair the cracked West Seattle Bridge. There was plenty of bad news, and not much good news.
Continue readingMore on the West Seattle Bridge
This morning SDOT briefed the City Council on the situation with the West Seattle Bridge (see the article I posted over the weekend for an explanation of what closed the bridge). Here is some additional information from that briefing, as communicated by SDOT staff.
Continue readingWhat happened to the West Seattle Bridge?
Earlier this week, SDOT made an emergency announcement that it was closing the high West Seattle Bridge due to an increase in cracking of the concrete in the bridge that, in their estimation, made the bridge unsafe to carry vehicles. They are now working on a deeper analysis and a repair plan. Let’s take a deeper dive into what has happened to the bridge.
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