New West Seattle Bridge lights already out; City Light investigating

| Utilities | West Seattle news

(Screengrab from Wednesday night – note the unlit section on the left)
Several people have asked us in the past few days about a string of streetlights that have gone dark on the westbound high-rise West Seattle Bridge. It’s particularly noticeable because the bridge lights were changed to LEDs just a few weeks back, and if anything, those bulbs are supposed to last a lot longer than old-fashioned ones. We checked with Seattle City Light today, and spokesperson Peter Clarke says they’re working on it: “We have a crew assigned to check the lights out tonight when it’s dark so they can ID exactly which lights are out.” We’ll follow up again next week to see what they found out and what will be done about it.

P.S. We drove this stretch mid-evening Friday and noted that the lights are out on the north side, starting at the exit from SB 99 to the westbound bridge, until the peak of the high-rise.

trickycoolj January 10, 2014 (3:59 pm)

Last year at the West Marginal off ramp from 99 a large chunk was out. Reported it and it turned out to be a copper wire theft. Here’s hoping that isn’t the case for our brand new LEDs.

MaxB January 10, 2014 (4:31 pm)

Maybe they accidentally used twice the amount of LEDs than they were supposed to.

T January 10, 2014 (4:38 pm)

I noticed this last night, almost the entire eastern rise of the westbound direction.

Genesee Hill January 10, 2014 (4:59 pm)

It would be cool to put 50 trillion volts through publicly owned copper wire. Plus 50 trillion amps. Plus 50 trillion watts. Plus 50 trillion ohms. You get the picture.

DTK January 10, 2014 (5:03 pm)

If you haven’t watched the Mike Judge film Idiocracy, don’t bother. Seattle has turned into the real life production.

trickycoolj January 10, 2014 (5:33 pm)

DTK– Sponsored by Carl’s Jr.

smokeycretin9 January 10, 2014 (5:42 pm)

I hate Tweakers.

Guy January 10, 2014 (6:00 pm)

Is this a Journey song?

E92 TiAg January 10, 2014 (9:53 pm)

I’m not speculating this is a copper wire theft but if it is they should consider replacing it with aluminum wiring. It would be a little larger in gauge but the scrap value is much lower. The copper wire theft is quickly becoming an epidemic as of late.

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