29 Replies to "About that West Seattle Bridge backup this morning..."

• CandrewB April 21, 2012 (12:12 pm)

  Left WS around 7:45, the lanes were already cordoned off but no other activity present. Traffic was fine due to the hour. Came back at 9:30, SDOT was on the scene but I could not tell what they were doing; looks like they were devising a plan at the time. Traffic was backed up past 35th. I felt bad for the people heading Eastbound; looked like they were going to be there for a while.

• Hormel April 21, 2012 (12:15 pm)

  They were pulling up the barrels as I finally got through. Thanks for the lack of warning SDOT, an hour of my life I won’t get back. I easily could have taken a different route but turned onto the West Seattle Bridge and it stopped. News reports said it was a stalled car in the middle lane which was not true.

  Only made more enjoyable by getting stuck behind the painting crew coming back in 3 hours later.

• emcat8 April 21, 2012 (12:19 pm)

  I left with plenty of time to get to my guest instructor appointment at UW, and diligently checked here and traffic cams. They weren’t doing anything at all as we crawled by, which is what really pisses me off. Of course I was late – thanks SDOT.

  • WSB April 21, 2012 (12:24 pm)

    I just got a response from SDOT, which insists it was the earlier collision, not the painting crew, who they say were held up too. Adding to the story … TR

• Cheryl April 21, 2012 (12:25 pm)

  Two lanes out & two lanes in. Living in West Seattle is a dream… Until you want to go anywhere else. What a nightmare.

• sam-c April 21, 2012 (12:51 pm)

  I disagree the traffic was caused by the collision.
  we got on at delridge, and SDOT had blocked off ALL but one lane from the Delridge on ramp up to the crest of the bridge (where the solid (not dashed) bus striping begins). this was at 9:00 am. there was NO SIGN of an accident as we made it over the bridge and on 99N. when we returned at 10ish, the traffic looked much worse going eastbound – standstill (the traffic on the low bridge looked bad too)
  the funniest traffic we saw today though, was a lineup of cars trying to turn east on Andover, headed up to pigeion point from Delridge. Never seen that before! must have been a giant earth day work party at the greenbelt. traffic everywhere you go ! :)

• CandrewB April 21, 2012 (12:53 pm)

  BS, they had cones out reducing two lanes to one and one of those electronic arrow signs directing you into the left lane. That is what backed up traffic. I used to give SDOT the benefit of the doubt, that stopped a couple of years ago.

• CandrewB April 21, 2012 (12:59 pm)

  I didn’t see any crashed cars, no tow trucks, no cops on the scene, only SDOT crews talking amongst themselves as I drove by. Did they really say an accident was the cause?

• ML April 21, 2012 (1:26 pm)

  I totally disagree with the message that a accident caused the backup. I was east bound on the bridge at 8:30 this morning as SDOT was haphazardly blocking lanes, all lanes were blocked but one which traffic was just barely squeezing by, absolutely NO sign of an accident. Once i made it past the ” SDOT mess” at the Delridge merge it was smooth sailing onto 99. Cruised back from Ballard at 10:00 and felt bad for anyone heading east as traffic was backed all the way up past 35th. WITHOUT A DOUBT this was caused by poor planning and execution on SDOT’s part.

• flynlo April 21, 2012 (2:18 pm)

  ~7:00 AM SPD car was blocking left most lane just east of the Delridge Way gore point. He was protecting a Harley Davidson Motorcycle parked in that lane. SDOT had the arrow truck blocking right lane west of the police car so that you had to make an S turn to get thru. Looked like they were in the process of placing cones. Further east, SPD was blocking the right most lane after the Delridge Way gore point (Hi way 99 exit lane). It was protecting an SUV. Seriously doubt that SPD was blocking those lanes for the fun of it! Looked like a combination of an accident & SDOT preparing for some type of maintenance.

• Valerie April 21, 2012 (2:34 pm)

  If the crash was just before 7 am then I call BS. I came up Delridge about 8:40 and traffic was stopped on the on ramp up to The Bridge – and I don’t mean crawling. Stopped. No tail lights, no inching forward. Once things started moving again, there were crews trying like mad to divert all the traffic coming up the Delridge onramp ALL THE WAY across to the ONE lane that was open, immediately as drivers got to the bridge deck proper. It was a cluster****, to put it mildly. I’m not buying it, SDOT.

• me on 28th Ave SW April 21, 2012 (2:39 pm)

  LOL. Does SDOT not realize the WS community is watching and swiftly communicating with each other? Sure it was an accident………..

• lee April 21, 2012 (3:24 pm)

  let’s petition for a halt to new apartment/condo construction until the tunnel is finished.

• johnnyblegs April 21, 2012 (3:33 pm)

  This is all BS. You could see the cones set up from a mile away diverting traffic down to one lane. Do they think no one is watching? Seems someone from SDOT doesn’t want to lose their job so they start pointing the finger elsewhere. Familiar?

• chas redmond April 21, 2012 (4:13 pm)

  Better than posting your comments here is copying exactly what you said here on the WSBlog and sending that comment to:

  peter.hahn@seattle.gov

  Pete is the director of SDOT and I am willing to bet that if he were to receive even a quarter of the messages posted here on the blog that there would be rapid and reasonable SDOT response. Sheridan is a spokesperson – no power to do anything except talk.

• West Seattle Codger April 21, 2012 (4:41 pm)

  We were fortunate enough to be attending the Duwamish cleanup at T-107. We saw the traffic on the bridge at a standstill and because it was West Seattle there were no traffic reports on the radio, thanks a lot KOMO traffic on the fours, for nothing. WS seems to be the red headed stepchild when it comes to any information, news coverage, except for this blog thank you very much, or anything at all unless there are fatalities. SDOT is a very bad joke.

• NotMe April 21, 2012 (5:37 pm)

  Why would someone at SDOT lose a job if they routed two lanes to one in order to paint new lines? You have the statement from SDOT, you even have a witness stating the accident of a motorbike and another with an SUV. Listen, scary people: stop being so angry at every single thing.

• Marty April 21, 2012 (6:20 pm)

  It was a combination SDOT closing lanes and SPD protecting a motorcycle rider that had to lay his bike down In the left lane against the jersey barriers just beyon the first on ramp in the middle of the bridge..

  Rider was fine and there was an SUV just beyond the Delridge on ramps with its flashers on. Don’t know if they stopped to help or were involved. Rider was up and talking to the cop when I passed.

  SDOT had the right lane closed just before the first on ramp at the time.

• scubasteve April 21, 2012 (6:25 pm)

  Ugh…I went by at 7:30am. There was no accident, response, etc. Really? Blame it on an earlier accident? At 7:30am, you had already shut down a lane for painting. Be more creative! LAME. SDOT, stop screwing West Seattle!

• bolo April 21, 2012 (6:50 pm)

  RE: The Phantom Accident

  7:40AM was when I passed eastbound on the West Seattle Bridge. No sign of any accident. Possibly could have been a phantom, I don’t know, can’t rule it out, my other-dimension perceptive abilities are not so developed. Middle lane was blocked off at the hi-rise for painting. Flashing arrows suggested squeezing by on the left (jammed up) but a better method for me was to divert to the right, lots more open space there.

• Sophista-tiki April 21, 2012 (7:18 pm)

  I took the lower bridge as i always do and of course ther was a *&$@n train just sitting on the tracks blocking my escape on spokane. whats new.

• west seattlite April 21, 2012 (8:01 pm)

  I was headed eastbound over the bridge this morning at 8:15. There was no accident and no cones. It was smooth sailing. Was I in an alternate universe? I actually thought to myself, “I wish my commute was like this everyday.”

• Johnston April 21, 2012 (9:03 pm)

  Took 20 minutes to get from 35th the the cones and blinking sign at 9:35am. Advance warning of this would have been very helpful.

• Mannamc April 21, 2012 (10:31 pm)

  I got on the bridge at 35th at 8:45 and didn’t get through the mess until about 40 minutes later. It really didn’t seem to have anything to do with any earlier problems near I5. The problem was both lanes from 35th merged to one, then the traffic coming up from Avalon had to merge into that one lane, and then everyone from Delridge had to merge into that one lane. Triple merge = disaster! After the merge it was free and clear all the way to the I5 onramp.

• EF April 22, 2012 (8:24 am)

  I second mannamc, I’m sure there was an accident earlier, but this was obviously due to all lanes reduced to one. A little warning at the top of 35th would have saved me a lot of time. Thanks to the car who slowly drove along before the merge(coming down the hill), not letting people drive to the front of the line up for a late merge.(8:45). If you are driving on a two lane road and you see a big line up of cars in one lane and the other lane is open, don’t play dumb just get in line. Don’t put your blinker on and slowly drive to the front as if you just can’t find a spot to merge.

• Jake April 22, 2012 (9:33 am)

  Cheryl’s comment inspired this haiku:

  Two lanes in and out
  West Seattle is a dream
  As long as you stay

• Not my fault April 22, 2012 (1:24 pm)

  I was one of the many unfortunate people stuck in the backup 10:00am. I came from the Alaska Junction and very shortly after we started down the hill (before the footbridge), everything came to a halt. I was less than a block from 35th and I had checked the sign showing the times prior to getting on the bridge and there was nothing noting a delay, but there I was sitting in a backup. I assumed there must have been accident, but after the first turn I could see there was no accident, only arrows making everyone merge to the left lane. Everything from the Delridge gore point on was free flowing without any delay, however it took us over 20 minutes just to get down to the Delridge gore point because of all the cars trying to merge to one lane. There was nothing on the radio traffic reports about an accident at that time, there were no police, ambulance or tow trucks anywhere and at that time, I also did not see any work crews in that area. Perhaps there was an accident earlier, but not at that time. For Rick Sheridan to say it was the fault of an earlier collision and not SDOT’s fault is incorrect (at least at 10am) when we could clearly see was the fault of being directed to just one lane. I always check the West Seattle blog before leaving West Seattle for traffic updates and there was nothing about this re-striping and the lane closures (I had been checking for several days in advance for any notices). When I read this morning that Rick was blaming the backup on an earlier accident and not taking responsibility for not getting the information out there and letting us know of the potential delays that were clearly caused by the lane closure, I was very irritated. They need to take the time to let everyone know when there will be work crews in the area (because it ALWAYS adversely affects traffic on the bridge when they do anything like that). I have also e-mailed Peter

  • WSB April 22, 2012 (1:32 pm)

    NMF – I apologize again that we didn’t have a heads-up (although again, SDOT at this point is contending the painting crew did not cause a backup) – I have to say that the SDOT communications department has lately been going almost overboard with information about closures, changes, etc., and all I can think of here is that maybe THEY weren’t told about the painting work – as I told them in our exchange yesterday, even if it wasn’t expected to cause problems, it would have been something for us to mention, so people could have felt forewarned when they wound up behind a painting truck “oh yeah, I knew about this.” We have received advisories for far less (single-lane temporary closures during non-rush hours). They have an entire city to deal with, but here we have the unique factors of (a) a major chokepoint and (b) a 24/7 news operation that takes traffic very seriously, BECAUSE we have that chokepoint. The “traffic management center,” which sends advisories on traffic trouble during weekday rush hours, is not staffed on weekends “because of budgetary resources,” SDOT says. – TR

• Not my fault April 22, 2012 (2:08 pm)

  TR, I was not blaming you in any way. We always go to you first for all our news and traffic information and you have never failed us. I was irritated that SDOT did not let us know what was going on since any work done on the bridge screws things up and instead blamed hours of back ups on an earlier accident. I missed a seminar I had paid a lot of money for by being late (I thought giving myself an extra half an hour to get there was enough, but I was wrong) and I had made a point to check the traffic situation out before leaving, so if I had known about it, I would have gone a different way or left much earlier. You guys are rock stars and have saved us a lot of time and aggravation with the information you provide and this was in no way a criticism of you or the blog. You are the best and we count on you almost daily for the happenings in and around West Seattle and you have never failed us, so sorry if it sounded that way!

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