CLOSURE ALERT: Lander Street Bridge Project closure about to begin

Heads up for Lander Street users in SODO: The longterm closure of two blocks for the Lander Street Bridge project starts soon, SDOT has announced:

S Lander St will close as early as the evening of May 22, 2018 as part of the Lander St Bridge Project. S Lander St will be closed to traffic from 1st Ave S and to 3rd Ave S through early 2020 while the new bridge is being built. Pedestrian and bicycle rider access will be maintained, as will access to all adjacent businesses along S Lander St.

As an alternative to S Lander St, use S Holgate St or S Spokane street to move east and west across the BNSF railroad tracks.

Access to S Lander St from Occidental Ave S, on both the north and south sides of S Lander St, will be closed. This closure will be in place during bridge construction and made permanent once construction is complete.

A small portion of 3rd Ave S, at the south side of S Lander St, starting at the north driveway at Republic, will also close as early as May 22. This closure will be in place until summer 2019. During the closure use 4th Ave S to move north and south and access businesses on S Lander St.

For more information on this project and to sign up for email updates, please visit: seattle.gov/transportation/lander_bridge.htm

If you have questions or concerns, please contact the outreach team at lander_bridge@seattle.gov or 206-256-5450.

Because of the strong WS/SODO connection, the project had long been of interest to people on this side of the river, including the West Seattle Transportation Coalition; the project achieved full $123 million funding last year.

Scott May 17, 2018 (4:47 pm)

Wow that seems like a long time to be closed. Seems like digging under would have been faster.

Jort May 17, 2018 (4:47 pm)

$123 million! That’s quite a bit of United States American Dollars!

Some readers may recall that, a few years ago, the city of Seattle spent $2.2 million on Pronto Bikeshare. It was widely decried as one of the most incredibly frivolous, extravagantly wasteful excesses of Seattle government run completely amok and untethered from the basic concepts of reality in the city’s — if not human civilization’s — entire history. To this day, the name of former SDOT director Scott Kubly is used in place of an expletive in comment sections all around the Puget Sound.

You could buy 55 Pronto Bikeshare Programs for the same amount of money as this bridge. Using the same ratios as the original program, that would mean 2,795 stations holding 27,954 bikes. That’s one station every .03 square miles of Seattle!

Alternatively, you could also just outright buy 246,000 bicycles at $500 a piece for the citizens of Seattle for the price of this one. bridge.

Our roads aren’t cheap, are they?!

The King May 17, 2018 (7:48 pm)

At least we will see an improvement with the money spent. The city alone will spend roughly the same amount on the homeless in 2019 with the new taxes businesses are coughing up while staring at the barrel of local government.
sam-c May 18, 2018 (10:23 am)

….Bike infrastructure. Cyclists will be allowed on the bridge too………..

but hey, if you would prefer the old way, and wait on your bike, for the train to pass, more power to you. But, we already knew that you are better than the scary, ugly monsters in their metal transport machines.

My Two Cents ... May 17, 2018 (6:18 pm)

You are looking at a 4 lane overpass/bridge — it may not be a long bridge, but the same engineering effort needs to occur. It will improve traffic flow from the time of completion onward — lifespan of the project is lengthy. Traffic and freight mobility considerations aren’t really that outlandish given the conflicts between those users and rail.

Per Seattle Times:

” … estimated that bike lanes would cost about $860,000 to build, per mile. While costs vary significantly by project, a nearly complete four-block extension of the Seventh Avenue protected bike lanethrough downtown has cost about $3.8 million to build, or nearly $13 million per mile.”

relative, relative, relative …

dsa May 17, 2018 (6:20 pm)

That would not help solve anything Jort.

chas redmond May 17, 2018 (7:14 pm)

I suppose there’s no carbon accounting for yet another massive concrete structure in SoDo. Lucky we have at least 3 concrete plants within 2 miles south of this project – at least transport carbon levels will be low.

Rusty May 18, 2018 (10:47 am)

https://judithcurry.com/2018/04/24/impact-of-recent-forcing-and-ocean-heat-uptake-data-on-estimates-of-climate-sensitivity/

Rico Maloney May 17, 2018 (7:23 pm)

I compare this project to the practice of bridge building during war time. The cost and time it is going to take to build this baby provides a stark contrast. Of course, war time construction is motivated by different needs than construction in Seattle. One is urgent, and approached as though time lost matters. The other is done on intentionally slower timelines because it means more money for the project. Contractors, engineers, accountants, and inspectors all gotta get “theirs.”. Who among them cares about the impacts of lenghty construction projects on the lives of the members of the community?

TJ May 17, 2018 (8:08 pm)

I’m not sure I even know what “carbon accounting” is, but what does it have to do with a long overdue project that will seriously alieve a major traffic headache? My business is in Sodo and I can tell you thru personal experience that the idling of cars sitting forever for mile long freight trains, Amtraks, & Commuter trains will help emissions if people are actually concerned about that. Plus, traffic there is going to jump dramatically once the tunnel opens and people avoid it for 1st & 4th Avenues. And to the comment about the length of this project, the process here is indeed glacially slow. Not just construction, but the planning process. While I hate to point to China for anything positive, one thing they know how to do is expedite a project. This would take a year to build there, and I’m not talking shoddy construction. It is well known in the construction world that China’s major cities are building world class projects in a unmatched timeline

smittytheclown May 18, 2018 (7:41 am)

I wish they would just admit that the “costco cut” (Horton?) has become a prime East to West corridor now. Re-pave it and add a left turn arrow to the WSB 1st avenue south on ramp.

Timeslid May 18, 2018 (12:36 pm)

Looks like they closed off the “Costco Cut” permanently and rerouted everyone one block north. Not sure how this helps anything.
- smittytheclown May 18, 2018 (5:06 pm)
  
  Yikes, really?
  - Timeslid May 18, 2018 (6:57 pm)
    
    Yup! Confirmed today.

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