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TONIGHT: West Seattle Bridge discussions @ town hall, HPAC meeting

April 22, 2020 9:45 am
|      34 COMMENTS
 |   Neighborhoods | West Seattle Bridge Safety Project | West Seattle news

Reminder of two events tonight addressing the West Seattle Bridge closure:

DIGITAL TOWN HALL: City Councilmembers Lisa Herbold and Alex Pedersen are hosting this, with an SDOT preentation and community Q&A, 5-6:30 pm. You need to RSVP here; the link will be sent about an hour in advance to everyone who RSVPs. (Update: 2,200+ as of this morning, according to Herbold’s office.) That link also will explain how to ask a question. Go here to RSVP. (4:22 pm update: Livestream will be here.)

HPAC MEETING: 7-8 pm, the community council for Highland Park, Riverview, and South Delridge – neighborhoods now carrying the weight of bridge-detour traffic – will meet online, with an SDOT guest. Unlike the city-organized town hall, there is an attendance limit for this meeting, so they ask that only people from those three communities participate. Details are here.

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34 Replies to "TONIGHT: West Seattle Bridge discussions @ town hall, HPAC meeting"

  • James April 22, 2020 (9:54 am)

    We must organize! Two years is absolutely unacceptable! All SDOT projects should be put on hold until bridge complete! Let’s stand together West Seattlites!

    • WSeaDOT April 22, 2020 (10:43 am)

      I’ve got news for you on this two years concept. If you think a replacement bridge is going to open on 1/1/2022 (or even 730 days from today) you are setting yourself up for further disappointment.

      • mark sahs April 22, 2020 (3:32 pm)

        Why aren’t you bringing in the best consultants on bridge repair in the country.  You seem to be in no hurry to set up your so-called “advisory board”.  Then you stated in the city council meeting that you are only going to “bounce ideas off them” once it is formed.  Are you kidding me?  Seems like you do not want the real experts to view and understand how we got in this mess and the best way to fix it.  You are being anything – but transparent!!

        • WSJ April 22, 2020 (4:24 pm)

          They *are* bringing in the best engineering consultants (WSP) which they’ve talked about repeatedly. The fact that you don’t know this shows that the problem isn’t transparency… it’s that you aren’t educating yourself about what’s happening. 

    • Brian Feusagach April 22, 2020 (10:58 am)

      Insisting on a faster schedule will come with trade-offs – what do you want to sacrifice?  The most critical objectives of the bridge replacement will be: 1) To complete the replacement in the shortest possible time, 2) To complete the replacement at the lowest possible cost 3)To achieve the best quality of workmanship, and 4) To execute the replacement with the highest possible safety record. It is impossible to achieve all four of these objectives concurrently because they are conflicting (self-excluding). To complete the turnaround in the shortest time, overtime costs may soar and quality and safety may be impacted. To complete the turnaround at the lowest cost, the duration and quality may be impacted. To achieve the best quality, duration and cost may be impacted. To achieve the highest safety, costs may be impacted.
      Time and cost are always critical and require special attention. These two important objectives can be controlled through detailed planning and scheduling — which is
      what SDOT is doing.  The cost of repairing or replacing a bridge that failed half-way through its expected life span would be a challenge when times are good since it is very unlikely Seattle has budgeted for this yet. But now the cost is even more problematic as the coronavirus crisis could negatively impact Seattle’s budget to the tune of $210M – $300M (per Seattle Times). Granted Seattle won’t be footing the entire bill but other sources of funds are equally as stressed now. There are plenty of solutions that are being discussed here, both interim and long-term  – all of which could be part of on-going trade studies to find the best solution possible that satisfies all the objectives  and not just one (time).   Our job as WS citizens is to ensure SDOT and other decision makers consider all options and have an open/transparent process.

      • Glenda April 22, 2020 (1:17 pm)

        Don’t worry Brian- they will consider all options for at least a couple of years before attempting to resolve the situation. 

    • Johny April 22, 2020 (12:32 pm)

      “We must organize! Two years is absolutely unacceptable! ” – hilarious! Stop the moon and sun from blocking my sight of the stars! NOW!!!The structure is failing for reasons yet unknown and under investigation. The solution must be found, implemented and proven to work before any traffic is allowed back on the bridge. Rushing anything is the worst that can be done to both short term and permanent solution of the issue. Letting the specialists to work it through in solid, unhurried and most reasonable manner is the best we can and we should do about the bridge now. And keep in mind the girders are a confined space with very limited access and if you see 5-8 trucks on the bridge on a good day that is probably all the the wok force that can be fit there and made effective.  The only time you may see more workers on the bridge will be when they start to build the shoring and/or decide to replace the entire structure.

    • AMD April 22, 2020 (2:10 pm)

      You don’t have to accept it personally, but it’s gonna happen.  Putting pothole patching on hold for 2-3 years (minimum) because you want the bridge done “first” is ridiculous.  If you just meant big projects, I’m curious which project SDoT has said is more important than the bridge and the bridge has to wait for to be completed.  All indications are that SDoT understands the seriousness of the situation and is going to address it as quickly as possible so I’m really trying to get a better understanding of where you’re coming from.

  • Paul Pyscher April 22, 2020 (11:37 am)

    I want to know who will be held accountable? So one day they say “yea there’s a problem with the bridge” the next day they shut it down. The old question “who knew what when”.And now it might fall down on the low bridge?Who in the world allowed all of these condos and apartments to go up when the bridge is failing? Who made the money off that?What kind of botched maintenance and inspection regimen did we have for the bridge to allow this?Bring the construction company and city officials to account.These are just a few questions I think many of us want answered tonight.Thanks

    • ColumbiaChris April 22, 2020 (1:43 pm)

      If you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time you should already have the answers to most of those questions.

    • KM April 22, 2020 (2:27 pm)

      I would like to speak to all the managers.

  • Mia Caballero April 22, 2020 (11:42 am)

    Obviously this will take time. What is needed is logical, reasonable, alternative options for the volume of traffic getting out of west Seattle. Most importantly, that they plan to expand the bridge capacity given the recent addition of multi family housing over the past year here. Planning on only “repairing it“ is shortsighted as they are usual. 

    • sw April 22, 2020 (1:26 pm)

      What good does it to expand the bridge capacity when if feeds into the same network of roads? More lanes will not alleviate the backup to I-5 in the mornings, nor the backup due to the 99 bus lane fiasco.  You would have to increase capacity everywhere downstream to have any meaningful impact. Otherwise, you’re just creating a bigger merge point.  The best thing that could come of this is to have a lot of the soon-to-come “temporary” measures become permanent, offering more ways off The Rock than we had prior to the bridge closure.

    • Tsurly April 22, 2020 (2:55 pm)

      Take the bus, water taxi, ride a bike, or walk.

  • trickycoolj April 22, 2020 (12:19 pm)

    I highly recommend signing up for SDOT’s emails, today’s email was a really thorough explanation of how the joint on pier 18 works (with diagrams and photos), what’s wrong with it, and how they plan to replace it.  They also explained why this work is critical to determining if it’s the main cause for cracking or if when fixed the bridge still cracking at the current speed.  It was well written in layman’s terms so that you don’t need to be structural engineer to understand it.  Can’t recommend it enough.  Maybe it will help folks understand why you’re not going to get detailed timelines in days.  This is not software engineering, there’s not going to be an agile sprint with a bug fix in a few days.  Structural analysis can’t be accomplished in a few days when lives are at stake.

  • RT April 22, 2020 (12:55 pm)

    This is not a time to invest energy in finger pointing, assigning “blame”, or trying to trace the ultimate factors accountable for this failure.  Although root cause analysis is important to prevent a repeat in any future structure, let’s focus on optimal solutions that can be achieved with what will likely be diminished resources, and delays that are out of our control.   Many of us were opposed to the increased density and urban village concept pushed in West Seattle and articulated our concerns twenty years ago, and annually for last two decades.  Key among those  was the fact that this peninsula is dependent upon a bridge to link it to major north and south arterials. We weren’t able to convince anyone and now the reasons for our concerns are, unfortunately, validated.  So it’s time to work on best possible  solutions given the facts in front of us, and trying to mitigate the negative impact on alternative routes we will all be taking to try to get from “here” to “there”.

    • sw April 22, 2020 (4:08 pm)

      You must be new here.  Finger-pointing, assigning of blame, armchair civil engineering, bridge design, traffic mitigation, urban planning and city budget management are time-honored tenants of the WSB comment section.

      • WSB April 22, 2020 (4:15 pm)

        On this topic, yes.
        On MOST other topics, no.
        Seriously, that’s the reason we don’t join the “oh hell, let’s just bag comments” parade that others have.
        So much helpfulness, gratitude, enlightenment, in so many situations. So many things we wouldn’t have learned, seen, or heard if we didn’t have a spot for community participation.
        I wish this topic in particular didn’t bring out the worst but even after a month, people are still in the stages of grief/anger.

        TR

        • sw April 22, 2020 (4:31 pm)

          Sadly – yes, TR. This is significant enough that it will be pretty raw for some time I think. Unfortunate, as there are good suggestions and discussion topics buried under an avalanche of witch hunts and uninformed opinion. 

  • Mj April 22, 2020 (3:17 pm)

    The City has spent 100’s of millions on other discretionary items at the expense of basic maintenance.  It is time to re-direct funding to get the bridge Fixed or Replaced quickly. 

    WSDOT quickly replaced the SR-5 bridge over the Skagit River and California quickly replaced damaged structures after the earthquake.  What is the problem with Seattle?  Other Agencies see a issue and get it fixed promptly.  

    • WSJ April 22, 2020 (3:44 pm)

      How many times do you need this question answered before you stop asking? Federal $$$ > State $$ > City $. Inter-state commerce > inter-city commerce > intra-city commutes. 

    • ColumbiaChris April 22, 2020 (7:05 pm)

      If you think that replacing the Skagit River Bridge was anything close to the magnitude of replacing the West Seattle Bridge, then I don’t know what to tell you. I don’t know if it would even get through.

  • WS Resident April 22, 2020 (3:36 pm)

    Im concerned that Inslee today said he didn’t know much about this problem. Are our leaders on top of this or just hoping they can put us off? Shouldn’t they be getting as much support for us as they can? It’s very frustrating.

    • KM April 22, 2020 (3:57 pm)

      Why would Inslee know details about the condition of a CITY roadway when he’s got a pandemic on his hands? 

    • tsurly April 22, 2020 (4:12 pm)

      Maybe because he is dealing with a viral pandemic that is affecting the other 7.5 million WA residents that don’t live in West Seattle?

    • Jon Wright April 22, 2020 (4:23 pm)

      I dunno, could Governor Inslee possibly have other more important stuff going on right now?

  • Bueller? April 22, 2020 (4:18 pm)

    I RSVP’d and am waiting for a link, but am wondering if this is just a web/streaming meeting or will it also be broadcast on the state tv channel – the actual network is escaping me at the moment sorry- tvW maybe?

  • Joyce April 22, 2020 (4:48 pm)

    I’ve registered twice for the town hall. It’s 4:45 and no link. Are they limiting participants?

    • WSB April 22, 2020 (4:52 pm)

      Both of us registered separately – I got the links, co-publisher did not. Anyway, here again is the stream link:
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdxmUF_4OBA

      I don’t know if the question link is personalized (I haven’t used Google Forms as a creator) but here’s the one I got:
      https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScdSF2ykLgsEjDijFe4AvSuockdvwiAMmS8Wxkcol8Cgyl-tA/viewform

      • James Walker April 22, 2020 (11:23 pm)

        It’s time to be brave and bold fellow West Seattleites!   Everything sucks at this moment but it’s our chance to survive something bad together.  I love sniveling as much as the next person but it’s getting us nowhere.  Let’s all buck up together.   It’s not gonna be easy either way, but making strides toward positive attitudes may help. 

  • CZ April 26, 2020 (2:22 pm)

    I agree with James.  It’s easy to bitch about what, when, how things wen’t wrong.  The point is, it needs to get fixed, period.  It’s also happening at a very stressful time for all of us.  We’re going to have to learn how to deal with adversity for a long time; this will be our new normal for a while.  I don’t even want to think about the impact that the pandemic will cause to the US as a whole and Seattle won’t be spared.  So, buckle up.  We’ve got some a few tough years ahead of us. Our great/grand parents went through tough times for years, now it’s our turn.  They halcyon days are over; now it’ll be about  just surviving.  Sorry to be a downer.We’re paying good money for various light rail projects and I know they are for a different agency, but can’t we temporarily divert that money into fixing the bridge? Or are we going to be hammered with even more taxes?  By they way, to the one who blithely mentioned “take the water taxi, bus or bike or walk”; what planet are you on?  There are a lot of people who cannot do any of those things due to where we have to commute, schedules,  capabilities etc.  Can some? Yes of course.  But try to be sensitive to people who don’t fit into that nice one-size-fits all “solution”.I would like to see how the “community” can pull together and help.  Instead of foisting this off on SDOT or the Feds. How can WE help?  I don’t think money (e.g. taxes), “experts” and politicians are the sole answer.  I’d be willing to volunteer to help out, I just don’t know what for!But I do agree on one thing, going forward we need to hold the people involved in the work accountable and not have this thing turned into somebody’s dreamy pet project.  Can you say monorail or Bertha?  Please don’t. Maybe it’s time to leave West Seattle.

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