18 Replies to "WEST SEATTLE BRIDGE CLOSURE: How to watch second Community Task Force meeting on Wednesday"

• Funding Vs. Herbold June 15, 2020 (10:52 pm)

  I can’t wait to fund anyone against Herbold and Durkan. No material action to widen previously narrowed streets, no raising speed limits beyond 25 on main roads, no extra route to downtown via ferry that’s high capacity, no traction on ceasing dumping ferry traffic into west seattle and the in and out traffic at current capacity is a dumpster fire…..

  • Tsurly June 16, 2020 (6:17 am)

    You do realize that the water taxi (foot ferry) is operated by King County and that the car ferry system is operated by WSDOT, right?

    • KM June 16, 2020 (7:50 am)

      They would like to speak to all the managers even if they aren’t the correct managers and even if these requests have already been turned down for good reason.

  • MArk47n June 16, 2020 (10:15 am)

    So…let’s take this step by step:While not the biggest fan of Herbold she is a member of a city council that is dominated by a single polarizing figure and her posse who like to do thing by populist acclaim rather than careful deliberation. Durkan has simply been ineffective. That said, the Seattle Process Machine tends to grind up anyone and any idea, good or bad. With every group who may have something to say being invited to the table and being accorded effective veto power coupled with the passive aggressive, eager to please prevailing attitudes around here it’s no surprise that nothing gets done and it takes years and countless dollars to accomplish that huge pile of nothing.As noted above, the Water Taxi is operated but the County. The needs of Seattle don’t figure into its planning or actions.  In other words, Seattle has no say in how the water taxi operates.Washington State operates the ferry system, not the city. The city has no control over routing or planning of the WSF and its operations within Seattle. The city HAS spoken the WSF and was told, clearly and without questions, that there would be no alterations in routing due to space constraints on the various docks, the number of slips etc. The folks that take the ferry to Fauntleroy will just have to cope, as will the people that cry about them, after all, it’s a crap situation for everyone.So, what have we learned?     Seattle has little control of some of the systems that operate within its borders.     There are decisions that have been communicated to us, the people, but that some of those people don’t actually read what those decisions are. Nothing is going to happen quickly and that’s all there is to it. The process of repairing/replacing the bridge is going to be expensive and time consuming and there is no way around it in order to do it safely without a large amount of additional damage to the structure, to those that beneath it  and, perhaps even that pesky Harbor Island bridge below. To rebuild will require actual design work to take place which will include soil analysis, permitting, shoring, demolition and then building the replacement if repairing is not an option.We can sit here, at our computers, drinking our coffee without pants on and rage against the mismanagement (which there was) but it gets us exactly nowhere. Now there is nothing to do but wait. Wait for the analyses to be completed. Wait for the Seattle Analysis Paralysis to subside. Wait for a shoring system to be designed, fabricated and installed….and more. If you aren’t content to wait perhaps it’s time to move on. After all, it’s going to be YEARs until we might have a bridge, if the powers that be deign to provide one. Things that are not going to happen, though, will be a tunnel, a closure of the waterway,   relocating Vashon/Southworth traffic to Colman dock, Santa, or me winning the lottery.

  • Jort June 16, 2020 (3:08 pm)

    Literally nothing in your list of complaints will do literally anything to fix the fact that traffic will be awful because of the bridge closure. The bridge carried 100,000 cars a day. Raising speed limits, adding lanes, diverting a 150-car ferry (0.15 percent of the total cars on the former bridge), none of that will make a difference and it’s foolish to pretend it will. The problem is that our roads hold x amount of cars, and there is no “secret unicorn magic pony fix” on this planet that will make them hold x + 100,000. What’s going to happen is that you and I and everyone else in West Seattle is going to get reallllly comfortable, realllllly fast at riding the bus and riding a bike, because you can scream your face off until your skin turns blue and it still won’t fix the unfixable maximum limits of geometry and math. You can choose to get mad at Lisa Herbold or you can get mad at math, but only one of those is responsible for this dystopian traffic hellscape. Make your mental adaptations toward giving up your car right now and it will save you lots of mental trouble later.  

    • Chemist June 17, 2020 (2:39 pm)

      Of course, there’s really not enough low bridge capacity for 100,000 bikes (50x current bike counts) nor enough seats on buses during commute times to accommodate 3x as many butts.  That’s simple limits of geometry and math.

      • Jort June 17, 2020 (2:59 pm)

        No, but there is capacity for about ~60,000. That’s more than the additional available capacity of the 1st Ave S. Bridge, which is, let me check, 0. Here’s a study you can spend your time on this earth nitpicking and still be wrong about.

• Rick June 16, 2020 (2:12 am)

  Mo money, Mo money, Mo money.  It won’t fix it, but Mo money.  Always the answer.

  • Peter June 16, 2020 (10:10 am)

    Interesting. What’s your proposal for replacing the bridge that will cost no money?

• Mj June 16, 2020 (1:18 pm)

  Phil Talmidge wrote a good editorial published in Monday’s Seattle Times.  He raised concerns about the need to get funding secured and that the WSB closure is not being given the urgency it deserves.  

  I concur with his assessment!

  • mark47n June 16, 2020 (6:02 pm)

    What would have to take place for you to believe that it’s being dealt with appropriately? I will say that many things happen behind the scene on projects like this before they ever even enter the public’s awareness and now all of those things are happening with the full and uneducated scrutiny of all.As to funding, yes, that needs to be dealt with but, currently, there’s no idea what that even looks like.Jort, I often take what you write with a grain of salt and I understand what you’re generally trying to get across but, man, you nailed it in this one.

• GAM June 16, 2020 (6:42 pm)

  Our current executive administration is proposing a $1 trillion dollar infrastructure investment to help spur the economy.    It would be incredibly tragic if our congressional and senate leadership didn’t take advantage of this opportunity and put whatever funds are available towards a bridge replacement.    Is there any way to tell our senate and congressional leadership to get in line for this bonanza?

  • WSB June 16, 2020 (8:02 pm)

    They have already been talking to the feds.

  • Peter June 16, 2020 (9:37 pm)

    Our current administration’s last “trillion dollar” infrastructure plan cut $80 billion from federal infrastructure funding. Anyone who thinks the next one is going to be anything other than more cuts to federal infrastructure funding is delusional. 

  • HappyCamper June 17, 2020 (8:44 am)

    Hopefully the current administration won’t try and punish Seattle by withholding funds as part of the tiff with the mayor and governor. 

• Stranded on the peninsula June 17, 2020 (9:17 am)

  Lemme see…. I can either put my body on the line by riding a bicycle in busy traffic, or I can put myself at risk of contracting coronavirus by riding the bus.  Those are such great options Jort.  Really appreciate all of your insight.

• Amy Thomson June 17, 2020 (12:13 pm)

  So, Funding vs. Herbold, and anyone else inclined to blame the current city administration for the West Seattle Bridge, this bridge was built 30 years ago.  The design flaws in the bridge that caused the cracking are the fault of people who have probably retired by now.  It’s been less than 3 months since a major piece of very expensive and high-demand piece of city infrastructure was discovered to be failing.  In the midst of a state-wide shutdown due to Covid-19, and, oh yeah, those massive Black Lives Matter protests.  In the face of all of that, I think our city officials have done an aMAzing job! Stop hammering the city because they can’t produce a pony for you at a moment’s notice.   Jeez guys, it takes a momma horse a year to produce a foal, and then it takes three to four years for the horse to be well grown enough for it to take a saddle, and a couple more years of training.  And a bridge is a lot more complicated than a pony, fer chrissakes!  Yes, it’s frustrating, yes it’s taking waaaaay too long, but would you really want to drive over a bridge that is put together in a couple of months with sticky tape and baling twine?

• Dave June 17, 2020 (3:46 pm)

  The great disappointment is the lack of urgency – that bridge should’ve been shored up already.  Instead, our DOT risks losing a $billion asset — all because they are mired in process.  Also, does anyone else find Ms. Marx’s responses troubling – a lot of “no” plus deferral and deflection.  I’d have a lot more confidence in the process if we had some “can-do” and hustle instead.

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