WEST SEATTLE BRIDGE CLOSURE: Milestone for stabilization work

(WSB photos)

A lot of the work that’s been happening toward stabilizing the West Seattle Bridge has been out of view – unless you have a view of the bridge deck. As of this morning, here’s something you can see from under the bridge too. We’ve been reporting that a platform would be hoisted from a barge for placement under the bridge, with SDOT saying last week that it would happen early this week – and here it is.

For perspective, here’s a view from the east Admiral slope:

This will give crews access for work detailed by SDOT here. As they’ve explained, the stabilization work (by contractor Kraemer North America) must be done regardless of whether the city decides to repair or replace the bridge.

P.S. The next West Seattle Bridge Community Task Force meeting is this Wednesday, noon-2:30 pm. We’ll publish the link as soon as we get it. Also – have you answered the Reconnect West Seattle survey(s) yet?

K to the F July 20, 2020 (3:18 pm)

Great news! And they should totally leave those there — would be a sweet deck for food or drink! ;) Not rooftop but… bridgebottom?

Mellow Kitty July 21, 2020 (9:26 am)

I’d like to put this out as a metaphor:I live in a really old apartment building, run by a cheap landlord. When things breakdown or need to be fixed, the landlord goes the cheap route and “repairs” or *retrofits” the items – they work okay for a week ot two, then break again. Then the tenants watch in dismay as the landlord follows the same MO until reality finally sets in, the tenants are on the verge of rent strike and the health department is on speed dial – then he replaces the broken crap. (The residents and I of the building lived with this exact scenario for over a year with the machines in our building’s laundry room.)In short, stop putting a temporary band-aid patch on busted things. Get it right the first time, otherwise it’s a waste of time, energy and resources to have to continually replace the band-aid when enviably the thing needs to be replaced. #replacethebridge.

KBear July 21, 2020 (11:19 am)

Mellow Kitty, the stabilization work is required, whether the bridge is to be repaired or not. They cannot even tear it down without stabilizing it first.
John Nordqist July 22, 2020 (4:34 pm)

this is not a week to week situation. You clearly don’t have an understanding of the economic cost of having the bridge closed until 2025 instead of 2022 if you are saying this. The bridge should be up and running as soon as possible, then it should be tolled to build funds to build a new solution before the bridge then gives out. Over 100k cars a day use the bridge. 3 years means 109.5 MILLION CARS would be impacted by the additional closure. Now think of the traffic delays and multiply that number to the 109.5M and you will see how absurd your analogy is.

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