(Weather phenomenon as seen Tuesday evening from Alki – photo by Hana Alishio)

Notes for the day:

SIDEWALK DINING/SHOPPING: As previewed here, the City Council Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee meeting at 9:30 am includes discussion of extending these free permits until next May, and maybe making expanded sidewalk/curb-space shopping/dining permanent. The agenda includes viewing information.

STORY TIME: We’ve been including Seattle Public Library events in our calendar – including story times. Today preschoolers and toddlers can watch/listen at 10 am; here’s how.

WEST SEATTLE BRIDGE COMMUNITY TASK FORCE: Noon meeting, online. Awaiting the agenda, but you can expect a variety of bridge-related briefings. You can watch the livestream here.

DROP-IN WRITING CIRCLE: In pre-pandemic times, this Seattle Public Library event was usually held in West Seattle. 6 pm tonight, writers can attend from anywhere. Here’s how.

34TH DISTRICT DEMOCRATS: 7 pm meeting, online, for our area’s largest political organization. Go here to register for the link to participate.

6:59 AM: Good morning. If you’re just getting going, you missed major early-morning problems, now both resolved. So it’s on with our regular traffic watch

BRIDGES AND DETOUR ROUTES

415th morning without the West Seattle Bridge:

Low Bridge: Open again after “mechanical trouble” kept it closed to all modes of traffic all night. We’re following up with SDOT to find out what went wrong. Here’s a low-bridge view:

The 5-way intersection (Spokane/West Marginal/Delridge/Chelan):

West Marginal Way at Highland Park Way – The early-morning crash that closed West Marginal has cleared.

1st Avenue South Bridge (map):

For the South Park Bridge (map), here’s the nearest camera:

Are bridges opening for boats or barges? Check the @SDOTBridges Twitter feed.

TRANSIT

Buses – Metro has just returned to regular routing after rerouting to the 1st Avenue S. Bridge during the low-bridge closure.

Ferries – The Fauntleroy-Vashon-Southworth WSF route is back to 2 boats after 1 boat was taken out of service last night for crew shortage.

The West Seattle Water Taxi continues on its spring/summer schedule – all day, 7 days a week, plus Friday and Saturday evenings; the free 773 and 775 shuttles are running daily too.

TRAFFIC CAMERAS

See all local traffic cams here; locally relevant cameras are also shown on this WSB page.

Trouble on the streets/paths/bridges/water? Please let us know – text (but not if you’re driving!) 206-293-6302.

5 AM: Another complication to early-morning traffic – a crash on West Marginal Way. Witnesses say it’s a flipped-car crash. It’s logged in the 5400 block of West Marginal [map]. Police and fire are on scene. SDOT says West Marginal is blocked both ways right now.

5:21 AM: SFD has had to shuffle assignment of medical resources because of the low-bridge outage. In dispatching an added unit, the description of the original crash report was that a car hit a pole, overturned, and caught fire. We don’t know yet about injuries. SPD is calling for an SDOT crew to clean up “foam and debris all over the roadway.”

5:40 AM: Police have just told dispatch they hope to have the southbound lanes reopened “in about five minutes.”

6:15 AM: SDOT says the scene is now completely cleared.

8:10 AM: From the preliminary police summary:

Patrol responded to the report of a vehicle colliding into a pole and flipping onto its top. The call was updated that the vehicle was also on fire. SPD and SFD arrived to find the lone occupant out of the vehicle. The pole had sustained severe damage and City Light responded as well. The entire roadway was closed during the response. The driver was found to be impaired and arrested for DUI. City Light determined the pole would need to be replaced and called their team to respond. The replacement would take several hours and require the closure of some lanes. SDOT arrived and took over the lane closures.

We’re asking City Light about the repair status.

10:35 AM: We’ve confirmed with SFD that no one was injured. Also, here’s what SCL’s Julie Moore tells us about the repairs:

We have two crews working on it. We will probably need to shut down the east lane on West Marginal Way and will have flaggers assisting with that. Other impacts (e.g., outages) are unlikely or will be minimal. Estimating approximately 8-10 hours to complete the work.

1:13 AM: If you have to cross the Duwamish soon, don’t head for the low bridge. It’s been closed to surface traffic for more than an hour; SDOT says via Twitter that it’s “mechanical trouble.”

1:30 AM: The bridge had trouble Tuesday afternoon, too.

2:09 AM: Still not open.

4:58 AM: Metro is rerouting buses over the 1st Avenue South Bridge.

5:59 AM: The low bridge is still out of service and SDOT has finally confirmed that means ALL modes – closed to bicyclists and pedestrians as well as motor-vehicle drivers. No word yet on how much longer this is expected to last.

6:51 AM: The low bridge has just reopened.

10:40 AM: Here’s how SDOT spokesperson Ethan Bergerson answered our question about what went wrong:

The Spokane St bridge was closed last night from approximately 11:30 p.m. to 6:45 a.m. due to an intermittent mechanical issue which triggered a safeguard preventing the bridge gates from being opened. This is an intentional safety measure which ensures that people cannot travel over the bridge until the underlying mechanical issue is resolved. Our engineers and maintenance staff worked through the night to complete the immediate work to address the problem and verify that it was safe to reopen the bridge. We are still working to understand the underlying root cause, and determine next steps to ensure that this does not happen again.

4:05 PM: An update from SDOT:

There were two separate mechanical issues which occurred on the Spokane St bridge, both of which triggered the safeguard of closing the bridge gates to the public.

On May 11 at roughly 4:10 pm, the tail lock on the east side of the bridge triggered an alarm, which is related to a known issue with the hydraulic arm that extends/ retracts the locking pin. Engineers and maintenance staff were able to address this issue and reopen the bridge at about 7:00pm. We are planning to address this issue by building a new hydraulic arm, and will also refurbish the existing arm as a backup for future use.

On May 11 at 11:05 pm, a small component within the traffic barrier turning mechanism got stuck preventing the gate from opening. As a safeguard, the gate is programmed to shut down if something is interfering with its normal operations in order to prevent further damage. When the gate shut down, it triggered other control system alarms and safeguards, resulting in all gates from closing. Our engineers and maintenance staff worked through the night to complete the immediate work to address the problem and verify that it was safe to reopen the bridge at about 6:15 a.m.