We are on the West Seattle Bridge right now for the first time in a year and a half. Two federal government reps are touring it today – Deputy Secretary of Transportation Polly Trottenberg and US Senator Maria Cantwell – to see what federal dollars will help fund.
This followed a visit to Terminal 5. Full coverage later!
Must’ve been a bit of a thrill for you to go up to a place none of us have been for over a year! Must be strange to walk where you’ve only been in a vehicle before, and.. the view!!
No, more odd and a little scary given that the bridge has been stabilized but not repaired. Will tell the whole story in a couple hours. Plus we’d been up all night with the Stone Cottage and power outage, but when we found out about this yesterday there was no way we would pass up the chance to finally get a firsthand look. And in the ongoing ironies, traffic almost kept us from getting to the tour’s starting point (T-46 downtown, because it was bridge to T-5 to bridge) … if we have to leave the peninsula we always allot at least an hour … took 35 minutes just to get to 509 (which had just cleared after the morning closure) and we were sure we were going to be too late but once we got to East Marginal, it went quickly…
Nice photo op for the politicians, I’m sure. I hope an Engineer accompanied them, to let them know what needs money.
Yes, SDOT’s Matt Donahue – forever to be known as the guy who saw the cracks and made the emergency recommendation to close th bridge immediately – was the guide.
Nice to see some activity! Can either of them wield a hammer?
Even better, they wield access to funding that helps pay people who use hammers, nails, shovels, in today’s case, cranes…
WSB… so you say that this followed a visit to T5. Was the use of the lower Spokane Street bridge part of your travels?
No. High bridge there and back in vans as part of the tour. That’ll be in the story.
Pointless photo opp. They need to feel some pain. Have them sit in line for 1/2 an hour waiting for the 1st Ave bridge to come down.
Any chance you got photos of the rest of the bridge, from what I can see looks like there are a lot of weeds growing up there in cracks. I would be nice if they could get the bridge cleaned up and pot holes fixed during this down time.
We drove all the way up and then down to the Delridge exit. No weed problems. You may be thinking of the Fauntleroy end and at least one other onramp (alongside Nucor) where weeds are visible.
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