FOLLOWUP: Here’s what SDOT says went wrong with the West Seattle low bridge this morning

(SDOT camera image, 9:18 am today)

As covered in our morning traffic watch, the low bridge was out of service for more than an hour this morning, and intermittently closed for testing for a few hours beyond that. We asked SDOT what went wrong. Here’s the explanation:

Today during the rush hour commute, the Spokane Street Swing Bridge (West Seattle Low Bridge) was closed to vehicles due to an electrical issue. Our bridge operations team found that one of the electronic sensors (known as temponsonic transducer) which sends signals to the computer controlling bridge movements was causing an error message and had to be reset. Our crews fixed the current issue and completed several tests before opening the bridge to traffic. We are hopeful that the issue has been resolved. We will continue to perform our regular maintenance and frequent inspections on the bridge to ensure it stays operational and safe.

New electronic controls are part of what the low bridge is getting as part of the repair/rehab work scheduled later this year.

bolo May 11, 2022 (11:47 pm)

Pretty sure they mean Temposonic transducer.

Mark47n May 12, 2022 (3:47 pm)

Probably a Temposonic linear position sensor Those are super awesome.

Duh May 11, 2022 (11:56 pm)

I find it funny that nobody comments after sdot releases what happen. Where are the head hunters, burn sdot people now. Yes, it is traffic and it happens people. It is a bridge and parts fail, as noted. It isn’t a conspiracy against the privileged people of West Seattle after all. Things happen that nobody has control of. Some of the comments… wow you guys.

A May 12, 2022 (5:52 am)

So your response “come on people, traffic happens” comments are directed at non existent people in response to comments that did not happen?
- WS Comment May 14, 2022 (8:51 am)
  
  Seems exactly that. This person’s telling us not to comment ahead of time and that we are obviously not allowed to even ask what happened.

CarDriver May 12, 2022 (6:44 am)

DUH. I’ll comment. Things can and do break. They get fixed and while it can be a hassle we deal with it and move on. The issue which has been highlighted by the high bridge debacle is that most of us expect the people we hire to monitor and MAINTAIN our infrastructure. If done properly 99.9% of issues are caught and fixed without us even knowing. What’s clear to us is that inspections and routine maintenance has NOT been happening. Why should we not hold the city accountable??

East Coast Cynic May 12, 2022 (9:35 am)

Yes parts fail, but I believe West Seattle gets more Murphy’s Law than other parts of the city. Something is always gumming up the transportation works.

Sorry, comment time is over.