ROAD-WORK ALERT: ‘Deteriorated’ Delridge Way bus lane to be repaired soon

| Delridge | West Seattle news | West Seattle traffic alerts

Max sent that photo after spotting city workers today along Delridge between Dakota and Genesee, where multiple readers have noticed a section of southbound bus lane long blocked off. Will it finally be fixed? Yes, says SDOT, whose spokesperson Ethan Bergerson explained that what Max saw “was an SDOT crew meeting on location in preparation for upcoming repairs.” He added these details:

We expect to begin construction to repair the southbound bus lane of Delridge Way SW between SW Dakota St and SW Genesee within the next three weeks and complete the repairs by the end of August.

Vehicles will be rerouted to the eastern side of the street with at least one lane of travel in each direction when work is occurring. This detour will typically be in effect 24 hours a day from Thursdays through Sundays on the weeks when construction is occurring (there may be weeks when construction does not occur if crews are responding to other projects throughout the city). The sidewalks will remain open at all times.

This project will replace about 460 feet of concrete in the southbound bus lane and also repair a small number of damaged areas in the southbound general purpose lanes. Crews will demolish and remove the existing concrete panels, and repave them with full-depth concrete thick enough to withstand the anticipated bus traffic. This solution will last much longer than temporary asphalt patchwork, but also takes several weeks to complete.

We are also considering a small number of additional repairs in the northbound lanes. Any repairs in the northbound lanes would be completed sometime after the southbound repairs are completed (this has not been scheduled yet).

SDOT is partnering with King County Metro to fund this project. This block was not repaved as part of the recent RapidRide H project because at the time that project was being designed it was anticipated that Sound Transit would most likely rebuild this block as a part of their West Seattle light rail extension. However, we are performing these repairs now due to the deteriorated pavement conditions and because it now appears most likely that Sound Transit’s West Seattle light rail alignment would shift to another location.

DC June 23, 2023 (9:06 am)

That bus lane has been closed since at least February. Ridiculous that it takes SDOT half a year just to plan the repairs. Even more ridiculous that they are making Metro pay for it. SDOT’s hostility towards public transit infrastructure is perplexing.

bolo June 23, 2023 (9:56 am)

Closed? I have not seen this, passing thru most every day.

Most likely the road structure was not designed for the extra weight of the Metro buses, causing it to fail prematurely.
- Rusty June 23, 2023 (12:42 pm)
  
  This lane has been closed for over 6 months yes
- WestSeattleBadTakes June 23, 2023 (1:07 pm)
  
  The bus lane is indeed closed in that small section, requiring the buses to move into the other lane. They move back into the bus lane before Genesee though.
  
  As far as the bus weight causing the failure, that is of course speculation. What is known is that this section was not repaved during the H-line project when it likely should have been. This is poor planning and poor decision-making. We should take care of road surfaces when they need to be taken care of, otherwise this kind of thing happens.
  
  Delaying this resurfacing for a project that won’t start construction until 2027 was a poor decision. If I had to speculate, I imagine someone looked good for saving time and money in the short-term but now we pay the price.
  
  Mistakes happen of course, what I do hope is that SDOT learns from this incident and makes better decisions going forward. Events like this should go through a post-mortem to capture those learnings and update policies and procedures.
  
  We also need to consider that we’ve written a check we can’t cash with road infrastructure, but that is for another day.
  
  This block was not repaved as part of the recent RapidRide H project because at the time that project was being designed it was anticipated that Sound Transit would most likely rebuild this block as a part of their West Seattle light rail extension.