As promised, last night’s Admiral Neighborhood Association community gathering brought new information about the Admiral Way Bridge earthquake-strengthening project – one of two seismic retrofits planned in West Seattle this year (the other, the Delridge/Oregon foot/bike overpass, is already under way). An SDOT rep, Dr. Matthew Howard, was at the meeting. Though ANA was not able to display his slide deck, we received a copy from SDOT (see it here, with selected slides below). First, a bit of background – as noted previously, this bridge is actually two bridges:
At the time of our most-recent update, published in March 2023, SDOT said the project would be completed this year. That timeline has slid a bit – they’re now expecting to start in June, but with an expected duration of up to nine months, it’ll stretch into 2025.
The points that generated the most discussion at the meeting involved the traffic effects expected while the work is under way – including a total closure of Fairmount Avenue beneath the bridge(s), for the entirety of the project:
The Fairmount closure drew more interest than the lane and bridge closures planned up top. Detour plans are yet to be finalized, Howard said, so he promised to get back to the group with more information about those. Same goes, he said, for neighbors on the streets closest to the bridge – they’ll get route plans but not until the work is close to starting.
He also was asked about the contractor and cost and said neither was finalized yet. (However, the city’s bidding website says the project has been awarded to Max J. Kuney Co., total base price $7.1 million.)
P.S. We’ll report on the rest of the ANA meeting’s toplines – primarily focused on the summer events the group is presenting – later.
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