By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor

Tonight marks exactly five months since the city closed the West Seattle Bridge out of safety concerns, with just a few hours’ public notice.

Stabilization work is now under way. But SDOT says it won’t decide until October whether to pursue a course focused on repair now/replace later or replace ASAP.

The advocacy coalition West Seattle Bridge NOW thinks SDOT should just get on with fixing the bridge, since the agency has already said all indications are that it would be possible, and that the decision mostly hinges on whether repairs are feasible. And the group has sent Mayor Jenny Durkan a letter.

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By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor

Even once there’s a repair-or-immediately-replace decision for the West Seattle Bridge, that won’t necessarily be the absolute final word.

That bit of information emerged in breakout-group discussion during today’s seventh meeting of the West Seattle Bridge Community Task Force, which dealt with a variety of topics, and began with a mayoral guest appearance. Our video below shows the first 1 1/2 hours of the 2 1/2-hour meeting:

Task Force co-chair Paulina López opened the meeting, previewing the agenda. Co-chair Greg Nickels introduced the current holder of his former job, Mayor Jenny Durkan. “The job of mayor in the best times is a hard job … (this) mayor has had an incredible amount of hard stuff on her plate this year,” from COVID-19 to racial-injustice protests to the topic at hand, the emergency closure of the West Seattle Bridge almost five months ago.

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(Added 4:46 pm: Archived meeting video)

The City Council Transportation Committee has just given unanimous approval to a funding source – intracity borrowing paid off by a bond sale – for the initial major costs of the West Seattle Bridge project. That followed an extensive briefing on what has transpired in the past almost-five months. First, here are some toplines of how that funding will work:

This money will cover program costs through the first quarter of next year – what will be needed beyond that, too soon to tell, but the just-announced design contractor should be able to come up with an estimate not long after the October repair-or-immediately-replace decision, SDOT says, while also stressing that partner funding is expected – federal, state, etc.

A final vote on the initial funding plan approved this morning (added: here’s the legislation) is set for the next full Council meeting on September 8th. This mornings discussion and vote followed a major briefing on various bridge-related matters, first official briefing for the council since shortly after the sudden shutdown of the bridge on March 23rd. First, SDOT director Sam Zimbabwe recapped what’s happened in the almost five months since safety concerns shut down the bridge, including the determination that repair is possible, while they have not yet determined whether it’s feasible.

SDOT’s WS Bridge program director Heather Marx also spoke, breaking down current work into three categories: On The Bridge, On The Ground, In The Community. The first list included yesterday’s announcement of HNTB as the contractor to design an eventual replacement (whether that needs to happen ASAP or a decade-plus down the road). She also updated the stabilization work (which Marx said will continue into “early winter”):

And the low bridge’s need for “strengthening” (“probably a 2-year project,” per Marx:

She also said in response to a question from Councilmember Lisa Herbold that no major low-bridge closures were likely because of that work.

Meantime, there was a preview of how low-bridge camera enforcement will work:

Meantime, “On The Ground” focused mostly on what detour-route improvements have been made so far:

And more are ahead, Marx noted in the Reconnect West Seattle overview – we expect to hear a lot more about that when the WS Bridge Community Task Force meets at noon today. Meantime, here are the In The Community toplines:

The committee meeting is continuing with non-bridge topics; when the meeting video is available later today, we will add it to this report.

On the eve of the next West Seattle Bridge Community Task Force meeting, an announcement from SDOT – they’ve chosen

Seattle Department of Transportation has reached a major milestone in our work to restore mobility to West Seattle, the Duwamish Valley, and other communities impacted by the West Seattle High-Rise Bridge closure. Following a competitive Request for Qualifications process, we have selected the infrastructure solutions firm HNTB Corporation to design the West Seattle Bridge replacement.

This does NOT mean the “repair now and replace later, or replace now?” decision has been made – SDOT reiterates this step has to be taken now regardless of what that decision turns out to be. HNTB’s many projects, SDOT notes, include the Highway 99 tunnel, South Park Bridge, and Tacoma Narrows Bridge. The SDOT announcement adds:

By bringing on a firm to design a replacement of the West Seattle High-Rise Bridge now, we are ensuring that all of the pieces are in place to quickly pivot if it becomes clear that repairing the bridge is not advisable, and that we will not lose valuable time hiring a design team to begin the rebuilding process. It also prepares us for the inevitable need to replace this critical route, even if the original bridge can be repaired and reopened for some amount of time.

Read the full announcement here.

(Partial bridgetop view from SDOT camera)

At noon tomorrow (Wednesday, August 19th), the West Seattle Bridge Community Task Force meets for the seventh time. We’ve just obtained the agenda and viewing instructions. The agenda starts with a notable guest, Mayor Jenny Durkan. Also included is a breakout-discussion period (1:30-2 pm), which means three different sets of viewing/listening instructions:

Full-group meeting – go here or call:
408-418-9388
Access code: 146 436 2216

Breakout Session A – go here or call:

408-418-9388
Access Code: 146 322 3340

Breakout Session B – go here or call:

408-418-9388
Access Code: 146 263 9282

After tomorrow, it’ll be three weeks until the advisory group’s next meeting on September 9th.

(Reader photo)

Two datapoints about the low bridge are part of City Councilmember Lisa Herbold‘s weekly newsletter. First, its traffic volume, graphed over six months, early February to early August:

Second, an update on low-bridge maritime-traffic openings:

According to SDOT, the lower bridge has opened 858 times through the end of July: 757 times for marine traffic, and 101 times for maintenance, testing or aborted openings. The most common operator is Broughton and Beckwith; openings last an average of 12 minutes; 357 openings occurred during peak travel hours.

I asked SDOT about openings in 2019. For the entire year, there were 1390 openings for marine traffic, 502 during peak travel hours, and 371 times for maintenance, testing or aborted openings.

The Coast Guard currently uses a “standard of care” that asks mariners to voluntarily limit their requests for openings during peak travel hours. 502 openings during peak travel hours for the entire year of 2019, as compared to 357 openings during peak travel hours through July of this year, has led me to make additional inquiries of SDOT of whether or not the Coast Guard is using the “standard of care” as intended.

As we’ve reported here over the years, the city has repeatedly tried and failed to get low-bridge openings curtailed or even canceled during peak times. Meantime, the West Seattle Bridge update in Herbold’s newsletter also includes traffic data for other routes as well as noting two meetings next Wednesday – the Community Task Force (noon) and the council’s Transportation Committee, talking about bridge funding (no published agenda yet).

We’ve been reporting on the West Seattle Bridge T-shirt design contest, presented by the West Seattle Junction Association, which says almost 7,000 people voted, and has just announced the winners, from among 63 entries!

NOAH BELL-CRUZ
Greetings from Accidental Island

MIKE SHAUGHNESSY / BRADI JONES
Mind the Gap

REBECCA DAHLIN
So Close Yet So Far

Congratulations to all! You can pre-order yours – and/or see the list of Junction merchants where you’ll be able to buy them starting in about a month – by going here.

By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor

The city-convened advisory West Seattle Bridge Community Task Force met this afternoon for the sixth time, but no big headline emerged.

Here’s video from the first section of the meeting, before members split into two groups for discussion:

LOW-BRIDGE ACCESS UPDATE: SDOT’s Heather Marx said that in addition to who’s allowed to use the low bridge now, they’re recommending adding 2 more “essential vanpool” permits (bringing the current total to 10) – “serving hospitals, primarily” – and 13 permits for two local business associations (West Seattle Junction Association and WS Chamber of Commerce) to distribute to members – a Task Force suggestion at a previous meeting.

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(WSB photo, July 28)

If you’re keeping track of the potential cost of repairing/replacing the West Seattle Bridge, this afternoon SDOT is out with details of what you might call the down-payment costs:

SDOT is looking into all possible federal, state, and local ways to fund repairs or replacement of the High-Rise Bridge and ensure they are resourced to do what’s best for West Seattle and the surrounding region for the long-term. In the meantime, however, SDOT has an immediate need for additional revenues to carry out critical stabilization work and move other efforts forward simultaneously without missing a beat. To do this, SDOT is advancing legislation to the City Council that will:

-Authorize a $70 million interfund loan to cover 2020 and early 2021 costs related to the West Seattle Bridge Program

=Establish a Capital Improvement Program (CIP) that outlines funding estimates for the first two years of work for the West Seattle Bridge Program

The interfund loan legislation will provide the needed cashflow to cover West Seattle Bridge Program expenses in 2020 and the first quarter of 2021 as SDOT works to secure other significant funding opportunities.

SDOT estimates spending between $160 million and $225 million over 2020-2021 on the West Seattle Bridge Program. There is still a great deal of uncertainty around the West Seattle Bridge Program needs and this range represents the best understood cost estimates at the current time. These costs include expenses related to

=Bridge monitoring and testing
-Emergency stabilization repairs
-Planning and design costs for repair or replacements
-Low Bridge monitoring and maintenance
-Traffic and travel mitigation projects including Reconnect West Seattle projects.

Currently, the CIP only goes through 2021 and does not include all of the potential West Seattle Bridge repair or replacement related costs.

SDOT will continue to refine the project costs for this CIP. Once the repair or replace decision process is completed, they will evaluate and update the CIP project description as options are further refined, as well as cost estimate

The $70 million interfund loan would be borrowed from the City’s cash pool and be repaid by SDOT with a $100 million bond sale in 2021. Any needed spending above $100 million through 2021 will be supported by a separate interfund loan, to be established, if necessary, sometime in early 2021.

City Council will be considering this legislation in September. SDOT is hopeful that both the CIP and interfund loan will be approved so that they can continue our immediate response efforts, keep all options for repair or replace moving forward, and fund needed traffic mitigation projects through Reconnect West Seattle.

City Councilmember Lisa Herbold‘s most-recent newsletter has a few more specifics – including exactly which sources that $70 million would come from.

Meantime, a reminder – the next WS Bridge Community Task Force meeting is at noon tomorrow; here’s how to watch/listen.

ORIGINAL MONDAY POST: Your next chance to see what’s up with the four-months-closed West Seattle Bridge is this Wednesday (August 5th), when the advisory Community Task Force next meets, noon-2:30 pm. We requested the meeting link from SDOT today so you can make your plan early if interested. Note that it will include breakout discussions 12:45-1:45 pm, and those links will be different, but they’re not available yet. The meeting will start and end at this link; if you would rather listen in by phone, the number will be 408-418-9388, access code 146 147 9496. Wednesday’s topics will include early results from the just-concluded Reconnect West Seattle surveys; SDOT says it received almost 17,000 responses.

ADDED TUESDAY: Here are the links for the breakout groups – A here, B here.

(WSB photo, earlier this week)

As stabilization work continues on the four-months-closed West Seattle Bridge, two notes today:

TOLLING-AND-MORE CONSULTANT SOUGHT: The city has launched another consultant search in relation to the bridge closure and repair-or-replace process. It’s for an up to $2 million contract to carry out a “traffic and revenue” analysis that would look at, among other things, how much money tolling could raise toward the funding that’ll be needed. Accompanying the announcement is an SDOT Blog post that explains in part:

We have not decided to enact tolling. Instead, this study provides a starting point for discussions about whether tolling makes sense as one of the ways to pay for the West Seattle Bridge Program. Most important, it could serve as a critical precursor to securing federal funding.

The plan to seek a consultant for this study was previewed during a meeting of the bridge project Community Task Force earlier this month.

‘RECONNECT WEST SEATTLE’ DEADLINE: Final reminder – the Reconnect West Seattle mobility survey closes today, as do the “prioritization” lists of potential projects in four areas affected by detour traffic. The main survey is here; the neighborhood-prioritization surveys are here (Highland Park/Riverview/South Delridge/Roxhill), here (South Park), here (Georgetown), and here (SODO).

10:12 AM: As of early this morning, a second work platform is in place under the four-months-closed West Seattle Bridge. The first one went up a week ago; in a meeting Thursday, SDOT managers mentioned another one was set to be moved into place today, so we went out to check. It’s east of the first one, and it’s for crews with stabilization contractor Kraemer North America. As explained by SOOT here, “The platforms will allow the team to safely access the exterior of the bridge girders to work on measures intended to slow cracking – this includes wrapping sections with carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (and) adding external post-tensioning tendons, and releasing the bearings at Pier 18.”

4:55 PM: SDOT points out in its announcement of today’s installation, the “two” platforms are actually four. Here’s how they’ll be used:

The work platforms will be under the bridge for at least 3 months while we do repair work, and then crews will repeat the same process to gently lower them down to barges waiting to receive them below.

SDOT is now entering the next phase of stabilization work. Over the next few months, crews will use the work platforms for bridge access to perform stabilization measures including:

First, we will inject epoxy to seal the cracks in order to protect the bridge’s skeleton of steal post-tensioning cables holding up the concrete.

We will wrap sensitive sections of the bridge with carbon fiber reinforced polymer to strengthen the bridge much like putting a cast on a broken bone.

Then we will install additional steel post-tensioning cables inside the hollow portion of the bridge to help hold up the bridge, like adding braces for extra support.

Next, we will repair the locked bearings at Pier 18 which are preventing the bridge from reacting to normal daily stresses as intended.

Finally, we will go back and install additional carbon fiber wrapping and post-tensioning cables for further strengthening and support.

By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor

With ~3 months to go until SDOT makes the “repair or replace?” decision about the West Seattle Bridge, there’s still time to suggest alternatives. This week, a Seattle architect is pitching one: a “mass timber” replacement bridge.

(Renderings by B+H Architects)

Matthias Olt is with B+H Architects. While his firm didn’t apply to be part of the official process to pick a consultant to work on a potential replacement, he says, “We think the bridge is such an iconic thing in Seattle, someone should be a voice at the table for design.”

It’s not just a design vision he’s pitching – it’s the material. Including Northwest-grown timber in the mix could make it an icon of sustainability, top, he says. And it would be lighter – as you might recall, part of the challenge posed by the construction of the current bridge is that most of its “load” is its own weight.

What Olt proposes is a hybrid bridge – part steel or carbon fiber, wrapped in wood, with concrete piers. The arches in the arch design would be made of steel. The hybrid material could be half the weight of concrete.

In our conversation, he explained that this also could be slightly less expensive than the traditional concrete construction, and would take up to 25 percent less time – the “mass timber” features, potentially comprising up to 25 percent of the bridge material, would be pre-fabricated at factories in the region (he says there’s at least two in our state) and shipped to the construction site. The use of regional material an builders would mean the project wouldn’t be dependent on, for example, steel from China.

“Mass timber” isn’t a new building material, Olt says – it’s been used in buildings as well as bridges. For examples of the latter, he mentions a few in Quebec, Canada – the Mistissini Bridge and Montmorency Forest Bridge. Also of note: B+H’s sister firm SMEC has major bridge-building expertise.

So what’s next for this idea? Olt says B+H has submitted a “comprehensive design-concept packet” (you can see it here) to the city, and they’re publicizing the idea – talking with us and others – in hopes of sparking some support early in the process. They’ve also started an online petition you can “sign” here if you’re interested in their concept.

An FYI from the city:

On July 25 at 12 p.m., the City of Seattle Office of Emergency Management will send a test message through the Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) system. The alert will only be sent to those who have opted in to receive local test messages through WEA and to a small geographic area under and near the West Seattle Bridge. The message will state: “This is a test of Wireless Emergency Alerts by the City of Seattle. No action is required.”

The national WEA system is an essential part of the City’s emergency preparedness and response. This public safety system allows customers who own compatible devices to receive geographically targeted, text-like messages alerting them of imminent threats to safety in their area. The most common example of these alerts is the “Amber Alerts” sent by Washington State Patrol that directly ping mobile phones.

This is the second test to be conducted as a part of the West Seattle Bridge planning. The first test was conducted on June 26. Though not predicted, the City has emergency plans in place to use the WEA and AlertSeattle systems among other methods to notify people under or near the West Seattle High-Rise Bridge in the event of an immediate collapse.

This test is not linked to any specific action or report related to the condition of the West Seattle Bridge. The test is part of our proactive contingency planning to prepare for unanticipated changes in the bridge that may require an evacuation of community members on Harbor Island.

The City has successfully used the WEA system several times in 2020, though it’s important to test the geographical capabilities of the system to ensure the correct area is targeted. Twenty volunteers from Seattle’s Office of Emergency Management Auxiliary Communication Services will stage in locations on and surrounding Harbor Island during the test to confirm receipt of the message. Results will be collected by Seattle OEM to determine the reach of the system.

(WSB file photo)

During Wednesday’s meeting of the West Seattle Bridge Community Task Force (WSB coverage here), a member asked why motorcycles aren’t allowed to use the low bridge at all times. SDOT’s Heather Marx said traffic engineers had recommended against it, calling it a safety issue, and promised to provide the inquiring member with the detailed explanation. We subsequently requested it, since many WSB readers have asked, and received it today:

While a motorcycle is physically smaller than a car, they still require roughly the same amount of room on all sides to travel safely. This is because a large truck or bus needs just as much room to stop safely when they are following a motorcycle as they do for any other kind of vehicle. While two motorcycles could theoretically travel side by side, most motorcycles would likely be travelling on their own and occupy and entire lane.

This means that from a traffic engineering perspective, motorcycles take up essentially the same amount of room as a car. This is especially true at traffic signals or in stop-and-go conditions where congestion is created by the cumulative reaction time of every individual driver waiting to go forward after the vehicle in front of them moves ahead. In this situation, the number of vehicles in a line of traffic is just as important as the size of each individual vehicle, and so motorcycles could be expected to add to congestion at the Chelan 5-way intersection just like cars do.

We also have safety concerns about motorcycles travelling next to large trucks and buses in stop-and-go conditions, especially because congestion would likely increase considerably if more motorcycles took this route.

If you have a question about that – or any other bridge issue – note that SDOT will be part of both community meetings we’ve previewed for tonight, the Town Hall at 6 pm and West Seattle Transportation Coalition at 6:30 pm.

(UPDATED 6:03 PM with meeting video, added to end of report)

(One of the roughed-out replacement options that will be analyzed in forthcoming cost-benefit analysis)

By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor

SDOT has a new timeline for the big decision on repairing or replacing the four-months-closed West Seattle Bridge.

Previously, they’d been saying “late summer.” This afternoon, they told the West Seattle Bridge Community Task Force that the decision is now expected in October, once a cost-benefit analysis (CBA) is complete. Explaining the CBA process was a big part of the advisory group’s 5th meeting, which spanned a wide agenda. But before we get to that:

LOW-BRIDGE ACCESS CHANGES: A new plan is in the works, unveiled by SDOT’s Heather Marx:

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(Reader photo, Monday)

Want to watch live as the West Seattle Bridge Community Task Force meets tomorrow (Wednesday, July 22nd), noon-2:30 pm? We just obtained the info from SDOT. Note that, like last meeting, this one will have “breakouts” – and that means connecting to a different stream when that part of the meeting happens.

Below is the attendee information for the West Seattle Bridge Community Task Force Meeting tomorrow from 12:00 – 2:00 PM. There will be break-out sessions from 2 – 2:30 PM. If attendees want to attend the breakout sessions they will need to close out of the main meeting completely before trying to join the new meeting. Also when joining WebEx meetings the attendee either uses the link below OR the call in, not both.

MAIN LINK: Here

BY PHONE: 408-418-9388, access code: 146 969 2178

LINK FOR BREAKOUT SESSION A: Here

BY PHONE: 408-418-9388, access code 146 993 5565

LINK FOR BREAKOUT SESSION B: Here

BY PHONE: 408-418-9388, access code 146 502 3787

We don’t have the agenda yet but topics are expected to include Reconnect West Seattle, low-bridge access, and Metro. This is the CTF’s fifth meeting; here’s our coverage of the fourth one two weeks ago.