Mayor Durkan chooses to repair rather than replace West Seattle Bridge
Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan admits that she was leaning toward replacing the cracking West Seattle Bridge when it was closed in March. Eight months later, she has decided to go the repair route.
The mayor believes this is the fastest and best way to restore the lifeline to West Seattle. As the mayor has said previously, her decision would be based on three things: How much it was going to cost, both to build it and to maintain it, how long it would last, and when we could get the route reopened.
Repairing the bridge could return service to West Seattle by the middle of 2022. A replacement could have taken until 2026. The mayor also expressed concern that the rapid replacement plan would not be able to get through the environmental permitting processes to deliver a promised opening in 2023.
The Seattle Department of Transportation believes that it can get 15 to 40 years of life out of the bridge with this $47 million repair, but it isn’t totally sure. The bridge stabilization, while going well now, has not gone through a winter cycle. There is concern that the carbon fiber wrap and other stabilization work might not do well in colder weather.
If a repair becomes infeasible, the city would have to move to immediate replacement. That urgency is why a complete type, size and location study of a replacement is ongoing. There is hope that Seattle will get enough life out of this repair that it can build the next bridge with Sound Transit, marrying the light rail expansion and a new traffic bridge.
https://mynorthwest.com/2318467/mayor-durkan-chooses-to-repair-west-seattle-bridge/
= new reply since forum marked as read
Wasn't there to be a public/private partnership for infrastructure projects? Why was it tabled?
P.s. Our condo complex board is at odds over all sorts of projects. Some owners have purchased when market value was low and others when it was high. We have several fixed income owners on budgets. Three years ago Republicans on the board expressed giving trump 5 billion was not a big amount. Haves and have nots are now at logger heads.
