July 2020

In the fifth meeting of the West Seattle Bridge Community Task Force with the Seattle Department of Transportation six possible directions were presented to either repair or replace the damaged structure. 

None of the options presented would restore full travel capacity until 2026, though some repair scenarios could put some traffic on the bridge by 2022.

SDOT in the the process of doing a Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) of the various options looking at the costs and attributes to make the best choice. The options presented on July 22 are meant to be reviewed by the Task Force, input taken from them and the Technical Advisory Panel on Aug. 5 then over the next couple of months the deliverables (basis, evaluation criteria, alternative design ideas, cost estimates and more) will be in hand by October.

Work platforms were raised up beneath the West Seattle Bridge on Monday morning July 20 as part of the Seattle Department of Transportation's (SDOT) efforts to stabilize the now damaged structure. It's been closed to traffic since March 23 when serious shear cracks were found to have grown longer and wider making the bridge unsafe for vehicle traffic.

The platforms will give workers access to the outside of the girders that form the bridge so that carbon fiber wraps can be applied. These wraps are extremely strong with a very high strength to weight ratio. The consist of carbon fibers in threads that form a kind of thin blanket or wrap. These wrap are then either soaked in epoxy or bonded to the surface with it giving the structure much higher tensile strength and crack resistance.