10:19 PM: Traffic alert if you are outbound tonight or tomorrow: At the lower right of the traffic-camera image above, SDOT trucks and crews have two lanes of the eastbound West Seattle Bridge blocked near 1st Avenue S. so they can do pavement repairs/resurfacing. The SDOT alert says this work could continue until 7 pm tomorrow.
4:11 PM UPDATE: Still working. You can check the camera here.
8:47 PM: Though this was supposed to be done by 7 pm, camera shows the work zone is still blocked off.
This won’t help the weekend traffic flow much, but has been needed for months if not a couple of years. I’ve been around the construction industry for most of my life and have never seen a roadway wear out and become both a hazard and an embarrassment so quickly. I don’t know what happened to the original installation or the resulting repairs, but I hope they get these figured out.
After the widening project some years back, they left that whole section several seasons without a top layer, after they had scraped that top layer off. Exposed rebar left to rust away. The elements and heavy traffic took its toll. We never found out why it was left uncovered for so long.
I predict there will be much more of this piecemeal pavement work on that section in the near future.
Daniel, I agree. I was just noticing earlier this week how bad that section of roadway was getting. It has been in a continuous state of patch and repair ever since Merlino (?) resurfaced the roadway as part of the widening project. I recall the new surface started failing almost right away and the contractor/WSDOT explained that a certain percentage failure rate was expected (20%? Perhaps Tracy can look back at the post-construction blog articles). I couldn’t believe it.I did a search WSB articles about the project and found this:https://westseattleblog.com/2012/08/spokane-st-viaduct-why-some-of-its-new-surface-is-getting-cut-up/#comments
Take the low bridge! Spokane is open all the way from First through the I-5 on ramp.
My guess is that the drains were inadequate or poorly designed and that’s what has caused the continual potholes in those inside lanes (as well as the large, hydro-plane promoting puddles in heavy rain). I’ve occasionally seen road crews using high pressure jets to blast dirt out of the clogged drains. The number of patches visible in Google Maps satellite images is pretty dramatic.
Just came home. Spokane Street Viaduct wide open eastbound … no lanes blocked. Looks as if SDOT has been done working on the stretch for a while, too.
Sorry – we noted last night on Twitter at 9:09 pm that work had wrapped up shortly after our previous update https://twitter.com/westseattleblog/status/1165476184198529026 but apparently failed to add that notation here!
Sorry, comment time is over.
| 7 COMMENTS