SEATTLE — With more than a few honks and waves, eager drivers returned to the reopened high-level West Seattle Bridge late Saturday, after an emergency closure for repairs that lasted 2½ years.
The Seattle Department of Transportation announced at 9:15 p.m. that it removed the barricades at most entrances, itself a sensitive operation that required smart timing, to protect workers and potential trespassers from being hit.
The four-minute trip between the peninsula and I-5 was a novelty for people accustomed to detouring as far as six miles.
“It was incredible. It felt like freedom, it was emotional,” said Janelle Bracken, who made a round trip, then joined a group of people who waved from the walk-bike overpass crossing Fauntleroy Way Southwest, more typically a place for sign-hoisting politicians to greet traffic. Drivers beneath blinked their headlights and tooted their horns. Others on the walk bridge said they’re looking forward to a less-stressful and more predictable commute.
SDOT closed the span March 23, 2020, because cracks discovered seven years earlier were beginning to accelerate at a dangerous pace, in four areas within the 150-foot-high central main span.
Stabilization and strengthening work, at a cost of up to $78 million, is expected to keep the concrete structure aloft until about 2060. And drivers will no longer need to travel an extra 30 to 60 minutes, through the Duwamish River valley highways or streets.
This is the busiest city-owned bridge, carrying about 100,000 vehicles and nearly 20,000 transit riders before the pandemic and shutdown.
The resumption of traffic on the bridge came hours before what had been announced as a Sunday opening. The city had not planned a formal opening ceremony and had kept the time a secret, worried that lines of cars would form, with drivers seeking bragging rights about being among the first to cross the repaired bridge.
The refurbished bridge route contains multiple signs to help drivers navigate toward the Vashon Island and Southworth ferries, and a new electronic sign for eastbound traffic that simply read “West Seattle Bridge Open.”
