‘We are counting down the days’: Projected reopening of West Seattle Bridge less than a month away

SEATTLE — Thursday marks 24 days until SDOT’s projected reopening of the West Seattle Bridge. Crews just finished up carbon-fiber wrapping, but there’s still concrete to pour and load tests to complete.

SDOT’s downtown mobility director Heather Marx says so far, the bridge has responded to the repairs as they projected it would. For that reason, SDOT believes the tests will go smoothly.

“We are counting down the days,” said Marx. “We are just buttoning up doing those final things, preparing us for that moment.”

SDOT has installed sensors throughout the bridge and installed an inspection platform inside it to monitor the growth of any cracks.

Marx says the historically long concrete strike contributed to pushing the reopening date back to Sept. 18. There are an estimated 40 yards of concrete yet to pour.

Another box SDOT needs to check is load testing. Part of that is having crews drive 12 trucks, each weighing 80 tons, up and down the high bridge.

“The fact that the bridge is behaving the way we expect it to now is also a pretty good indication that we’ll get the results we expect later,” said Marx.

If all goes as planned, SDOT will reopen the bridge to drivers all at once instead of taking a staggered approach.

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