There is one big problem when a huge neighborhood only has a couple points of access for people on bikes: What happens when one of those points closes?
Well, that will happen tonight (Friday) when the lower West Seattle Bridge closes from 8 p.m. until midnight so the US Army Corps of Engineers can dredge the Duwamish River floor.
So if you need to bike to West Seattle tonight, better do it before 8. Unless, of course, you’re in the mood for a nice long bike ride all the way down to the 1st Avenue Bridge (or you can catch a bus, though the bike slots might be in high demand).
Details from SDOT:
The Spokane Street Bridge will be closed to motor vehicles on Friday night, Jan. 31, from 8 p.m. to midnight. The closure will allow a contractor working for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to dredge the channel where silt has accumulated. Drivers are advised to use the high-level West Seattle Bridge during this time.
The contractor will begin dredging tomorrow night, but will not need to close the bridge to motor vehicles until Friday night to finish the work. The channel will remain open for marine traffic.
Note to bicyclists and pedestrians:
Bicyclists and pedestrians are advised to cross the Spokane Street swing bridge before 8 p.m. on Friday. If this is not possible, there are two alternatives.
Pedestrians and bicyclists may want to consult metro bus schedules. You may load your bike on a bus; however, the number of buses after 8 p.m. and bike carrying capacity of each bus is limited. For information about bus service, see Metro Online, www.kingcounty.gov/metro, or call 206.553.3000.
The alternate bike route uses the First Avenue South Bridge, although this is quite a long distance south of the Spokane Street swing bridge. The First Avenue South Bridge sidewalk can be accessed via the Duwamish Trail on the west side of the river. On the east side of the river, the bridge sidewalk begins at the intersection of First Avenue South and South Michigan Street underneath the bridge approach.
Don’t know how to detour? Here’s the area on the Seattle Bike Map:
Comments
8 responses to “Lower West Seattle Bridge will close Friday at 8PM”
Perhaps you meant dredging?
Or perhaps not:
drudge
gerund or present participle: drudging
1.
do hard, menial, or dull work.
Ha! Yeah, I guess either works :-)
I fixed it. Thanks.
I believe the word you are looking for is dredge rather than drudge.
drudge
[druhj] Show IPA
noun
1.
a person who does menial, distasteful, dull, or hard work.
2.
a person who works in a routine, unimaginative way.
verb (used without object), drudged, drudg·ing.
3.
to perform menial, distasteful, dull, or hard work.
dredge
1 [drej] Show IPA
noun
1.
Also called dredging machine. any of various powerful machines for dredging up or removing earth, as from the bottom of a river, by means of a scoop, a series of buckets, a suction pipe, or the like.
2.
a barge on which such a machine is mounted.
3.
a dragnet or other contrivance for gathering material or objects from the bottom of a river, bay, etc.
verb (used with object), dredged, dredg·ing.
4.
to clear out with a dredge; remove sand, silt, mud, etc., from the bottom of.
5.
to take, catch, or gather with a dredge; obtain or remove by a dredge.
Yes. See comment above.
Show IPA, Show IPA,…
enough with the beer-tease already!
In case you get down to the bridge and then realize you can’t get across, to the best of my knowledge the nearest bus stop is at 1st/Spokane, for routes 21 and 50. I don’t know its exact location. Between 8 and 9 you’ll get about 5 buses, then 3 per hour between 9 and midnight, then 3 from midnight through the last run of the 21 a bit after 1:30 AM.
But you’re probably better off waiting farther north.
(Then again, if you have enough Internets on your phone to read this comment you could have figured that all out yourself :-P)
Telling that the official announcement only declares that the bridge is closed to “motor vehicles.” For headline skimmers, that means it’s not closed to bikes or pedestrians. Hope not too many people are blindsided by the inaccurate announcement from SDOT.