Photo Courtesy of SDOT
(SEATTLE) See you in September, West Seattle.
That was the message delivered by the Seattle Department of Transportation Thursday when the agency announced the West Seattle Bridge will open later than planned. The new, possible date for it’s opening is the week of September 12th. Up until yesterday, the projected opening date was in July.
“We expect the West Seattle Bridge to be open to traffic during the week of September 12. Sharing that today is a relief since our focus has always been on safely getting everyone back on the bridge ASAP. It’s been hard having to wait for this update, but we did need to get through the concrete work to understand exactly where we were schedule-wise. Thank you for being so patient, Seattle,” SDOT Program Manager Heather Marx said in a meeting Thursday with the West Seattle Bridge Community Task Force.
Dan Austin is a member of that group, as well as a business owner in West Seattle.
“I can tell you I’ve been working well over 60 hours to try to keep my business afloat,” Austin said during Thursday’s virtual meeting. “Let’s find a way to get this thing open even a day faster.”
In a statement to the Seattle Times, former Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels said “I speak for all when I say that we wish the bridge could open safely, sooner, but we now have a date and can begin planning our lives around it.”
The 175-million dollar repair job still has several weeks of testing to complete. The West Seattle Bridge has been closed to all traffic since cracks were discovered in March 2020.
