Tag Archives: 520 bridge

News, Transportation

Reminder: 520 Bridge Closed for the Weekend

Birds, or floating bridge construction, whatever you’re in the mood for (Photo: MvB)

The Washington Department of Transportation reminds you that they’re closing the 520 bridge for construction this weekend, July 12th to 15th, from 11 p.m. Friday until 5 a.m. Monday. In conjunction with that I-405 northbound through Bellevue will be closed as well, starting at 10 p.m. tonight.

This weekend’s 520 closure is for a scheduled inspection, and for maintenance and repair, from Montlake to I-405. I-405’s closure, from Southeast Eighth Street to SR 520 (and the eastbound and westbound I-90 ramps to northbound I-405), will allow WSDOT crews to replace concrete panels in the two left lanes between Southeast Eighth and Main Streets. Your alternate routes are I-5, I-90, and a kayak.

That means Eastsiders who want to catch the Ms playing the Angels tonight at SAFECO at 7:10 p.m. had better plan to use I-90 on the way home, or hope the game doesn’t go into extra innings.

Saturday morning, before any of you are up, about 10,000 cyclists will be pedaling out of Seattle on their way to Portland for STP. They leave in waves between 4:45 and 7:30 a.m., taking off from a UW parking lot and biking down Montlake to Pacific, crossing the University Bridge, and then taking Furhman to Boyer to Lake Washington Boulevard. Less pedaling gets you to Sub Pop’s Silver Jubilee in Georgetown, all day, from 10 a.m. to 11 p.m.

Denny Way will be closed between Fourth and Fifth Avenue so that a crane can be put up. 12th Avenue between Pike and Pine will be closed from 1 to 4 p.m. for the Seattle Police East Precinct Picnic. From 3 to 8 p.m., East Madison between 27th Avenue E and 30th Avenue E will be closed for the Bastille Bash.

Both Saturday and Sunday all sorts of streets will be closed in the International District for Dragon Fest.

News, Transportation

Both of WSDOT’s Seattle Megaprojects Off to a Bumpy Start

Giant cranes lift the 57.5-foot-diameter cutterhead into place on the SR 99 tunnel boring machine in Japan. (Photo: WSDOT)
Giant cranes lift the 57.5-foot-diameter cutterhead into place on the SR 99 tunnel boring machine in Japan. (Photo: WSDOT)

For most of 2012, the Washington Department of Transportation was watchdogged by KOMO News because of cracks found in new pontoons for the new 520 bridge. Now the Seattle Times‘ Mike Lindblom reports that Bertha, the 7,000-ton tunnel boring machine, purpose-built for digging the SR 99 tunnel beneath Seattle, sustained damage during its initial testing in Japan.

A January 23, 2013, update from WSDOT read, “She was performing well until last week, when crews discovered that something wasn’t quite right with her main drive unit, which rotates the cutterhead. It appears there was insufficient clearance between a rotating and stationary portion of the main drive unit, which resulted in damage to some of its components.”

Said Lindblom: “Testing was to be finished Dec. 25. As of this week, Hitachi Zosen crews in Osaka are disassembling and diagnosing the drive system.” (Sidebar: Although Bertha is, for a little while, the world’s largest-diameter TBM, it’s not a Big Bertha reference; the machine is named for Bertha Knight Landes, Seattle’s only female mayor.)

Bertha’s Twitter account has so far made no reference to its need for repair, or who’s paying for it. But in fact taxpayers are not on the hook yet. Seattle Tunnel Partners (STP) doesn’t officially take ownership of Bertha from Hitachi Zosen until the TBM has made it through about 1,000 feet of Seattle soil with no issues. Even then, says  said Linea Laird, WSDOT’s administrator for the Alaskan Way Viaduct Replacement Program, “More than 90 percent of STP’s work will be performed for a fixed price.”

Meanwhile, cracks in pontoons and mistakes in construction continue to plague WSDOT’s 520 bridge replacement project. In December, WSDOT announced that although specified “hooked” rebar had been left out of three pontoons, they would “structurally adequate” anyway. That omission is, of course, troubling because the rebar in question was supposed to help prevent cracking due to stress.

In an earlier update, in mid-December, titled “Continued progress on SR 520 east approach bridge piers,” WSDOT mentioned that part of that progress was tear-down of a new 58-foot-tall concrete column that had been built with too little concrete over its reinforcing steel skeleton. That was on contracting team Kiewit/General/Manson’s dime.

The state has been pressing for an ambitious finish to replacement of the floating section of the bridge, by late 2014, which presumably was a factor in transportation chief Paula Hammond’s decision not to reject the cracking pontoons shipped so far, proclaiming them mostly cosmetic and of no danger to pontoon integrity. But today Mike Lindblom noted on Twitter:

News, Transportation

How 520’s Toll Revenue Differs from WSDOT’s 2011 Projections

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The 520 bridge tolls for thee. (Photo: MvB)
The 520 bridge tolls for thee. (Photo: MvB)

The headline in the Seattle Times says, “One year later, 520 bridge toll income, traffic levels ‘right on target‘,” but it’s difficult to tell which targets Washington Department of Transportation toll director Craig Stone has in mind. Stone says the state raised “about” $50 million in 2012 from gross toll revenues, with average weekday traffic down about 33 percent since the tolls were put in place.

But WSDOT projections, both in its 2011 investment grade study (pdf) and its toll revenue report (pdf) display a fiscal year estimate, rather than the calendar year total that Stone is reporting on. That six-month FY 2012 period was supposed to bring almost $28 million, increasing to almost $62 million in the full 2013 fiscal year. WSDOT had promised investors that these were very conservative projections.

The projections, though, assume a top toll of $3.50 with a floor of $1.60; in actuality, WSDOT has been charging more: $3.59 at peak times, down to $1.64 at night. In addition, WSDOT estimated that late-payment fees would total about $400,000 during the FY 2012 period. For the calendar year, they’ve charged $3.8 million.

Back of the envelope calculations would seem to show that toll revenue has exceeded expectations by more than that $3 million, certainly, but WSDOT says “right on target.” If you take them at their word, this would indicate that the tolls in themselves, despite the increase in price and late-payment windfall, are lagging.

Could it be traffic volumes? Again, it is difficult to say. Although the projections use average annual daily traffic, Stone has provided average weekday traffic (70,000). The Times‘s Lindblom notes that “Transit ridership on 520 has grown to 19,000 a day, up by one-fourth since two years ago, agencies say.”

In 2013, the state will study tolling the I-90 bridge, reports GeekWire, to deal with “leakage” from shunpikers. This requires negotiation, because while 520 is a state route, 90 is an interstate and federally funded. What is clear is that however much WSDOT has seen in toll revenue so far, they’d very much like to see more, as some $1.4 billion of the 520 bridge project remains unfunded.

News, Politics, Transportation

New 520 Floating Bridge’s Pontoons are “Disaster,” Inspector Tells KOMO

WSDOT photo taken during the SR 520 pontoon media tour on Nov. 14, 2012.

KOMO News has more allegations from a former inspector, who says that the construction quality of the pontoons for replacement 520 bridge make it a “disaster waiting to happen.” His fate is instructive, especially when it comes to the state Department of Transportation’s response to KOMO inquiries.

WSDOT says, for instance: “WSDOT’s SR 520 construction contracts include multiple requirements for Quality Assurance (QA) managers and other Quality Assurance staff.” That sounds reassuring, but when you read their documentation, you discover that construction firm Kiewit, the “Design-Builder,” is responsible for all “QA and QC for design.”

WSDOT provides Quality Verification (QV) staff, but they get to see the finished results, when there’s significantly more at stake in ordering Kiewit to redo a piece. In this case, with cracks–and leaks–appearing in the pontoons, Kiewit is being asked to fix them. It is not clear how the firm can “fix” instances of the wrong rebar being used, misplaced, or left out entirely.

How this process seems to have played out is that the whistleblowing QA inspector was hired by a subcontractor to Kiewit to oversee construction. After he began writing up non-compliant construction methods, he was reprimanded, he says, and finally laid off after Kiewit complained about his sticklerism. (This is a similar dynamic reported by building inspectors who report shoddy condo construction. Your dance card empties out.)

WSDOT, troublingly, seems unhumbled by an August 2012 performance audit (pdf) that noted: “In general, it appears the Quality Management Plan is not being adhered to by KG and not being enforced by QA or QV.”

This all follows on KOMO’s earlier reporting that two experts agreed the first six pontoons should be “do-overs.” KOMO’s watchdogging had already gotten a promise from Governor Gregoire that an independent expert panel would review the pontoons. (In the Seattle Times, Secretary of Transportation Paula Hammond seemed impervious to alarm, pooh-poohing the issue of cracks in the pontoons: “I have no reason to believe we are going to reject pontoons.”)

Fixed and problem solved? KOMO’s Problem Solvers have since discovered that concrete in the next cycle of pontoons is cracking, as well.

Finally, you might ask what the hurry is? WSDOT has adopted a furious pace in shipping the pontoons, despite that fact that $1.4 billion in funding for the project remains to be found. Despite predicting traffic volumes of between 90,000 and 100,000 cars per day in the first year of tolling on 520, WSDOT reported that an average of 63,500 cars crossed the bridge weekdays, January to June 2012.

A recent budget update sliced $522 million from the project’s original $4.65 billion price, reducing it to $4.1 billion, which should help slightly with subpar toll revenue. But ultimately, moving money from pot to pot leads to stories like these: WSDOT is also said to have reduced the amount it was to pay MOHAI for its land to $4 million from $18 million (when I asked for details, a WSDOT communications officer told me she’d get back to me after a meeting on that topic, and did not).

News, Politics, Transportation

Judge Calls WSDOT’s 520 Bridge Analysis “Objective,” Dismisses Suit

U.S. District Court Judge Ricardo Martinez, who, before vilification begins, it must be noted kept the Sonics lease-breaking argument out of arbitration, dismissed yesterday a lawsuit brought against Washington State’s construction of a new SR 520 bridge. The lawsuit claimed that Washington’s Department of Transportation hadn’t conducted adequate review of alternatives before settling on a 6-lane expansion of the floating part of the bridge (growing to 12 lanes, counting on- and off-ramps, at Montlake).

“Our analysis was thorough and exhaustive, and we hope that the ruling by Judge Martinez puts an end to the debate about mobility improvements to this vital corridor,” said state Transportation Secretary Paula Hammond. With the court’s decision, WSDOT can continue with construction of SR 520 improvements as planned and funded.

Small caveat: all the SR 520 improvements aren’t funded. The state is still searching for more than $2 billion of the $4.65-billion project, so that the floating bridge portion can connect to Montlake. So, financially at least, a huge caveat.

The verdict was not particularly surprising: WSDOT has been aggressive with its timeline for the bridge construction, which has the effect of creating a sunk investment if the project is delayed or halted. Opponents of the bridge’s expansion have had difficulty bending any “ears of power.” In this economic climate, few are interested in taking the political hit sinking the mega-bridge would require. Besides, beyond the hundreds of millions of dollars already spent, many voters still believe extra lanes necessarily equal improvements in traffic flow.

Still, this is a sobering finding for anyone who thinks that an environmental impact review would lead to outcomes that impact the environment less. The Coalition for a Sustainable 520 had plenty of arguments to make on that score (the Montlaker blog summarizes a few of them for you), not least the much-remarked-upon improvement in traffic flow that has come from tolling the existing 4-lane bridge, and the mostly-ignored requirement to define how an expansion would fit with state’s goals to reduce greenhouse gases.

In Judge Martinez’s view, the option of a tolled, 4-lane, “transit-optimized” bridge deserved consideration didn’t come into the question of “improving the mobility of people and goods across Lake Washington in the SR 520 corridor.” (Here is where Sightline’s now-29-part series on the decade-long plateau (and actual decline) in traffic volumes around the state makes good reading.) Thus, the final environmental impact statement could compare WSDOT’s 6-lane preferred alternative to doing nothing at all–and nothing else–and still present the “reasonable alternatives.”

The conclusion, that there are no reasonable alternatives to the preferred alternative, has a strikingly Politburo-esque tone. As does the rationale used to eliminate the tolled 4-lane option: The toll cost would impact the poor, and divert traffic to I-90. (WSDOT argues that it is fine to do both of these things if you are funding a megaproject.) Sound reasonable?

View of the new SR 520 floating bridge, looking west

News, Transportation, Travel

Paying to Cross 520: Is It Worth It?

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Tolling on 520 has begun, meaning that it could cost you as much as five bucks to get across Lake Washington. Obviously, if you work at Microsoft, the old adage, “You’ve got to spend money to make money,” applies most vigorously. But the rest of us must make a decision. Is it worth it?

While the Eastside is a lovely place to live and work, there isn’t much over there you’d go out of your way to see. No Eastside location appears on this Top 10 Washington Attractions list, nor on this one or this one or this one. The closest thing the Eastside has to a unique destination is the underrated Rosalie Whyel Museum of Doll Art. I say underrated because I’ve never seen anyone rate it and it does at least seem to exist.

A couple of top Northwest outdoor attractions — Snoqualmie Falls, Mount Si, the Issaquah Alps — must be reached by crossing Lake Washington, but they hardly qualify as being on the “Eastside” as we commonly think of it. Besides, you take I-90 to get to those, and I-90 remains completely free!

Restaurants are a different matter. Two of Zagat’s top 10 Seattle-area restaurants–Herbfarm, in Woodinville, and Cafe Juanita, in Kirkland–are best reached via 520. But if you’re eating at Cafe Juanita or Herbfarm, I’m thinking that parting with $5 isn’t likely to cause undue financial strain.

For those of us who prefer to keep our dinner tabs in the double-digits, the best reason to pay $5 to drive over the Lake Washington Floating Bridge might be simply this: to drive over the Lake Washington Floating Bridge!

Consider: It is actually the largest floating bridge in the world! Due to the fact that the rest of the world stupidly thinks waterways look better without pavement on them, our area has a near-monopoly in the longest-floating-bridge rankings. Four of the world’s five largest floating bridges are in Washington state, with only Guyana’s Demerara Harbor Bridge interloping on our floating bridge dominance. 520 is #1.

Just think, as you drive across, that no one in the entire world has ever driven an vehicle across pavement that’s floating on water further than you are at that moment! (Until we blow Guyana out of the top five with a bridge across Lake Washington lengthwise.) For only $5!

As you may know, you can reduce the cost of your world-record-tying voyage by traveling at non-peak hours. From 11 p.m. to 5 a.m., there is no toll to drive across 520. If you must travel during the day, you will pay pay less if buy the state’s pre-paid tolls card, the “Good to Go!” Pass, which was named by a committee of heavily caffeinated seventh-grade boys. The $5 peak-time price is only $3.50 if you pre-pay–and that $1.50 you save could pay for an extra drop of wine at Herb Farm.