SDOT will repair the West Seattle Bridge

SDOT blog:

Today, Mayor Jenny A. Durkan announced that she has instructed the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) to restore travel across the Duwamish by repairing the West Seattle High-Rise Bridge. SDOT has nearly completed Phase I of this two-part repair process, as the stabilization work concludes in December. She also directed SDOT to continue early design work for an eventual replacement of the bridge.

Fast, cheap, good: pick two" is the old project management saw and the city appears to have chosen fast and cheap." The bridge could be open just around the time (2022) a COVID-19 vaccine is widely distributed and normal" commute patterns reassert themselves.

Neither Sound Transit nor the city seemed super keen on a joint car-rail bridge, which could have put the light rail schedule at risk. So the options came down to a 1-for-1 replacement or a repair.

Kicking the can down the road and waiting to see what happens in a post-COVID world makes some sense, but won't come without a cost. A replacement would have been eligible for outside funding, while repairs will likely have to come out of the city's general maintenance funds, which are already stretched, or via a car tab fee, taking money that used to be earmarked for transit.