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Alert 10/25-27: Spokane Street swing bridge to West Seattle closed

Alert 10/25-27: Spokane Street swing bridge to West Seattle closed

Workers move a turn cylinder inside the Spokane Street Bridge. Photo from SDOT. The Spokane Street swing bridge (AKA the lower West Seattle Bridge) is…

Friday, Oct 25

News

Workers move a turn cylinder inside the Spokane Street Bridge. Photo from SDOT. The Spokane Street swing bridge (AKA the lower West Seattle Bridge) is closed to biking, walking and driving until 10 p.m. Sunday (October 27). There is no official bicycle detour.

The only bike route alternative without the Spokane Street Bridge is to ride many miles out of the way through busy industrial streets to the 1st Ave S Bridge in Georgetown. SDOT did not bring back the amazing temporary bike lanes on 1st Ave S from January 2023 . The good news is that once you reach the bridge from the east, it’s smooth sailing along the west side of the Duwamish River thanks to the Duwamish Trail connections SDOT completed in 2023 on W Marginal Way.

SDOT is breaking ground on the Georgetown to Downtown bike route today (groundbreaking celebration is 3 p.m. October 30 near Airport Way S and S Vale St), but that’s not going to help anyone this weekend.

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The closure is needed so SDOT can reinstall a broken turn cylinder, which as the name implies is critical to the bridge’s movement. When the bridge has broken unexpectedly in the past, it has often been due to these turn cylinders. Though this bridge is not very old in bridge terms (it opened in 1991), SDOT has had to do a ton of rehab work in recent years. They had to strengthen it to fix cracks, revamp the control system […]

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