Crews from Cadman cement and the Seattle Department of Transportation were atop the West Seattle Bridge on Saturday April 16 to begin the first of the final specialized concrete pours to complete repairs on the bridge. Closed since March of 2020, the bridge is expected to reopen this summer.
SDOT image
Information from Seattle Department of Transportation
On the morning of Saturday, April 16, the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) and its construction contractor completed the first pour of specialized structural concrete to strengthen and repair the West Seattle Bridge.
Today marked the first pour of the specialized structural concrete, which will be used to form structures inside the bridge to hold the new steel cables for the improved post-tensioning system. Bridge crews also recently received two truck loads of non-structural concrete for new expansion joints, on April 5 and 7.
In total, bridge repairs will require 245 cubic yards (about 30 truckloads) of specialized concrete. This concrete will be used to hold 46 miles of steel cables, and will be cable of holding more than 20 million pounds of force. After the concrete pours are completed and the work is inspected, SDOT will be able to revisit the project schedule and share an update about the timing of the reopening, originally scheduled for mid-2022.
In addition to concrete work, SDOT has been continuing to make progress on other work needed to strengthen and reopen the bridge. This past week, SDOT completed the final core drills through the bridge’s pier structures, which is another major milestone to get ready for installing the new post-tensioning system. SDOT and its contractor have also be been continuing to make progress filling existing cracks with epoxy and installing carbon wrapping on both the interior and exterior of the bridge.
