Seattle University Bridge Stuck Open In Upright Position For Two Days
- seattleducation
- Jan 12, 2023
- 2 min read
Seattle University Bridge Stuck Open, stuck in the upright position for nearly 48 hours after an electrical failure, and mechanical issues. Crews took hours to repair and reopen it. Find out more in the article below about the root of this issue, how the engineers resolved it, and other information regarding the Seattle University bridge. Let’s explore!
History Of Seattle University Bridge
The University Bridge is a double-leaf bascule bridge in the City of Seattle, Washington. It connects Eastlake Avenue to the University District to the north and Portage Bay to the south. It opened on July 1, 1919, and between 1932 and 1933, a lot of work was done to fix it. It is included in the National Register of Historic Places. The University bridge Seattle height is about 42.5 ft and the longest span is 218 ft (66 m).
When it first opened in 1919, it was called the Eastlake Avenue Bridge (also then known as the Tenth Avenue Northeast Bridge). On June 30, 1919, it got its current and correct name.
The control towers were restored, the wooden paving was changed, and the first use of open steel-mesh grating in the United States was constructed in lieu of the wooden paving by 1930 when the bridge had started to deteriorate to the point that a comprehensive refit was requested. The steel-mesh grating has only been replaced once, in 1990; the wooden paving needed to be renewed around every ten years. The rebuilt bridge was inaugurated on April 7, 1933.
Ballard, Fremont, and University are the three double-leaf bascule bridges, and all three were included in the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.
In 2014, its electronics were updated. When it’s really hot in the summer, the University Bridge needs to be sprayed with cool water every day so that the supports don’t expand so much that they stick together.
Seattle University Bridge Stuck Open In Upright Position
Root Cause
The Seattle University Bridge was stuck for nearly 48 hours due to an electrical malfunction that occurred on the morning of Friday, November 12, 2021. This incident isolated the two communities on either side of this bridge for hours. The Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) tweeted about the closure at 10:30 a.m. on Friday, and it reopened to traffic around 9:40 a.m. on Sunday.
Impact On The Transportation System
All walkways for pedestrians, cyclists, drivers, and tourists are blocked. SDOT encouraged local people to find alternate routes when the bridge got stuck in the raised position. Over 35,000 vehicles must go around the waterway to reach northern Seattle.
The bridge connects the University District to the Eastlake neighborhood in Seattle. The closure caused traffic jams on the Montlake and the Lake Washington Ship Canal bridges Saturday evening (November 13, 2021) night as people headed to Husky Stadium for the University of Washington football game against Oregon.
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