Seattle is already dealing with concrete cracking on the now-closed, six-lane West Seattle High-Rise Bridge, and now faces needed crack repair on the West Seattle Low Bridge, also known as the Spokane Street Swing Bridge.
The two-lane concrete swing bridge opened in 1991 with internal post-tensioned steel support cables, similar to the High-Rise Bridge. It was designed to move over time in response to traffic, temperature conditions or seismic events. But cracks discovered on the Low Bridge are now being “closely monitored and tested to ensure that they do not affect the bridge’s structural integrity,” the Seattle Dept. of Transportation (SDOT) said in a statement.