City of Seattle awarded another $12 million to make repairs to West Seattle Bridge
The City of Seattle was the beneficiary of another federal grant that will go toward making repairs to the West Seattle Bridge, which has been closed since early last year when already existing cracks in its foundation began to grow rapidly.
The Seattle Department of Transportation was awarded the $12 million grant through the state’s Local Bridge Program, which uses of federal funds to “preserve and improve the condition” of city or county bridges that are “physically deteriorated or structurally deficient through replacement.”
“This is an all hands on deck approach by our colleagues at every level of government to address the most significant transportation challenge that has faced our city, ” Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan said in a news release about the grant. “We have an aggressive timeline to re-establish mobility for West Seattle and across the region.”
The bridge’s closure has had significant impact on traffic in the surrounding areas. Before it closed, the bridge carried an average of 100,000 vehicles and 25,000 transit riders a day.
The new grant brings the total of federal funding up to $37.7 million, the news release said. Last month, the city also received a $11.2 million INFRA grant from the federal government. It was awarded an additional $7.5 million in federal dollars through the Highway Infrastructure Program and another $6.9 million from the Surface Transportation Program, the release said.
https://www.seattlepi.com/local/transportation/article/seattle-grant-12M-for-west-seattle-bridge-repair-16343560.php