Why doesn’t WSDOT shift traffic to the other Narrows Bridge during emergency repairs?
Alan Thomas thought about Hawaii as he sat in traffic during the recent emergency repairs on the Tacoma Narrows Bridge.
Crews on Kauai switch the direction of one of the lanes during rush hour on part of Route 56, Kuhio Highway, to help keep things moving. One person drives a truck and one person moves cones to shift traffic, Thomas said.
Couldn’t the Washington State Department of Transportation do something similar, he wondered, to keep traffic moving during rush hour when it has to close lanes of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge?
WSDOT closed the two right lanes of the westbound bridge May 13 after crews found damage to an expansion joint in the middle of the span during a routine inspection that day. The agency reopened the lanes the morning of May 16 after repairs were done and the concrete had time to dry.
That made for several days of challenging afternoon commutes for drivers like Thomas, headed across the bridge to Gig Harbor or elsewhere west of the Narrows.
The 59-year-old orthopedic surgeon works in Lakewood and lives in the Gig Harbor area. He wondered if there was a contraflow solution to the backups. He envisioned crews taking two lanes of the eastbound bridge, which is less traveled in the afternoons, and designating them for westbound drivers during the evening commute.
The Gateway put that question to WSDOT.
“We do have a plan in place to use one bridge for both directions of travel, in the event an entire span has to be closed,” WSDOT spokesperson April Leigh told The News Tribune via email May 16.
In this case, she said — in which the agency was able to keep two lanes of travel open during the repairs of the westbound bridge — it might have made the delays worse.
“Switching directions of travel across the state Route 16 Tacoma Narrows Bridge requires miles of traffic control including barrels, cones and signs on both the Tacoma and Gig Harbor sides of the channel,” Leigh wrote. “It also requires reduced speeds in both directions. It would likely result in more backups, not less for travelers.”
Asked for further details about the time, equipment and the number of crew members it would take to use one bridge for both directions of traffic, WSDOT spokesperson Doug Adamson said via email Friday that getting physical barriers in place on the Tacoma and Gig Harbor sides of the bridge is part of the process.
“They are physically rolled into place to close one of the bridges,” he wrote. ”This process alone can take up to four hours. This requires about a half dozen crew members to install the barriers.”
Adamson said about 4,400 vehicles travel across the westbound bridge from 4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.
‘My commute was wrecked’
Thomas thinks there should be a way to transfer traffic in cases like what happened May 13.
“Shouldn’t we have a plan?” he asked. “If you’re going to take two lanes, you need to give us options as motorists.”
It took over an hour for him to get home May 14, he said. The drive usually takes just over 20 minutes.
“For three days, my commute was wrecked, and I had to cross the bridge twice one of the days,” he said.
Thomas hung out and visited friends for dinner later in the week before heading home, to try to avoid the worst of the backup.
“I’m not that important, but it was hundreds of other motorists,” who were also affected, he said. “Maybe next time there is a problem on the bridge, they can shift some traffic.”
A coworker spent an hour and 45 minutes getting home from Lakewood on May 15, he said.
A big part of the problem, Thomas said, was that discourteous drivers kept cutting in line for the bridge on South Jackson Avenue.
“Those people doing that completely blocked traffic,” he said. “It was just so frustrating.”
As he inched forwarded, drivers were constantly cutting in, creating a bottleneck.
“It created mayhem at that Sixth Avenue light,” he said.
The Gateway asked what traffic control measures were taken or considered around the bridge to help with the backups, and whether WSDOT works with the city of Tacoma to monitor that sort of behavior during lane closures.
Adamson wrote: “The Jackson Avenue ramp to SR 16 was kept open during the lane closures where travelers would merge onto the highway. While not an ideal situation, we do appreciate travelers who were patient and courteous while we worked to make repairs on the bridge. We did inform the City of Tacoma about the issue on Monday afternoon (May 13).”
This story was originally published May 20, 2024 at 5:00 AM.
