Over 23K cross this Pierce County bridge daily. ‘It needs to be replaced.’
Andy O’Brien, 37, lives just off the Purdy Bridge in a home that’s been in his family for four generations. He remembers visiting the house as a kid, when it belonged to his grandparents, and has seen the number of cars on the road swell since then.
“When I was a little kid, going from my house out to ... like, Key Peninsula Middle School, maybe 10 cars,” he said.
Today, the nearly 90-year-old bridge that serves as the main entryway to the Key Peninsula sees over 23,000 daily crossings, according to one estimate in a report from the American Road & Transportation Builders Association.
State lawmakers and transportation officials say they’re aware of the concerns about the aging bridge and the toll that growth has placed on roads in Purdy and Wauna, but that other projects need attention first. Meanwhile, residents like O’Brien continue to have concerns about traffic backups, safety for drivers and pedestrians and the noise levels from the highway.
“It’s only exponentially increased and gotten louder and faster,” O’Brien said about the bridge traffic. “... I can hear traffic at 4 in the morning all the way until 11:30 p.m. at night.”
Where does the Purdy Bridge rank in the state’s priorities?
The existing Purdy Bridge was built from 1936-1937. It represents the fourth version of a bridge built over the Purdy Spit, according to Joseph Pentheroudakis’ book, “Change and Continuity: The Life and Times of the Purdy Bridge.” The current structure was rebuilt in 1966, and inducted into the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.
The bridge is among over 3,400 state bridges overseen by WSDOT’s Bridge Preservation Program, which also inspects thousands more bridges on the city and county level. In the years ahead, the department faces the looming task of preserving more and more aging bridges with limited funding, an issue that’s already contributed to challenges such as the closure of the Fairfax Bridge in East Pierce County.
WSDOT data shows that the number of bridges requiring replacement or rehabilitation within the next decade jumped from 81 to 223 between fiscal years 2020 and 2024.
The costs are only getting more expensive. In a presentation last October, WSDOT reported a funding gap of roughly $8 billion for highway and bridge preservation costs over the next decade. Delaying necessary repairs means taxpayers will have to cover more costly and extensive projects down the line, the presentation said.
The Purdy Bridge doesn’t rank on the department’s 10-year plan for bridge replacement.
“We do not have sufficient resources to address all identified preservation needs at once,” Washington State Department of Transportation spokesperson Cara Mitchell wrote in an email May 5. “Many bridges can safely remain in service well beyond 80 years with proper maintenance and preservation. As a result, we prioritize the most critical safety needs and focus on the ‘worst of the worst’ structures first.”
WSDOT’s 10-year plan is subject to change based on routine bridge inspections, Mitchell explained, so it isn’t available on WSDOT’s website. The News Tribune requested the plan via a public records request. That request is pending.
At a Pierce County Council meeting on the Key Peninsula April 2, WSDOT Olympic Region Administrator Steve Roark confirmed that funding is the main barrier to replacing the bridge.
“It needs to be replaced,” Roark said of the bridge. “I think everyone knows that. Unfortunately, we don’t have the funding right now to do that, but it is certainly on our radar.”
Rehabilitation may come sooner, but that work has already been postponed for years. WSDOT originally planned to complete repairs to two of the bridge’s piers in the summer of 2021, but Key Peninsula News reported in July 2022 that the work had been delayed, without a posted reschedule date.
Mitchell wrote April 29 that WSDOT will propose the rehabilitation project for scheduling in the next six years. That work will involve installing concrete collars around the deteriorated columns of Piers 3 and 4 on the bridge, she wrote. These columns “need to be repaired to extend the functional life of the bridge,” according to an application WSDOT submitted to the National Marine Fisheries Service in 2020.
Is the state planning traffic improvements near the bridge?
WSDOT began studying the highway traffic crossing the Purdy Bridge in 2007. The SR 302 Elgin Clifton Road to SR 16 Corridor Study cost $2.5 million and has been on hold since 2013 because of a lack of funding, the department’s website says. Mitchell confirmed via email that the department hasn’t made any improvements related to the study.
The study did identify four alternatives for rerouting traffic from the Purdy Bridge. Two alternatives involved routing traffic over a land route and were estimated in 2009 to cost $56 million each; two others suggested building new bridges across the spit, costing $238 million and $272 million respectively, Gig Harbor Now reported.
Roark noted other unfunded traffic projects near the bridge at the April 2 council meeting.
The state Route 302 and Purdy Drive Northwest intersection could use a roundabout, he said, and WSDOT is “poised” to complete that project when there’s money in the state transportation budget for it. WSDOT does have funding to begin pre-design on a roundabout at Goodrich Drive Northwest and state Route 302. That spot sees more frequent and severe accidents than other intersections in the area, he said.
WSDOT is also looking at a “low-cost enhancement” to the section of state Route 302 from the intersection with Purdy Drive Northwest to state Route 16, he said, noting that he gets “a lot of emails about speeds going south towards SR 16.”
Mitchell wrote that the project will involve reducing the speed limit and re-striping the road to reduce the lanes from two to one.
“This will give more space for people walking and biking on the shoulder as a continuation of the pathway installed at the Purdy Creek Bridge on SR 302 Spur,” she wrote. “This lane restriction will help to limit aggressive driving and speeding that makes it harder to turn to/from driveways and intersections. It will reduce conflict points at the Goodnough/Burnham intersection and increase safety for all users.”
The cost of the project “will cap out at $100,000 and will be accomplished by WSDOT staff,” according to Mitchell.
The News Tribune asked Mitchell for a timeline on that project but did not receive a response by publication.
The area had a fatal wreck this year. The News Tribune reported that a driver turning from Burnham Drive Northwest onto Purdy Drive Northwest was struck by oncoming traffic in February.
Residents raise safety concerns about traffic in Wauna, Purdy
Wendy Ferrell, a resident in the greater Gig Harbor area, described Purdy as “a huge traffic nightmare” in an email to The News Tribune. As for the bridge, she prefers to avoid it entirely.
Her preferred route to the Key Peninsula is taking Southeast Pine Road, north of Burley Lagoon.
“Pine Road is much wider, the houses sit much further back from the road, it has room for pedestrians and bikes, and it doesn’t have the dangerous curves or the narrowing of the roadway over the spit and bridge of the current route through Wauna,” she wrote in an email.
Ferrell wrote that she and some of her neighbors and friends would support rerouting state Route 302 to Southeast Pine Road and turning the Purdy Spit into a car-free park for bikers and pedestrians. WSDOT’s SR 302 corridor study included rerouting the highway traffic through Pine Road as one of the possible alternatives to the bridge.
The city of Gig Harbor recently ran a traffic study to determine how three proposed housing developments in Gig Harbor North would impact city intersections, measured by Level of Service (LOS). An intersection’s Level of Service is a letter distinction (A-F) based on the average delay time a driver experiences at that intersection.
After adding the developments to the city’s traffic model, the city found that four intersections in the Purdy area dropped to LOS F. That means if the projects proceed, these intersections are expected to see increased delay times:
- Purdy Drive Northwest and 144th Street Northwest
- Purdy Drive Northwest and state Route 302
- Purdy Drive Northwest and Goodnough Drive Northwest (south)
- 144th Street Northwest and 54th Avenue Northwest
The approach to the Purdy Bridge from state Route 16 is already a major choke point during rush hour, residents told The News Tribune.
On the other side of the bridge, Key Peninsula residents voiced concern about traffic speeding through the Wauna curves. A particular guardrail has become so notorious for getting hit by cars that it’s become a running joke in the community, The News Tribune reported.
Deborah Harper, 66, recalled a situation when her uncle was sick and had to be rushed to the hospital from their home in Wauna, right next to state Route 302.
“ ... traffic was so stacked up that to get to turn left onto 302 was impossible,” she said. “I had to go out in the middle of the highway and stop traffic myself so that we could make the left turn.”
What’s next?
State lawmakers confirmed that constituents have raised concerns about the Purdy Bridge and surrounding traffic, but that there isn’t funding set aside for large-scale improvements to the bridge.
Gov. Bob Ferguson signed a supplemental transportation budget in the 2026 legislative session that included $1.5 billion for road preservation and maintenance, The Olympian reported. State Sen. Deb Krishnadasan (D-Gig Harbor), who serves as vice chair of the state Senate Transportation Committee, said the budget didn’t include any money for the Purdy Bridge.
“Again, it’s my job to keep on the radar, and fight to make progress,” she said, adding that she thinks the state needs to prioritize seeking funding from a variety of sources including the federal government.
State Rep. Adison Richards (D-Gig Harbor) said he trusts WSDOT’s assessment that the bridge remains structurally sound, at least for the next decade-plus. Rather than advocating for one big project, Richards supported making smaller improvements and passing housing and land use policies that curtail growth on the Key Peninsula.
“Ultimately, if we don’t need a super project, and we could do something like a bridge improvement, do a roundabout, potentially expand the northbound lane there in Purdy so that those who are not going over the bridge can more easily bypass the bridge traffic and help additionally clear up congestion, all those things I think working together can help ease a lot of the concerns,” he said.
“I will tell you this, the longer we wait, the more expensive it’s going to be,” Krishnadasan said.
