$40 million Pierce County bridge replacement project underway after 30-year wait
Crews have started construction on the Stewart Road and 8th Street White River Bridge – the latest step in a project that has been 30 years in the making.
The project costs $40 million and will replace the current two-lane bridge with a four-lane bridge that will also include a new sidewalk and trail crossing. The city hosted a groundbreaking ceremony March 18 marking the official start of the project. The project information site says the current bridge was built in the 1950s.
Carmen Palmer, spokesperson for the City of Sumner, said residents shouldn’t expect traffic impacts because they will be building the bridge in phases.
“We will build the first part of the replacement bridge alongside the current one. While we do that, vehicles use the current one,” Palmer said in an email to The News Tribune. “Then, we flip vehicles to the new section while we remove the old section and build out the rest of the new bridge. They won’t have four lanes until the whole project is done, but they won’t lose the two lanes they currently have.”
Palmer said the new bridge will help traffic because there is a “two-lane choke hold” that stops traffic.
“Right now, that Stewart Road is four lanes on either side of the bridge and then you have this two-lane choke point that stops up traffic,” Palmer said. “[This new project will have] four lanes for vehicles so that choke point goes away.”
In an email to The News Tribune, Palmer said the money comes from a mix of federal, state and local funding, with the local funding coming from Pierce County, the City of Auburn and the Port of Tacoma. The City of Sumner is also pitching in $9 million.
“We have an outstanding $333,000 ask that we submitted to the State Local Capital Project fund for consideration in this State budget,” Palmer wrote. “We may or may not receive these funds. If we don’t, the City of Sumner will fund this additional last piece of funding.”
The Stewart Road replacement bridge is one of four projects from the City of Sumner aimed at restoring the White River. Palmer said the new bridge will help with flood control and salmon habitat, unlike the current bridge which is low and chokes the river’s flow beneath it.
“The bridge itself is going to go higher and wider than the current bridge over the river. Right now, it’s a very low bridge – it catches a lot of logs and creates logjams,” Palmer said. “The new bridge will be higher and wider, it will let the White River flow wherever it wants to go under that bridge. That helps with flood protection because you’re not creating a water bottleneck.”
It helps the salmon because it gives the salmon the extra space they need, Palmer said.
“This project is going to take a little bit longer because you have to work alongside fish windows,” Palmer said. “You can only work when it won’t affect the fish runs. So out of the year, we have a 90-day window to do work inside the river.”
The city is expecting the replacement bridge to be complete within two years.
