Nun gets excited about a civil engineering project.

[sistawendy]

I needed to drive out to the old place to deliver a form, move stuff, and otherwise save my ex's bacon, which provided an excellent excuse to drive over the new 520 bridge. I thought it was going to open to cars last week, but neau, it was this week.

The new west high-rise is not complete. They're still laying the giant I-beams that support the deck. So for now, eastbound traffic uses the old bridge exclusively, and westbound traffic uses the westbound lanes of the new bridge - the new eastbound lanes are empty between them - and gets shunted onto the old bridge at the high rise.

I have heard the complaint that the three lanes, one of which is HOV, of the new bridge become two at the high rise. Well, duh: see above. The old bridge has four lanes, period. Even when they finish the east high rise, the best they can do is to peel off a lane at Montlake/UW because there are only two lanes each way to I-5. If WaSDoT wants to widen the rest of the way to I-5, they're probably in for a real fight with NIMBYs.

So how's driving on the new bridge? Slick! The first thing you notice is how quiet the pavement is. Last night was windy, which meant spray from the lake on the old bridge. That doesn't happen on the new one because it's higher up. The new one is also straighter. (Why couldn't they make the old one straighter? I dunno.) The speed limit is 50 MPH on the new bridge as it was on the old, but unlike the old one there's no draw span where the state patrol can hide cars. I predict speed demons, especially when so much of that traffic is tech "people" with a sense of entitlement the size of Texas. Good thing the new bridge has shoulders.

Have I mentioned here the irony of regularly using the old bridge for twenty-six years and, like all other drivers in the area, hating it, only to have the new & improved version arrive just days before I no longer need it? Well, it bears repeating. The same thing happened on a smaller scale with the 90th St. bridge in Redmond and Richards Road in Bellevue. If you want a transportation improvement where you live, apparently I have to live or work there, and it will happen when I stop.

(You can tell I've just had my tea, can't you?)

Comments

[neuro42.livejournal.com]

It's unstraight because of the original design of the drawspan, which later had to be changed.

[ivy]

Hah, yeah, I went to the SAR meeting on my motorcycle across the old bridge (eastbound), and that was not fun. I took I-90 home, disappointed. I should have taken 520 home, and would have if I'd known that I would get the new bridge, heh. Next time!