SHINE — Work that has left many angry state Highway 104 motorists sitting in their cars wondering when they could cross the Hood Canal Bridge was scheduled for completion today — if the bridge’s newly retrofitted west half passes a 20-cycle test of draw span openings and closings without a glitch.
“The end is near,” said Joe Irwin, state Department of Transportation bridge project spokesman, Friday.
The end of testing will be a relief to drivers who have been stopped on the way over, stopped on the way back, and never been sure when, or for how long, they’ll be waiting to cross to get to the Seattle area or to get home.
After the floating bridge’s east-half replacement was completed and the bridge — which had been closed completely from May 1 to June 3 — was opened to vehicle traffic, work focused on retrofitting mechanical and electrical systems of west side, which was widened to match the new east half.
Then the testing began.
And went on for months.
First, drivers contended with both scheduled daytime closures, to allow the drawspan to open for tests, and unscheduled nighttime closures, intermittently between 10 p.m. and 4 a.m.
Daytime closures ended in January.
Nighttime closures of up to 90 minutes continued.
The last few days, the closures and reopenings have become frenzied, with the state Department of Transportation spitting out e-mail alerts announcing that the bridge is now open, now closed, within mere minutes of each other.
“It should be a fairly aggressive schedule until they complete the 20 cycles,” Irwin said. “Its going to be 45-minute openings, then close.”
The final tests of the new bridge — which is now budgeted at $519 million — began Friday night shortly after 10 p.m. and continued through early Saturday.
They were expected to resume overnight Saturday and early this morning, and possibly resume today and tonight until completion.
Why can’t nighttime tests be scheduled in advance?
The work is not an exact operation that allows predictable, timely notifications for motorists, Irwin said.
Closures appear to occur randomly so that workers can immediately respond to problems they encounter.
“It is true that engineers and crews are all on scene for this work but, as you’ll notice from the notifications, there isn’t a set time for each test,” Irwin said.
“Some take 15 minutes and others take more than an hour, while still others can take up to 90 minutes.
“Likewise, if an issue is identified while testing a particular component or system, its testing can take longer than expected.”
Function testing of all systems, which includes going through a 93-page, 1,400-item checklist is part of the work going on the bridge’s west half, which is about three-quarters of a mile long.
“The nightly openings and bridge closures are to functionally test the bridge’s mechanical, electrical and hydraulic systems,” Irwin said.
“This process makes it nearly impossible to provide the public an accurate advanced notice of when the bridge will be open or closed to motorists,” he added.
“The best we are able to estimate is that, at the most, the bridge will be open 90 minutes for any given test that occurs between 10 p.m. and 4 a.m.
“This gives drivers a worst-case scenario for the tests, because if we announced a 15-minute opening and reopened in 75 minutes, people would be even more upset.”
The contractor has worked through the latter part of 1,400 punch list items and some, like fail safe systems, took a little longer than originally anticipated, Irwin said.
During east-side replacement, crews removed the existing trusses and the east-half of the bridge, floated-in new roadway sections and connected them, installed new east and west trusses and transition spans, and tested the electrical, mechanical and hydraulic systems.
The west-half work, which started shortly after the east half replacement work was completed, required Transportation and Kiewit-General to adjust the freeboard of the 496-foot-long, 60-foot-wide, 21-foot-tall pontoon section to within fractions of an inch.
Adjustments to the 28.5-million pound draw span were time-consuming and had to occur at slack tide during the daylight hours, Transportation officials said.
That has delayed work at least twice. Work originally was expected to be finished by the end of December.
The work, which not only involves mechanical issues other than the draw spans, has resulted in erratic closures with little motorist notifications.
About 24 contract employees have been working on the bridge during final testing and inspection.
Irwin called “test openings” a catch-all phrase “because some of these tests do not actually require the bridge draw spans to retract, but still require total closure of the roadway so our crews can complete their tasks.”
Because there is far more traffic during the daytime, Irwin said the tests are conducted mostly at night to reduce the motorist angst.
Whenever the bridge is opened to traffic, Transportation allows the entire vehicle line through on the bridge, sometimes keeping lanes open “for several minutes afterwards while preparing for the next tests.”
“The amount of time between each closure varies, but it’s important to note that we do not impact traffic any more than is absolutely necessary,” Irwin said.
“We know this process has been difficult, and truly appreciate the continued patience of motorists who use the Hood Canal Bridge.”
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Port Townsend-Jefferson County Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.
