ARLINGTON — Get ready to say goodbye to a quaint, inconvenient feature of rural Jordan Road: a one-lane bridge built nearly a century ago.
Snohomish County public works crews are preparing a new span over Jim Creek near the county’s River Meadows Park. They hope to start work next year.
When finished in 1914, the old bridge could handle two lanes because cars were narrower. Nowadays, drivers must come to a complete stop to let traffic pass in alternating directions.
“The bridge is almost 100 years old and it was designed and built for vehicles that were smaller than today’s vehicles,” county bridge-group supervisor Kinyan Lui said.
Work on the new structure is expected to start next spring or summer and to finish up within a year or two. The wider span will be designed to allow cars to pass in two directions, without stopping. It also should improve sight distances by realigning the road. The plan is to keep one lane of traffic open through construction.
An engineer has estimated the project’s cost at $2.5 million to $3 million, Lui said. The work still needs to be put out to bid. The money is coming from a grant awarded by the County Road Administration Board.
The old bridge carries about 1,000 vehicles per day, Lui said. County records show no recent serious crashes there, she said.
The county maintains other one-lane bridges, but they’re all much smaller.
The Jim Creek structure isn’t the only antiquated local bridge that’s scheduled to go out of service.
The state Department of Transportation also plans to replace a one-lane bridge on Highway 9 in the Arlington area next year. The 17-foot-wide bridge over Pilchuck Creek was built in 1916. It creates problems during high water because it acts as a dam, catching logs that wash down the creek.
For more information about Jim Creek Bridge No. 42, go to http://tinyurl.com/JimCreekBridge.
Noah Haglund: 425-339-3465; nhaglund@heraldnet.com.
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