You’re driving across the Broadway Bridge at night and suddenly you’re in the middle of a light show.
What’s up with that?
It’s not Everett gone Vegas. Or a flashback from your acid days.
The colorful lights that kicked on last week are the finishing touch on the new bridge that replaced the 102-year-old dinosaur over the railroad tracks between Hewitt Avenue and California Street. Think of it as a reward for the dastardly detour maze you endured during the bridge’s 10-month construction of the bridge during 2015.
Face it, there’s nothing sexy about a bridge over railroad tracks. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be pretty.
For several nights it was pretty groovy when the default test mode rapidly scrolled through the colors of the rainbow, disco-ball style.
It has mellowed. The lights now run at a much slower rate with steady colors that won’t distract drivers, said Ryan Sass, Everett’s city engineer.
Why light up a bridge? London’s Tower Bridge does it, as does San Francisco’s Bay Bridge.
Sass said it gives the gateway to Everett’s downtown district “a little more sense of place and identity.”
Colored lights, which are mounted above, wash over the galvanized metal mesh sides of the bridge and illuminate the pavement.
“It goes with the architectural design component of how we can make the bridge look nice and more aesthetically interesting, given its plain structure and given its location,” Sass said.
There were numerous options explored.
“As part of our bridge design team we had an architect and urban designer that came up with all these ideas to make it interesting and fit in with the downtown,” Sass said. “Everyone liked the arch shape. It is similar to others in the city. The lights highlight the arch.”
The color-changing assembly is integrated with the bridge’s electrical system that includes lights over and under it, street lights, stair lighting and various other pieces and parts that are set on an automatic timer. Sass said the special 24 light heads with RGB LEDs added about $15,000 to the overall cost, and came with a few extras, just in case.
RGB stands for red, green and blue, the three primary colors that reproduce a broad array of colors. “It’s a lot like how your TV set works,” Sass said. “It makes all the colors with those three colors of light.”
You can buy something like it for your fence at home at the big box stores.
The Broadway Bridge might just be the start. A light feature is likely on the proposed Grand Avenue Park pedestrian bridge over railroad tracks and West Marine View Drive to the waterfront.
“We’re just trying to do something a little more special right here in our downtown,” Sass said.
Nothing too exotic, though. The Broadway Bridge won’t be like the Seattle Great Wheel with light displays in Seahawks colors and dazzling patterns.
It will be a steady stream of colors to light up the night.
Sit back and enjoy the show on your home computer by going to everettwa.gov/352/Broadway-Bridge-Camera or everettwa.gov/355/Broadway-Everett-Camera.
Andrea Brown at 425-339-3443; abrown@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @reporterbrown.
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