Hood Canal bridge closed for six weeks

Published 12:20 pm Friday, May 1, 2009

PORT GAMBLE — The Hood Canal floating bridge, the major route between Washington’s northern Olympic Peninsula and the rest of the state, closed early today for a six-week renovation.

The $500 million project will replace pontoons on the older, eastern half of the Highway 104 bridge that opened in 1961. The west side of the bridge was replaced after it sank in a 1979 windstorm. It reopened in 1982.

While the bridge is closed, residents will have to rely on special ferries and long alternative land routes. For example, getting from Port Townsend to Seattle, normally a 50-mile drive and a ferry ride across Puget Sound, now requires a 160-mile detour south on U.S. 101 to Olympia, then north on Interstate 5.

The Peninsula Daily News reports that new pontoons for the east floating section are designed to last 75 years and will have upgraded electrical, mechanical and hydraulic systems to provide more reliable bridge openings. Navy submarines, including the Trident nuclear missile boats, must pass through the bridge while traveling between the sub base at Bangor on Hood Canal and the Pacific Ocean.

When completed, the new east section will have wider lanes and safety shoulders for the 20,000 vehicles that cross the bridge each day. The 8,869-foot bridge connects the Kitsap and Olympic peninsulas.

“With this being the longest bridge on salt water, this is a great milestone for the community to celebrate,” said Becky Hixson, a project spokeswoman.

Construction workers will cut apart the bridge’s draw float with large cable saws, remove giant steel trusses that connected the floating bridge to land and tow that bridge section out.

The new pontoons, which were assembled in Seattle last summer and are moored at Port Gamble Bay, will then be towed to the bridge site and installed.

Christina Pivarnik, marketing director for the city of Port Townsend, said businesses there and elsewhere on the Olympic Peninsula will remain open during construction.

Several festivals will continue as planned, including the Port Townsend Rhododendron, Sequim Irrigation, and Juan and Brinnon Shrimp festivals, she said.

State Transportation officials said they hope financial incentives will encourage the contractors to finish construction work early.

They urge people to consider one of many transportation options, including a free, passenger-only water shuttle between Jefferson and Kitsap counties and a reservation-based car ferry between Port Townsend and Edmonds that operates Sunday through Thursday.

Kenmore Air also will fly float planes between Seattle’s Lake Union and the peninsula’s Port Ludlow and Port Hadlock during the closure.

The recent round of construction on the bridge began in 1997. All work, including retrofitting the west half of the bridge, is to be completed by December 2009.