Sorry about that, South Park!
Local governments do it all the time: start popular new projects while ignoring upkeep. This time, Seattle and King County took it to the point of shutting down South Park's vital bridge, shafting a neighborhood that lacks political clout.
We have a serious problem locally, regionally, and nationally. It is a story of total failure on the part of our leaders to put in place systems requiring them to fully fund maintenance and replacement costs of our infrastructure.
We often hear about budget shortfalls and escalating costs as the reasons for that failure, but we never get the chance to have a discussion about long-term capital planning, setting priorities of government, and the true price we pay for new projects versus taking care of what we have.
Admittedly, we have a number of large regional transportation infrastructure repair and replacement needs that are coming due at the same time — the SR 99 corridor and Viaduct, the 520 bridge, and improvements to I-405. In Seattle and King County, we have streets that are failing and the Howard Hanson Dam, which requires a huge investment to guard against flooding in the Kent Valley.
But there is no clearer example of a failure of leadership and planning than the case of King County's South Park Bridge. The county has known for decades that the bridge was failing and would need to be either replaced or shut down. Unfortunately, the county will close the bridge on June 30, leaving the local businesses in South Park facing economic isolation. This is wrong and was absolutely preventable.
It's tempting to blame this failure on the voters and those who actively opposed the Regional Transportation Improvement District ballot measure in 2007. Developer Kemper Freeman and the Sierra Club, led by Mike McGinn in his pre-mayoral days, were leaders in the fight against the RTID measure, albeit for different reasons. But that blame game misses the point that the county and city should have joined forces a decade ago to address this issue.
While the bridge belongs to the county, it lands in Seattle on both sides — the exception being the “sliver by the river” of unincorporated King County. Discussions of annexations of that small piece of South Park often hinged on responsibility for rebuilding the bridge. The county saw annexation as an opportunity to get funding from Seattle, and the city balked at annexation until the bridge was repaired, not wanting any liability.
Caught between the county and the city is a wonderfully diverse and entrepreneurial neighborhood without the clout to push their city and county governments toward a solution. It is unimaginable that this disaster would be allowed to happen in South Lake Union or Magnolia, or any number of other neighborhoods around the city. But it happened to South Park — a slow rolling disaster.
In addition to these harsh realities, there is another even more troubling aspect of this situation — leading the community down the garden path of expectation that their government would serve their basic transportation needs. The county spent $30 million on a community engagement and design process for a new bridge, sending the signal that a new bridge was on the way. Residents and business owners made their own long-term plans based on that understanding. And now they know that the bridge will be closed for at least two years.
The county plans on applying for federal Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER 2) funding in October 2010, and possibly creating an Unincorporated Area Transportation Benefit District. The shortfall in funding is roughly $130 million. The Puget Sound Regional Council also has the bridge at the highest priority level in their Transportation 2040 Plan just as it was under RTID. But all of these funding sources take time. The bridge will still close June 30.
Besides the obvious social justice issues and the failure to plan for maintenance and repair of our infrastructure, there is another bigger question that reaches into all levels of government and all of the things that government does. We see it with Seattle's parks. We continually vote to build new facilities without any idea how to absorb the management and maintenance costs.
We have a city government that continues to move in the direction of moving popular programs and facilities off the general fund and onto the ballot, so we can fund extras that most people would never vote for. And our county government is considering ballot measures to fund basic services, while refusing to address out-of-control labor costs.
Is it any wonder that a little bridge in South Park loses out in this scenario? Maybe we should put it on the ballot.
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Comments:
Posted Thu, May 13, 6:58 a.m. Inappropriate
The South Park Bridge would seem to be a unique example of what happens in King County when a bridge is not a high priority, not an example of overall regional failure to address priorities.
Efforts to replace the sinking Viaduct and 520 bridges are just two big examples of the region stepping up to replace big things at risk of failure, ultimately with the support of voters. Those are state projects, but the leadership to fund the fixes came from within the region, not from Olympia based bureaucrats.
Within Seattle, it would be interesting to examine Mayor McGinn's priorities through a fix-it-first focus he touts. Should new bike lanes come first, or fixes to old deficient bridges? Should light rail from Ballard to West Seattle be funded before all of Seattle's existing infrastructure is safe and secure?
Will the City of Seattle respect the interests of its citizens who rely on the South Park Bridge and come forward with more than lip service and provide some funding to fix it?
Posted Thu, May 13, 7:15 a.m. Inappropriate
this is a prime example of the gub'mint beating up the poor folks.
Easy to do this, to the disenfranchised poor folks in South Park
Now, if this bridge is soooooo freakin' bad, howcome they didn't close it immediately, like WSDOT's director did with the steel electric ferries?
If this is so bad, howcome they didn't tell Metro to get their busses, which are over legal weight EMPTY, off it, today?
Howcome Boeing is not using it's political power to stop this, since they run many, many trucks over it daily, and employees cross it regularly?
Seems suspicious that one day it is "safe", and the next it must be closed, and that they can predict that date to one exact date far into the future (when first announced)
Something smells ripe, and t'aint the industrial area.
The Geezer
Posted Thu, May 13, 7:26 a.m. Inappropriate
Great piece, Jordan. South Park is small and relatively isolated, especially from the homes of City officials, all of whom are elected city-wide. It's one of those neighborhoods that doesn't show up on any City politician's radar scope. At least not to the extent they detect a need to exert leadership on its behalf.
Add that to the accidents of political geography that put South Park's bridge into another jurisdiction and presto -- you see the sad result.
Posted Thu, May 13, 8:54 a.m. Inappropriate
Excellent article. First, the county, city and state, etc. have all known the bridge has been failing for years - at least 10. As Jordan points out, the bridge touches Seattle on both sides, serves primarily Seattle residents and businesses. (Also a lot of Tukwila residents and businesses.) The County's road tax, which funds bridge maintenance and/or replacement is collected ONLY in unincorporated areas. The City of Seattle has never made a secret of its desire to annex the last "sliver" of unincorporated area adjacent to the bridge, which includes a nice chunk of industrial tax base.
Logically, why would or should the county's unincorporated tax payers - most of whom are east and southeast suburban and rural residents - pay to replace a bridge serving primarily Seattle residents and businesses? The only way for the county to fund it would be to issue bonds to be paid off over 20 or 30 years by those remaining unincorporated taxpayers. And, you can bet that as soon as the bridge is replaced, Seattle will snatch up the last sliver of unincorporated area and the tax base that goes with it. In the meantime, there are dozens and dozens of bridges in rural areas in desperate need of repair and replacement. Where would the money come from to fix them? I don't suppose Seattle residents would be willing to help!
It is unfortunate the people of South Park will suffer, but until this most recent round of requests, Seattle's elected officials even refused to support the County's bid for federal funding to replace the bridge. Assuming the bridge will be replaced eventually, it will quickly be Seattle's bridge. Shouldn't they and not the ever declining number of unincorporated area residents pay for it?
Actually, I'm surprised McGinn hasn't come out opposed to replacing the bridge and instead recommended a less expensive bicycle/pedestrian bridge or even a zip line.
Posted Thu, May 13, 11:33 a.m. Inappropriate
We've all seen "Load Limit" bridges in the hinterlands, maybe 10,00 lbs maximum or something like that. Why not leave the bridge open to cars and pickups for a few years?
that would leave the big players (Boeing, warehouses) with plenty of motivation but help out the residents down there. I think Geezer makes this point very indirectly, above, and I second the motion. The stress on the bridge has to be proportional to the load, ergo lower loads reduce the risk, right?
Posted Thu, May 13, 1:09 p.m. Inappropriate
Keith, not if the risk is that the bridge falls into the river in the next earthquake. Or if the opening mechanism fails, locking up the river to larger vessels.
I drove that bridge regularly and my heart always skipped a beat going from one side to the other, hoping that was not to be its moment of catestrophic failure.
For me, June 30 has come; I won't travel over it again -- ever.
Posted Fri, May 14, 8:48 a.m. Inappropriate
I am going to speculate that the greatest stress on the bridge foundations is during the opening operation and the period of time when the bridge is in the "up" position. I confess I did not know that bridge ever opened, I have never seen it opened and that makes me wonder if closing the bridge to traffic really is the most direct response to risk of failure. Would it not make more sense to continue light traffic and stop opening the bridge? ok, navigational rights, etc.
Posted Sat, May 15, 11:16 p.m. Inappropriate
And we are still paying off the Kingdome.
Posted Thu, Jul 1, 9:17 a.m. Inappropriate
Dereliction of duty by our smug politicians has come to roost. Today, the first day with no South Park Bridge, there has been a simple, little traffic problem caused by a signal light malfunction at the north end of the First Avenue South bridge. What does this have to do with the South Park Bridge?
It has always functioned as an alternate route for vehicles backed up on HWY 599 between Tukwila and the First South Bridge. With the South Park Bridge closed, traffic is backed up nearly to I-5. The only outlet is the HWY 99 off-ramp. If a vehicle goes past this off-ramp, they are stuck. Brilliant lack of foresight strikes again. And now we have to live with this for 4 or 5 more years at least.
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