On Monday, August 10th, the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) began a two-year process for repainting the 84-year-old State Route 99 George Washington Memorial Bridge (a.k.a. Aurora Bridge.)
The nearly 3,000 foot long structure, that hangs at 167 feet above the water at its highest point, must be cleaned and painted in sections. In each section, contractor crews will put in place a containment system and work platform to protect the surrounding areas from debris as they strip off existing paint, repair and replace decaying steel, and apply new primer and paint.
Over the next two years, WSDOT will clean and paint the entire structure, sandblasting rust and applying primer and paint to preserve the bridge and slow the corrosion of time. “Most of the painting will occur underneath the bridge, except for the handrail work,” said WSDOT Project Engineer Dave Lindberg. “We’ll be painting crucial sections of the support structure where the paint is flaking, peeling and causing corrosion.”
Most of the work will occur off the roadway, on the support structure of the bridge, which could most significantly impact our community. Some streets under the bridge may be closed at times, as well as occasional lane and ramp closures on the actual Aurora roadway. Information on closures will be available through the King County construction update report.
This painting project, of this official Seattle Landmark listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is currently scheduled to complete by summer of 2017. For more information, visit the WSDOT project page or the WSDOT news page.