Here’s a warning for Magnolia residents heading toward Ballard on 15th Ave. SDOT crews are installing light pole brackets on the Ballard Bridge this week. The northbound, right lane of the bridge will be closed from 9am to 3pm every day through Friday, August 6. That’s already causing big delays. During the lunch hour on Monday, traffic started backing up at Gilman. It took 10 minutes just to get to Dravus, where I finally bailed out.

Traffic backed up on 15th Ave (looking north toward the Ballard Bridge from Dravus overpass)

12:30pm UPDATE:  Seattle Fire investigators say the fire was sparked by a transient who was cooking.  Damage is estimated at $100,000. 

Firefighters were called out just before 11:30p.m. after a report of smoke coming from underneath the bridge. When crews arrived on scene, they found a fire underneath the bridge in a storage yard. Four small boats, a truck and wooden pallets were destroyed before the fire was extinguished about 20 minutes later. Because of the location of the fire, the bridge sustained soot and fire damage. According to Seattle Fire, Seattle Department of Transportation inspectors have inspected the integrity of the structure.

The Ballard Bridge is now open after it was closed as a major fire burned underneath the south end of the structure late Wednesday night.

The bridge was closed for two hours as crews inspected it for damage from the fire.  Our sister site, MyBallard.com was on the story all night.  Coverage here.

This summer, Seattle Department of Transportation crews will paint one half of the Ballard Bridge, affecting pedestrian and bicycle traffic.

Rick Sheridan with SDOT tells us that pedestrian access on either the east or west side of the bridge will be shut down entirely during the painting. The other side of the bridge will remain open. No word on when painting will start or which side of the bridge crews will work on first. The side that isn’t painted this year will be painted next year.

At the end of July the Department of Transportation met with a group of freight, bicycle and pedestrian advocates to come up with a plan for the south end of the Ballard Bridge that leads into Magnolia. 

The bike path on the west side of the bridge currently curves along the exit at West Emerson making it difficult for bicyclists to merge onto 15th Ave. The 15-member group that met with SDOT came up with three options, including creating a new curb-cut (outlined in the above photo), reduce the size of the median at 15th & Emerson and add “turtles” (those little white bumps on the road) where stripes are painted.  It turns out that all of the proposed options were too expensive to implement. “An unplanned project of this magnitude with all of our fiscal constraints could not be implemented in 2010,” the director of SDOT, Grace Crudican, wrote in a letter to the Ad Hoc group. Instead, according to the letter, the following changes will be made:

• Review sign placement for the southbound traffic to give motorists more advance notice that bicycles will be entering the road.
• Trim trees in the area to improve visibility for traffic and bicyclists.
• Paint the curb cut where bicyclists enter the road to help alert drivers.
• Evaluate speeds of southbound traffic on 15th Avenue W. Depending on the results of the speed study additional measures may be taken including installing a radar speed sign, or lowering the speed limit.

(Copyright photo by Michael Snyder is republished with permission.)  Thanks to our sister site myballard for this story.

Back in July of last year, Terry McMacken was bicycling across the Ballard Bridge when he bumped into the low concrete barrier and rocketed into traffic. He was hit by a car and ended up losing his right arm. Today the Seattle PI reports that McMacken died from injuries sustained in the crash. He was 51. The McMacken family, who lives in Magnolia, has sued the city of Seattle over that concrete barrier, which you can see here in this photo. Some bicyclists have complained to the city that it poses an unnecessary risk.

Back in February 2006, eight sculptures were removed from the Ballard Bridge after a fierce windstorm damaged the anchors that secured the public art in place.  After a long repair and reinforcement process, the artwork will be reinstalled today and tomorrow.  From 9 a.m. until 2:30 p.m. today, SDOT crews will close the northbound right lane to install the four sculptures on that side of the bridge.  Then in the same time span tomorrow, they’ll finish up the other side of the bridge.

The 10-foot-tall aluminum sculptures were designed by Tom Askman and Lea Anne Lake to reflect Ballard’s Scandinavian and Native American roots. It was funded by city art funds, neighborhood matching funds and contributions raised by the Ballard Gateway Committee.

More traffic challenges around Magnolia. 

Seattle Department of Transportation tells us the Ballard Bridge will be down to one lane southbound Friday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. while engineers conduct a routine bridge inspection.

At least it’s just for a few hours.