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This bridge spanned the Duwamish River allowing 16th Avenue South to link Seattle, WA, with Tukwila, WA. Its design was based on a rolling lift model popularized by the American civil engineer, William Scherzer (1858-1893). In 2002, a King County Department of Transportation report graded the 185 bridges in its jurisdiction and gave the South Park Bridge its second-worst rating, a 6 out of 100. Only the Green River Bridge in Kent, WA, received a worse score, a 2. The average score was 68.3. (This King County report relied on a standardized, 100-point condition scale used by the Federal Highway Administration.) An urgent reevaluation of the bridge was prompted by the collapse of the US Interstate 35W bridge in Minneapolis, MN, on 08/01/2010, an event that killed 13 people. The South Park Bridge closed at 7:00 PM on 06/30/2010; at that time, King County had not ear-marked the $130 million needed to rebuild the span. The county applied for a federal grant to cover $99 million of the cost, but did not receive the funding in 02/2010. Plans did exist for the reconstruction, however.

This double-leaf, bascule bridge drawbridge had a length of one-quarter of a mile, making it the longest span supervised by King County. In 2007, cost estimates for replacing the bridge came to between $122-$150 million; $110 million was to be allocated from a Regional Transportation Improvement District (RTID) measure on the 11/2007 King, Pierce and Snohomish County ballots. Amidst a budget crisis that occurred in 2008, the money was never allocated.

PCAD id: 10092