Jose Rizal bridge repairs, then and now

The Jose Rizal Bridge rehab project is starting soon, and to facilitate this work, traffic on the bridge will be reduced to one lane in each direction for the next four months. A sidewalk on one side of the bridge at a time will be closed, and access for pedestrians and bicycles will be maintained on the opposite side. There will also be periodic lane closures on South Dearborn Street under the bridge.

The Rizal bridge was also a topic on the Seattle Municipal Archives photostream on Flickr yesterday, when this photo was posted:

Photo courtesy of Seattle Municipal Archives.

This is probably a photo of the 12th Avenue South Bridge (now Jose Rizal Bridge) in spring 1917, when a mudslide destroyed the southern (wooden) approach to the bridge. The bridge was later repaired. The Jose Rizal bridge was built in 1911, and is the oldest steel-arch bridge in Washington state. This 1912 photo shows the familiar shape of the bridge that many of us cross daily.

5 thoughts on “Jose Rizal bridge repairs, then and now”

  1. You all probably know this already. There used to be a ridge, so no bridge was necessary, a ridge that connected Beacon to First hill, so you could walk through madronas and look down at SODO which was an oyster bed and underwater at high tide. And like the Denny regrade, they washed this ridge down into SODO with high pressure hoses, and filled SODO with mud and built a bridge over what later became Dearborn. Weird to think about.

  2. Wendi, the dates in the post don’t work out for the replacement of the wooden span by the steel span.

    The old wooden bridge used to go straight across to 12th Ave instead of hooking east to the 14th Ave/Golf Drive alignment the way the replacement metal one does. I believe the reason they moved it was because the streetcars had such trouble with the grade on 12th.

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