In the state’s latest symptom of inadequate road maintenance, growing bridge cracks have caused an emergency shutdown of Highway 165 approaching Mount Rainier National Park.
The closure of the Carbon River Bridge, announced Monday, prevents public access to the park’s Mowich Lake entrance, Carbon River Ranger Station, and several trails.
The damaged span, also known as the Fairfax Bridge, is 3 miles south of the town of Carbonado, approaching the mountain’s northwest slopes. It was built in 1921 to traverse a 494-foot-wide canyon.
Recent inspections found worsening damage, prompting the shutdown for all drivers and pedestrians indefinitely, according to a Washington State Department of Transportation notice issued Monday. Engineers will study the problem further.
“There is no funding available to replace the bridge at this point. Years of deferred preservation work due to limited preservation funding resulted in the updated weight restrictions and now the indefinite closure,” the WSDOT announcement said.
Full closures like this are rare, but 133 state bridges are already load-restricted, or limited to lightweight and emergency vehicles.
For more than a decade, legislators budgeted only about half the estimated $1 billion per year needed to keep the state’s highways and 3,385 bridges in good condition, even as Washington kept promises to expand, replace and add freeways led by the $5.6 billion Highway 520 replacement.
As of June 2023, a total 315 state bridges were 80 years or older, and 47 steel bridges were overdue for painting. WSDOT also reported that as of June 2024, 29 bridges statewide need replacement and 33 others require rehabilitation.
“The longer these bridges are left in need of rehabilitation or replacement, the more likely it is that they will need to be load restricted, load posted, or closed,” state officials warned.
City and county bridges are aging as well: Notably, the Fishing Wars Memorial Bridge in Tacoma closed in 2023 after 96 years, when debris caked onto the bridge’s steel beams cast doubts about whether they are still structurally sound.
Under far different circumstances, accelerating cracks in March 2020 forced Seattle to close the high-rise West Seattle concrete bridge for more than two years until it was reinforced by steel cables and carbon wrap. King County retired its sinking 79-year-old South Park drawbridge in 2010, until it could build a new bridge in 2014.
Carbon River is the only WSDOT bridge currently blocked because of structural decline, according to Evan Grimm, state bridge and structures engineer. Three others since 2015 have been closed, then repaired or replaced, he said.
The Carbon River Bridge rests upon a steel arch and vertical steel beams for its central span, with predominantly wood columns and crossbeams at either end of the canyon.
WSDOT previously reduced the load limit to 16,000 pounds last summer and changed its own snowplow fleet to comply, said spokesperson Cara Mitchell. The department also recommended replacing the bridge in 2015, 2020, and 2023. It did replace some wooden deck panels in 2024, Mitchell said, and twice suggested a repaint. Wooden timbers below road level are in good condition, she said.
Steel bridges are commonly preserved with new plates, bolts, and additional beams, while they’re repainted, Grimm said. Six years ago in Seattle, a broken connection on the Aurora Bridge was restored by inserting a short piece of new I-beam.
It’s not clear yet how, or whether, the Carbon River Bridge can be saved.
“The deterioration is more advanced and widespread than most steel rehabilitation situations,” Grimm commented by e-mail. “The canyon it spans is particularly deep, and the slopes are steep, making access very difficult. Many of the rusted steel connections were built in a manner that makes them difficult to rebuild without fully disconnecting them, and that process would require the bridge to be supported independently during the reconstruction.”
No detour
Local residents south of the bridge, along with loggers, propane delivery truckers, and emergency responders, are detouring through logging roads and a Pierce County bridge, which entails using keys to enter locked gates, Mitchell said.
No detour is available for park visitors, and the National Park Service confirmed that access is unavailable to several rainforest trails and Carbon Glacier, the thickest in the contiguous U.S. at 700 feet.
About 2,300 people visited the Carbon River area in April and May last year, but the road to Mowich typically isn’t cleared of snow until July, said Terry Wildy, the park’s chief of interpretation, education and volunteers.
As of Tuesday, the Nisqually entrance via Highway 706 to Longmire and Paradise is open, with drivers required to carry tire chains; Highway 123 (Cayuse Pass) and Highway 410 (Chinook Pass) remain closed for winter, along with their connected routes including Sunrise Road and Stevens Canyon Road, the park service’s travel map says. Westside Road remains closed for the season.
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