The state Department of Transportation stopped Hood Canal Bridge traffic for a daytime ballast test only once last week, on Wednesday, in deference to the Christmas holiday traffic.
But that’s going to change.
Nearly daily daytime ballast test openings for the bridge will resume Monday, with one scheduled each day through next Thursday.
Each test closes the bridge to vehicle traffic for up to 40 minutes.
The timing of the tests coincides with slack tides.
Scheduled test openings are:
• Monday, 11 a.m.
• Tuesday, 11:45 a.m.
• Wednesday, 12:30 p.m.
• Thursday, 1:45 p.m.
No tests are scheduled on New Year’s Day.
Intermittent nighttime work — which requires 90-minute bridge closures from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. — is also scheduled to resume weeknights beginning Monday.
No advance notice is given.
Bridge openings for marine vessels, which are from 40 minutes to an hour, will still occur as needed.
No advance notice is given.
The eastern half of the bridge was replaced in a nearly $500 million project that closed the bridge for several weeks in May and June.
After that, retrofitting was done on the western half.
The scheduled daytime drawspan openings allow the testing of the ballast — rock and seawater, now, but eventually just rock — in pontoons of the floating bridge to ensure that both the new east side and the west side retrofit work together, Transportation engineers have said.
Scheduled closures are listed online at www.hoodcanalbridge.com.
Test message alerts about bridge closures can be received by signing up online at the same Web site.
To find out if the bridge is open, dial 5-1-1, or phone toll free at 800-419-9085. Neither phone number will provide advance notice of closures.
