Scheduled test openings of the drawspan on the Hood Canal Bridge will delay drivers for up to 40 minutes on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday mornings.
“We’re not doing test openings on Thanksgiving or the night before Thanksgiving,” because of the expectation of heavy traffic, said Jeff Cook, project engineer with the state Department of Transportation.
The scheduled openings are at 9:15 a.m. Monday, 9:45 a.m. Tuesday and 10:15 a.m. Wednesday.
The scheduled draw span openings allow the testing of the ballast — rock and sea water, now, but eventually just rock — in pontoons of the floating bridge, as well as the mechanical and electrical systems, to ensure that both halves of the bridge’s drawspan line up smoothly, Cook said.
The eastern half of the bridge was replaced in a project that closed the bridge for several weeks in May and June.
Since reopening the bridge to vehicular traffic, contractor Kiewit-General has completed about $14 million of work, and about $6 million of contract work is left to complete, Transportation said on its Web site at www.wsdot.wa.gov.
More than 100 contract employees still are working on the bridge project. Work is scheduled to be completed by December.
Testing has taken longer than expected, Cook said, but no particular problems with the bridge have been determined.
Unscheduled drawspan openings occur for marine traffic.
Those openings can cause waits of up to 40 minutes to an hour, Cook said, who added that it’s about the same amount of time that drivers waited before the eastern half was replaced.
Motorists may encounter nighttime delays and up to 90-minute closures between 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday, the Transportation Web site said.