At Issaquah’s City Council meeting on Aug. 6, council members reviewed a recommendation to have the finance director include $175,000 worth of funding in a 2018 budget amendment for the Tibbetts Creek Bridge Reinforcement Project, utilizing the Street Operating Fund. This requested action would allow city staff to follow through with design and construction contracts for the reinforcement of Tibbetts Creek Bridge, located at the intersection of Newport and SR 900.

Since the bridge’s inauguration in 2001, Public Works Engineering Director Sheldon Lynne expressed that the structure has been regularly inspected every two years in accordance to federal rules, the last one being in September 2017.

“None of the inspections have identified any damage associated with the structure or degradation of the structure,” Lynne said during the meeting. “The bridge is considered safe.”

Despite its clean track record, Lynne said that the Federal Highway Washington Administration (FHWA) recently deemed that the bridge is not safe to handle the loads of the heavier vehicles on the road without either further reinforcement of the bridge or by posting load limits as a restriction. Lynne emphasized that if the bridge were forced to post load limits and restrictions, this would be significantly detrimental to the function of the city. This is because vehicles such as snow plows and trucks transporting heavy city equipment and resources would have a much harder time getting to their required destinations.

“Load limits being posted on the bridge will have a whole host of impacted users,” Lynne said during the meeting. “The result of that is that there’s a significant impact on the quality and cost of level of services that the city provides with its services.”

Lynne added that Issaquah’s Eastside Fire and Rescue has been notified of the bridge’s current situation and supports reinforcement of the bridge. Lynne mentioned that the committee had already considered the option of posting the load limits on the bridge, but exempting emergency vehicles. However, this safety concern ended up conflicting with the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act, initiated back December 2015. Lynne expressed that within this act, there’s language that indicates that within a mile of interstate, if a bridge load calculation shows that emergency vehicles need to be posted because of their weight then order must be followed, therefore preventing the option to exempt emergency vehicles.

Interim City Administrator Emily Moon touched on additional funding available for the Tibbetts Creek Bridge Reinforcement Project and explained that the utilization of the Street Operating Fund would account for any and all additional funds. Moon stated that the Street Operating Fund, which also helps fund roadway maintenance, road control and traffic control, fluctuates from year to year depending on how much ends up being needed for the sake of city purposes. With that being said, Moon noted that in order to help keep the fund balanced, if the city exceeds budgets within the fund, then they will look to pull from the city’s general fund, which is the primary funding source for the Street Operating Fund. On the other hand, if the city stays under the fund’s budget, then the remaining money will rollover the following year and less can be potentially pulled from the city’s general fund.

“Because of the flexibility and the nature of the fund … We did not consider other sources of funds,” Moon said. “It would not have been appropriate to take from the Public Works’ operating budget as they don’t routinely have that type of capacity.”

In a motion that passed unanimously, 7-0, the council agreed to authorize the funding for the Tibbetts Creek Bridge Reinforcement Project. With the approval, Public Works is expected to begin action shortly.

The full video of the meeting is available on the city of Issaquah’s official Youtube channel.