Everett gets creative with new footbridge and sewer line
Aug 3, 2017, 5:52 AM | Updated: 6:17 am
Everett has been trying for decades to join the northwest part of the city with the waterfront, but it’s just been too expensive. Now that the sewer and water system needs to be replaced the city is getting that connection.
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Grand Avenue Park has one of the best views around. You get the marina at the Port of Everett. You get the Olympic Mountain Range. You get the Naval Base. On nice days, the waterfront is begging for you to visit, but you can’t.
The park sits on a 75-foot high bluff and is separated from the water by five railroad tracks and Marine View Drive. The 100-year-old sewer and water system that serves the Everett neighborhood is buried in that bluff and runs under the tracks and the road to the water.
“We have had a landslide there that uncovered a pipeline, which gave us an opportunity to look at that outfall and it turned out it needed to be replaced,” said Heather Griffin, the principal engineer for the Public Works department.
“We had a second line that pumps water up the hill break at the base of the hill, and our crews could not access it immediately because we had railroad tracks in the way,” she said. “We had to wait for permission to get to that, and we determined that this is not a good way for us to keep pipelines in good repair.”
The City of Everett decided that it made sense to put the pipes over the tracks and the road and to hide those tracks. The city is also building the pedestrian bridge the neighborhood has asked for.
“They really wanted the opportunity to cross from that park to the waterfront,” Griffin said. “This has been looked at for several decades, but it was just too costly by itself.”
But add a major infrastructure improvement to the mix, and the city is killing two birds with one stone. It was able to secure grant money to help pay for it, and the city is about to build a pedestrian bridge that will hide the three pipes running from the bluff to the water.
Construction is getting underway and will last about 18 months. The bridge will extend from Grand Avenue Park at the north end, at about 14th, and end in the parking lot just north of Lombardi’s Restaurant. It will feature an elevator on the water side that’s wide enough for several bikes and wheelchairs. There shouldn’t be too much of a traffic impact for this project, at least until the 257-foot bridge span is raised over Marine View Drive and the railroad tracks. There is no timeline on when that will happen.
