Battery Street Tunnel closes third time in two days during morning commute
Jun 11, 2015, 1:38 PM | Updated: Jun 12, 2015, 7:19 am
Sprinklers went off in Seattle's Battery Street Tunnel on Thursday morning. The roadway had to be closed. (SDOT)
(SDOT)
It was a rough day on Battery Street Thursday.
And Friday morning got off to a rough start as well.
A day after the tunnel was closed twice, and the road was vandalized nearby, the Battery Street tunnel was closed again during the Friday morning commute after its alarm system mistakenly went off.
“There was an apparent malfunction that triggered the lights that indicate closure,” said Norm Mah with the Seattle Department of Transportation.
“We are investigating what led up to it,” he said.
The tunnel was closed for about 45 minutes after the lights were triggered around 5:30 a.m. The lights are activated when there is any cause to close the tunnel, such as a fire. They warn drivers not to enter.
Thursday’s bladder control problem
The Battery Street Tunnel was closed twice Thursday morning after the sprinklers were activated and then a ladder was lost inside.
“We don’t have a cause [for the sprinklers going off],” Mah said. “It’s an older system that gets activated from time-to-time.”
The tunnel closed for 40 minutes after the nearly 50-year-old sprinkler system went off in the southbound lanes at 7:35 a.m.
The sprinklers — a fire suppression system — are owned by the Washington State Department of Transportation, but maintained by SDOT.
The sprinklers are fed by a bladder filled with water. Once the system was activated, transportation crews had to wait for the bladder to fully empty before reopening the tunnel.
It’s not the first time the tunnel has emptied its bladder, closing the road. The sprinklers reportedly caused an accident in the tunnel on May 7. They also were activated in October 2012. There was no known cause for the sprinklers’ activation in January 2011.
Mah said this is the “umpteenth” time the sprinklers have been activated — with or without cause — in the long while he’s lived in the city.
The Washington State Department of Transportation currently has no plans to address the tunnel’s sprinklers. The tunnel will become obsolete, and traffic will be diverted to the new Alaskan Way Viaduct Tunnel when it is completed, according to Mike Allende with WSDOT.
An hour after the sprinklers went off Thursday morning, the tunnel was closed again after an unknown work truck dropped a ladder. The tunnel was closed as SDOT personnel retrieved the ladder.
Related: Keeping Seattle viaduct open runs contradictory to tunnel project
Painting the town pink, yellow, green and blue
But that wasn’t the only interruption along downtown’s stretch of SR 99 Thursday morning.
“In the early morning hours some individuals threw paint onto the northbound side of the Alaskan Way Viaduct,” said Rick Sheridan with SDOT.
The pink and yellow paint, contained in milk jugs, was thrown and spread from Washington Street to the Western Washington off-ramp, just down the way from the tunnel on SR 99. It is unknown when the paint was thrown onto the road, but the city received the first report at 5:40 a.m.
SDOT is currently trying to determine whether to remove the paint from the roadway or to let it fade over time, Sheridan said.
