August 7, 2015

Hercules starts Monday on a big job: painting the Aurora Bridge for $19M

Photo courtesy of WSDOT [enlarge]

A seismic retrofit of the Aurora Bridge in Seattle was completed just three years ago, and now the 84-year-old span is about to get cleaned up and painted.

Crews working for the Washington State Department of Transportation will spend the next two years cleaning and painting portions of the bridge, including the original pedestrian rail.

Hercules Painting Co. plans to start the $18.7 million project on Monday.

WSDOT said the goal is to help slow the aging process for the bridge. Sandblasting rust and applying new primer and paint will preserve the bridge and slow corrosion.

The bridge was last painted in 1984.

“Most of the painting will occur underneath the bridge, except for the handrail work,” said WSDOT project engineer Dave Lindberg. “We'll be painting crucial sections of the support structure where the paint is flaking, peeling and causing corrosion.”

Forget about any flashy new colors. The city declared the bridge a historic landmark in 1980. WSDOT said gray paint was selected after consulting with the Landmark Preservation Board.

Crews will clean and paint the floor beams and stringers. Floor beams are large sections of steel under the concrete deck that extend the width of the bridge. Stringers connect to the floor beams and run the length of the bridge.

Due to the bridge's size and height, painting will be done in sections. For each section, crews will place a “containment system” and work platform around a designated area. This will protect the surrounding areas from debris, paint and other work.

Crews will strip off the existing paint; clean, repair and replace decaying steel; and apply new primer and paint before moving to another section and repeating the process.

Plans call for work to stop during the winter if the weather becomes too poor to maintain the containment system under the bridge. Painting work is temperature sensitive.

The project is scheduled to finish by the summer of 2017.