On Thursday night, the Fremont Bridge will fire up its new lights, a permanent art installation celebrating the centennial of Seattle’s historic bascule bridges. The Ballard and University bridges are next on the list.
The Bridge Lights project is a collaboration between SDOT, the Office of Arts and Culture and artists Hayley Buckbee and Ian Campbell (with RSVR). The city says the lights are designed to “gently reflect seasonal, solar and lunar patterns,” and the Fremont design “beautifies this city landmark and celebrates the vibrant artistic spirit of the Fremont community.”
Unlike most major U.S. cities, Seattle’s bridges lack artistic light, the city said. “Lighted bridges serve as symbols of local pride for residents and become a significant part of a city’s story, attracting regional visitors and tourists, like other city landmarks including the Fremont Troll and the Space Needle,” SDOT explained in a press release.
This Wednesday evening, the city will provide a 6-minute preview of the lights (“including four seasonal palettes”) for the media, sometime between 6:30 and 7 p.m. Then on Thursday evening, the light display switches on permanently.
SDOT tells My Ballard they don’t have a date set for the Ballard Bridge lights as of yet, and it’s “not in the immediate future.”
Please do something to the bridge deck because it’s beat up so badly. Instead of wasting taxpayer dollars on an art installation, maybe you could actually maintain the bridge deck to make it safe to drive on first before you waste our money on art installations first. I’m not a conservative by nature but maybe if the city didn’t blatantly waste money like this it wouldnt blatantly stick out like a sore thumb. Where’s the common sense gone to? Ridiculously stupid to do this right now. Furthermore, it shows how an overtaxed city is more likely to waste money. Common sense…..poof! Disappeared!
The ballard bridge is a joke. Pedestrians and cyclist have literally died trying to cross that bridge and you want to hang some pretty lights. Fix and upgrade the bridge first then we can talk about “art.”
And, in its continuing quest to limit cars on Seattle roads, the art installation will fire a deadly laser beam at every fifth vehicle, thus bringing us closer to the SDOT Master Plan for Traffic Volume.
Hey Fremont Commuters:
Stuck in traffic? Maybe standing on a crammed bus with some screaming junkies and 100 tech soy-boys and their dogs while the bridge opens for a single person yacht?
No problem-o, Friend-o! The “Bridge Lights Project” will give you something else to ignore while you look read about the latest city governance debacle on your smart phone!
Best Regards,
Seattle DOT
P.S. Our board hired their nieces and nephews for the phat “arts paycheck” after their failed attempts in Brooklyn, SF, and Silver Lake. You’re welcome!
Doug, Zack, and Snowflake, you are all a**holes who make the internet a worse place. Pork Pie, that’s funny.
If you are going to be an a**hole you should at least try to be a little funny, like Pork Pie.
Thank you THEJUDGE. No laser beams for you (even if you drive a hybrid Panamera). <3
If they really wanted to be funny, Judge, they’d have just posted your picture and real name. Anonymous a**holes like you just hide behind words. At least they’ve an opinion other than just calling other people names and being an internet troll like you and Pork Pie. Both of you two can go “F” yourselves! You add nothing to the conversation and neither of you two are very funny either. Seriously, dudes, if you don’t have anything to add to the conversation then just STFU!
Talk about applying lipstick to a pig. But this is how politics work here, doing really stupid things, again and again with little to zero pushback. Too bad our local media is afraid to ask tough questions any longer here. If they want to highlight a area, make it Greenlake, a true gem. I guess lighting things up will make it easier for Mike O’Brien’s buddies to camp. Why is it, being a liberal here in Seattle means you go blind too? We are a Petri dish of a city.
You mad, Dawgbro?
One day I hope to be like John C Dawgbro and have the courage to post under my actual name.
Snowflake/Access/Dumpster/TheOne: The recent Oxford study must have hit you pretty hard! But seriously, seek help dude. While you can’t fix your tiny hands and whatever tiny hands imply, you can certainly mitigate your mental illness!
Truth, the only mental illness I see is the insanity in City Council and their greedy cronies who enable the lunatics wandering the streets creating mayhem to justify some airy-fairy “solution” involving massive tax increases.
The Fremont Bridge has inches of STANDING WATER on the foot/bike path for the entire rainy season. They spent the better part of a year repainting the bridge but can’t bother to tap a hole in the concrete to allow drainage? Hey yeah let’s put up some pretty lights instead. Rainbow sidewalks, etc blah blah
@(INSERT NAME OF THE MOMENT HERE): I use the Fremont bridge every day, year round. I know the puddle you’re talking about, at the northeast transition from the ancient bridge structure to the newer approach structure. Unfortunately, the puddle occurs on the bridge structure, which would cost a lot more money to fix than some artistic lights.
And inches? The puddle is maybe 1/4 to 1/2 inch at most during extreme rain events and a minor hindrance even then; it drains away within hours to a half a day after the even is over. If you’re out and about when that puddle is forming, you’re already soaked to the bone anyway; a 1/4″ puddle is not even an obstacle.
I know you’re just putting up yet another straw man argument that you can gripe against, but a small puddle? Even for you that’s silly
@Truth
Hey Genius, the soy boys and girls walking their precious num-num dog babies STEP AROUND the puddle decreasing the ALREADY NARROW passage at the bridge entrances. I’m out in the weather everyday, my Sanctuary City Loving Friend, and yes the BGT is full of felons and the city is legendarily incompetent about the water drainage in many places. Old news. Turn off the Sub Pop for a few days and open your eyes.
Well I think it will look nice at least. Also, not sure if these funding decisions are mutually exclusive events!
@(INSERT NAME OF THE MOMENT HERE): Seems like if you were out in the weather everyday, you’d be a lot more tougher. At least tough enough that you wouldn’t get your panties in a knot and whine on a neighborhood blog every time you see a homeless person.
But what do I know, I’m just a Sub Pop listening soy boy! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Truth, you should just start using “your mama” jokes. The “tiny hands” and “wearing panties” attempts are pretty weak sauce honestly a bit “sexist” and whatnot, but what do I know? I’m not a childish s.j.w., thankfully.
Your insults are, at best, on par with an angry Real Change huckster’s or a shouting junkie upset that her govt issued flip phone no longer has the minutes necessary to mommy for money in the suburbs.
Remember the fortune spent on the arts beautification of the old garbage transfer station in Fremont? Ya know the stuff they installed only a couple years before leveling the whole bit to rebuild? That would be called “literally sending money to the dump”. We need potholes repaired, not pretty lights please. Thanks
@(INSERT NAME OF THE MOMENT HERE): What a rich comment, coming from a tiny handed, angry man who tries to use the insults of the alt-right, such as “soy boys” and “cucks” towards those he doesn’t agree with (spoiler: nobody really understands the insults, so nobody gets offended by them). You, however, seem to be very concerned about people pointing out your tiny hands.
You should seriously seek mental help: https://www.kingcounty.gov/depts/community-human-services/mental-health-substance-abuse/services/mental-health.aspx