ARLINGTON — On a sunny spring day, the Highway 9 bridge provides a beautiful double-arched frame over Pilchuck Creek.
In the rainy winter, however, high water can turn the one-lane, 100-foot-long bridge north of Arlington into a dam that catches every log that washes down this tributary of t
he Stillaguamish.
The state Department of Transportation plans to reroute the highway next year and replace the 95-year-old bridge with a new crossing over Pilchuck Creek.
That’s just fine with Duane Nelson, a retiree whose back yard borders the creek and the old bridge.
“It’s a beautiful place,” he said, pointing to the creek from his back door. “But I am glad the bridge will be replaced. I don’t want to worry about flooding anymore.”
Of the 3,600 state-owned bridges in Washington, the Pilchuck Creek bridge is one of the oldest. Built in 1916, it’s less than 17 feet wide — too narrow for modern safety and traffic standards. Currently, traffic is controlled by a yield sign at the south end of the bridge. Northbound drivers must wait until the southbound traffic crosses first.
The joke around town is that the locals call it Narrow Bridge, after the sign warning drivers. It’s officially known as Bridge No. 9-134.
The new, wider bridge probably is to be located downstream on a roadway alignment designed to reduce sharp curves and improve sight distance and safety for the 1,300 drivers and many bicycle riders who use the route each day, said transportation spokesman Dave Chesson.
City officials and business owners in Arlington hope the new bridge will encourage more tourist traffic through Arlington, city spokeswoman Kristin Banfield said.
Highway 9 runs through the city and parallel to I-5 and serves as the only major north-south route available if a closure shuts down the interstate, and the state earmarked $6.2 million from the state gas tax in 2005 for the project. The project is expected to cost $19 million.*
The new bridge also should reduce impacts to the Pilchuck Creek watershed and neighboring properties, Chesson said.
A preliminary design for the new bridge is complete, and transportation officials hope a big crowd of local drivers show up to an open house this week. There they can meet with the project’s engineers and review details of the plan.
The drop-in open house is scheduled for 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Bryant Fire Station, 26828 Highway 9.
What will happen to the crumbling yet beautiful old arched bridge is yet to be determined, Chesson said.
The Pilchuck Creek bridge was eligible for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places as an example of a rubble-filled reinforced concrete arch bridge designed by renowned engineer Daniel B. Luten (1869-1945), according to the state Transportation Department’s historic property inventory. It was not placed on the register.
The bridge is supported at each end by poured concrete abutments with wing walls, and at the center by a rectangular poured concrete pier. This type of bridge was at its peak of popularity around the country when it was built, records show. The number of Luten bridges in America is rapidly declining as older structures are demolished and replaced with modern bridges. Double-span Luten bridges, such as the Pilchuck Creek bridge, are the most rare, state historians said.
For more information about the new bridge project, go to tinyurl.com/DOTPilchuckBridge or call WSDOT at 360-757-5970.
Gale Fiege: 425-339-3427; gfiege@heraldnet.com.
Learn more
To learn more about the new Highway 9 bridge over Pilchuck Creek, drop by an open house scheduled for 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Bryant Fire Station, 26828 Highway 9.
*Correction: This story has been updated to include the total expected cost of the project.
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