"Mayor Jenny Durkan just announced that the West Seattle high-rise bridge will be closing tonight. Talk about bad timing."

With traffic at historic low levels, I'd say the timing is perfect.

@2
Easier to get an inspection crew out on an empty bridge, while simultaneously keeping them employed in troubled times

Perfect timing. We need more of this. Fix some roads. Build some bike lanes.

West Seattleites, do you hear that?

It's the screams of Magnolia carrying across Elliot Bay... "iT's nOt fAaaAAaAaiiiRrR!!1"

"I'm
looking for cracks in the pavement . . . . "

"Some thing on my mind
breakin' open doors I'd
sealed up before . . . . "

For what it's worth, they've been doing some pretty intense inspections for the last month or so.

I'm actually not all that surprised by this - the West Seattle bridge was built in a huge rush after a boat rammed into one of the old ones (which was a set up like the First Avenue bridge). The there was basically no bridge for six years while they scrambled to replace it.

They had almost replaced it in the 70's, but there was a big corruption scandal that sent some local figures to jail.