South Park Bridge Reopens, To Neighborhood's Delight

The South Park bridge, which was closed in 2010 for safety reasons, reopened for traffic at 6 a.m. this morning after an entirely new bridge was built on the same location.

On Sunday, with face painting and taco trucks and Senator Patty Murray, the South Park neighborhood celebrated the re-opening of their brand new bascule bridge.

The bridge links this neighborhood's modest homes and small businesses to Boeing Field and the I-5 corridor. While the bridge was closed, residents and visitors came in and out through a maze of on ramps and off ramps and back ways and frontage roads.

“In a way it was kind of nice that it shut down, because it cut down some of the riff raff that was coming through here and made it Seattle's biggest cul-de-sac,” said Jerah Hendrickson, who sells and delivers ice cream to local bodegas and pizza shops.

Even though he liked the sleepy feel, having the bridge closed was bad for business. Now that the bridge is open, Hendrickson hopes that the lunch crowd from the nearby Boeing field will come back over. But no matter what, he's looking forward to an easier delivery route.

In fact, everyone in the crowd this Sunday was actually looking forward to this week's commute.

Resident Umberto Sanchez said it best: “I'm going to be able to sleep 20 more minutes. So that's a plus for me.”