520 Bridge Pontoon Fix To Cost State $80 Million

The Washington State Department of Transportation expects to pay more than $80 million to repair four cracked pontoons for the new 520 Bridge.

WSDOT announced Tuesday it will pay $48.8 million to contractor Kiewit/General/Manson to repair cracks in the first batch of pontoons and $22.4 million to add traverse post-tensioning to the pontoons that cracked. The state already paid $9.9 million in April to repair spalled concrete in the cracked pontoons. (An overview of the repair costs from WSDOT is available here.)

Additional costs are expected to come from a design change that will add post tensioning to three more, yet-to-be-constructed pontoons, as well as project schedule delays. Negotiations for those change orders have yet to be finalized.

Money for the repairs will come from the state's $200 million project contingency fund, which will total $100 million after the initial $80.1 million is paid, officials said. The overall project budget is $2.7 billion.

WSDOT admitted in February that design errors within the agency had led to the cracked pontoons and that structural engineers failed to run models that would have highlighted the flaws.

The state says it now anticipates the bridge will open for traffic in late 2015 or early 2016.

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Related coverage:

WSDOT: Pontoon Cracks Will Push Bridge Completion to 2015

Cracked 520 Bridge Pontoons Will Be Moved Away From Lake Washington for Repairs