The Hylebos Bridge has reopened to car traffic, the city announced Monday — a week after it closed to vehicles because of a technical malfunction.
The Tacoma drawbridge, off East 11th Street in the Tideflats, stayed open to cargo ships traveling the waterway, The News Tribune reported Oct. 7. The bridge previously was shut off from cars for nearly a month because of the failure of an underwater cable system .
City spokesperson Maria Lee told the newspaper Monday, Oct. 14, that there was a problem with Hylebos’ navigation lights, which seem to have “short-circuited and interfered with the lift span.” Those lights help boats discern where it’s safe to pass. Disconnecting them from the lift-span circuit appears to have remedied the issue for now, Lee said, but the city needs a permanent fix to ensure the lights don’t always need to stay on.
“We’re also experiencing interference with the WiFi communication system used for the satellite link, likely due to nearby high power lines,” Lee said via email. “We’re hoping to resolve this by boosting the WiFi signal, but we need to assess the cost first. We’ll have a clearer picture of the expenses for both issues next month.”