I think we have all been guilty of cursing the Fremont Bridge. For as
many times as I drive across it in the course of a normal week, I may only truly notice our outrageous orange and blue bascule bridge the one single time I get stuck when it raises and lowers.

By The Rules

The Bridge Tenders (the workers sitting in the south tower of the Fremont Bridge) start the loud warning claxon as soon as they hear a boat’s horn or radio signal to open the bridge. For Fremonsters, that claxon – a blaring, high-pitched bark – is uniquely ‘home’. Too many times a day a car and/or pedestrian will try to “run” the barricades, and cause a longer delay. I have heard a Bridge Tender take to the megaphone to shout at curious simpletons who wander onto one of the ‘leaves’ of the drawbridge during the process just to take a look… and force the Tenders to stop their intricate maneuvers until the curious realize that the bar across the sidewalk is there for a reason. Raising the bridge isn’t difficult – just impossibly complex. The Tender has to turn and press several levers and buttons to raise each side of the bridge simultaneously. The control panel contains two of each control, one for each leaf of the bridge. Some Tenders try to keep one leaf slightly ahead of the other in order to visually track its progress rather than relying on the gauges.

Time Is Money

Sitting in my car, waiting, while my life force slowly slips away – as
well as my patience, it feels like our trademark bascule bridge (one of four built in Seattle between 1910-1930) takes literally forever. It
doesn’t. Four minutes is all that passes between the change of the signal lights to red, the slow trip up and down and a green signal once again.

Why Wait?

There are alternatives – and Fremont nearly died from them. Before the Fremont Bridge opened late in 1917, a wooden structure connected the two sides of the canal - Fremont proper and Fremont Heights (often referred to as “Queen Anne”). That thing resembled a bridge as much as your Grandmother’s pad of scratch paper resembles the latest Dell notebook. At the opening of the Fremont Bridge, a thriving community beckoned visitors to drugstores, delis, and an Opera House. All were accessible by the streetcars that crossed and re-crossed our community. Then, in 1932, the
George Washington Memorial Bridge (also called ‘Aurora’) shot over our heads from Phinney Ridge to our north to the crest of Queen Anne Hill on our south – thereby casting our future as well as the neighborhood into eternal shadow. In 1939, our last drugstore closed and the Fremont retail district slipped into a long, deep coma. In the 1960’s artists brightened the area by opening studios – while drug dealers and drunks blighted it. The cause? Completion of the Freeway Bridge to our east, made Interstate Route 5 the way for cars, trucks and buses to cross Seattle quickly, without traversing our slumbering community.

Adding Up The Numbers

In 1930, 34,000 vehicles went across our bridge on a weekday. With the shorter and swifter route over the Aurora Bridge that number plummeted. In 1934, only 13,000 vehicles crossed our little bridge and, fourteen years later, only 18,000. The number slowly climbed, and Fremont might have awoken but for the Freeway Bridge. Instead, the numbers plummeted again. It took until 1998 before the Bridge saw 34,000 vehicles once again zip across her decks. Fremont’s revitalization in the late 20th Century has been credited to many people and events, but it may have been simple math.

Checking Out The Technology

The City of Seattle completely overhauled the entire bridge, both
mechanical and surface, in the late 1990’s. For instance, the original
plan for raising the bridge in a power outage consisted of a huge capstan wheel placed in the middle of Fremont Avenue that took six big, strong men to turn. Now a generator waits below decks and can raise – or lower – the bridge should the lights go out. Also, shock absorbers now protect the huge counterweights of each bridge leaf to help slow the bridge should a gear break. As for the rest of it… well, there isn’t much that modern technology can improve.

The Good News

While the Bridge overhaul makes it safer for the increasing numbers of cars crossing its surface, it can feel like it goes up far too much; especially when stopped while late for work or your hot e-date. Actually, that isn’t true. The Fremont Bridge is going up and down far less often than it used to. In 1974 the Bridge opened and closed 1449 times in July while in 2003 that number was 780. In January of 2003, the Bridge rose only 290, about 9 times a day. Fewer large craft and sailboats on Lake Union may account for this decline. Whatever the cause, the next time you are stopped by the bridge – either coming to Fremont or (gasp!) leaving – don’t take it personally. It is only four minutes – just enough time to think up your latest list of excuses for why you are tardy this time…

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Joanne McGovern, Bob Roseberry and Steve Louie, of the City of Seattle, and Jim Neidigh of History House were invaluable in providing research material for this column but bear no responsibility for the silly way in which the author may have used it.