Arboretum Aqueduct stands test of time and traffic

NOT LONG after the Aurora Bridge was completed in 1932, its dismal second use was fulfilled and soon described. "If you build a bridge like that people will jump from it." Similarly, although less tragically, it may be said of the viaduct showing here, "If you build a bridge like that, people will run into it."

Completed in 1911 to the plans of architect Walter Ross Baumes Willcox, the Arboretum Aqueduct, also known as the Arboretum Sewer Trestle, was designed to carry the then-new north-trunk sewer over the nearly new Lake Washington Boulevard. A walkway was also laid atop the sewer pipe for the few pedestrians who might find this 180-foot-long viaduct with six equally arched bays more to their liking than the ground route through Washington Park.

On the viaduct, passengers were also safe from the traffic on Lake Washington Boulevard. It passed beneath them, except when it did not.

For instance, in the spring of 2008 Garfield High's girls' softball team was returning home on a chartered bus after a 10-to-1 loss to Lake Washington High in Kirkland. The driver explained that he was following GPS instructions when the top of his bus was sheered away. The bus was nearly three feet taller than the approximately 9-foot hole prescribed by Willcox for the motor traffic of 1911.

While the bus lost its roof and several students were sent to Harborview Medical Center, the reinforced concrete trestle was barely chipped, and the "picturesque qualities" of the trestle's ornamental brick patterning have never affected its strength. Among the several landmark lists that have embraced this artful but sturdy bridge is the National Register of Historic Places.

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