By Alejandro Dominguez Herald Writer
MONROE — People planning to use Highway 522 Wednesday and Thursday night will need to find an alternate route.
The Washington state Department of Transportation is planning closures from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. Wednesday and Thursday on the highway just east of the Snohomish River.
The closures are necessary to let crews remove debris next to the highway.
Removing debris is a necessary step before Kent-based Scarsella Brothers can blast up to 300,000 cubic yards of rock to make room to add extra lanes to the highway.
The work is part of a $128.8 million project to widen Highway 522 to four lanes over a four-mile stretch from 179th Avenue SE to the Snohomish River bridge. A concrete-barrier median will be installed to prevent head-on collisions. Four new bridges also are planned.
Crews are scheduled to close one lane starting at 9 p.m. Full closures are planned from midnight to 4 a.m. for both days.
Drivers should look for other routes or they can follow a signed detour using Highway 9 and U.S. 2. The detour could add about 10 miles and 20 minutes to trips.
There are plans to close sections of the highway briefly during daytime for the rock blasting phase of the work. These closures could start happening as early as late June, but it would depend on how soon the debris can be removed, spokeswoman Meghan Pembroke said. “We have removed some of it so far,” she said. “We are getting close.”
For more information, go to tinyurl.com/WSDOThwy522.
Alejandro Dominguez: 425-339-3422; adominguez@heraldnet.com.
