Southbound I-5 lanes in Everett to close tonight

Published 10:35 pm Friday, July 27, 2007

EVERETT – Drivers jockeying through endless summer construction sites now have one more road closure to worry about.

Southbound I-5 is scheduled to close tonight at 112th Street SE so workers can remove scaffolding on a new bridge they’re building.

Lane closures start at 8 p.m., with the road scheduled to fully close at midnight, said Laura Johnson, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Transportation.

Expect delays, Johnson said.

One lane is scheduled to reopen by 7 a.m. Sunday, with the full freeway likely opening by 10 a.m.

The freeway closure will start at Highway 526. The detour is either on the Bothell-Everett Highway or Highway 99.

Work crews have finished building two new lanes that will become part of a five-lane 112th Street SE bridge. Similar work wrapped up in the northbound direction in June.

Traffic will be routed onto the new lanes in August so that the older bridges spanning both directions can be demolished, Johnson said.

“Once we get those old bridges out of the way, then we’ll start building the other halves of the new bridges,” Johnson said.

The work is part of a $41 million Sound Transit and city of Everett bid to widen 112th Street SE and build a park-and-ride in the middle of the freeway just north of 112th Street SE.

The project includes building direct access ramps into the park-and-ride from car pool lanes on I-5. Non-car-pool traffic will access the park-and-ride from new ramps being built off of 112th Street SE.

The work is scheduled to finish in 2008.

Reporter Lukas Velush: 425-339-3449 or lvelush@heraldnet.com.