Concrete barriers part of ambitious 2009 roadwork plan
Published 9:59 pm Monday, December 15, 2008
New concrete barriers will be installed on a deadly stretch of I-5 in Marysville and Arlington in 2009 as part of the busiest roadwork season in the Puget Sound region in two decades.
The state is planning more than $279 million in road projects in Snohomish and King counties for next year, an increase of nearly $118 million over the total for 2008.
Also planned in Snohomish County are repaving of northbound I-5 from Lynnwood to the Everett Mall, and the freeway northbound from the Snohomish River to Ebey Slough.
Concrete barriers will replace cable barriers on the northbound side of a 10-mile section of the freeway where eight people have died in cross-median crashes since 2000.
Fifteen projects are planned for Snohomish County, including some smaller ones on Highway 9 and 172nd Street NE in Smokey Point, for a total construction figure of $123.6 million.
“It’s quite a bit larger and different from what we’ve seen in the past,” said Travis Phelps, a spokesman for the state Department of Transportation.
Some of the work will stretch into 2010. The work is expected to be done at night and on weekends to keep disruption to a minimum, state transportation officials said.
Still, sometimes only one or two lanes will be open during work hours, causing delays for those who travel during those times.
Two major projects in Seattle are expected to affect drivers from around the region. From February to October, crews plan to grind down and replace sections of pavement on I-5 from Boeing Field to the Snohomish-King County line. Lanes will be closed nights and weekends for work on that $21 million project.
Sections of I-5 through Seattle, especially from Ravenna Avenue to Northgate, are in bad shape and need quick action, said Jim Farris, a design team leader for the transportation department.
“This isn’t a total replacement or a total fix, we’re just buying some time,” Farris said.
In May and again in July, lanes will be closed on one of the two I-90 floating bridges to replace expansion joints. The steel-and-concrete beams span the bridge horizontally underneath to help hold the structure together.
Several smaller projects in Seattle and Tacoma are planned beginning in March, with some running into 2010.
Also, the Hood Canal Bridge is scheduled to be completely closed during May and the first half of June for an overhaul, forcing drivers headed to the Olympic Peninsula to take roundabout routes.
“This is going to be the worst year yet,” said Lorena Eng, a regional administrator for DOT.
The work schedule is being pushed ahead to get the projects finished before any work is done on the two projects expected to displace 100,000 vehicles a day: the Alaskan Way viaduct and the Highway 520 floating bridge. These projects haven’t been scheduled but could be on the horizon in the near future, officials said.
“We want to make sure the rest of the system is in as good a shape as it can be,” Phelps said.
Doing the work next year also gets most of it done before the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, B.C.
Work on the concrete barriers in Marysville and Arlington is scheduled to begin in the spring and be finished in late 2010. The concrete barriers will replace cable barriers on the northbound side of the median while those on the southbound side will remain.
The state faces lawsuits from crash victims’ families. Engineers have determined the cables were incorrectly installed.
Lawmakers in March approved $27 million to install the new barriers.
The $7.3 million I-5 repaving in south Snohomish County is the northbound counterpart to the work done on southbound I-5 two years ago, Phelps said. It’s scheduled for spring 2009 to winter 2010.
The projects are being financed with gas tax funds, including an increase of 9.5 cents per gallon approved by the Legislature in 2005.
Reporter Bill Sheets: 425-339-3439 or sheets@heraldnet.com.
