Relief coming for one clogged stretch of I-405

Published 7:06 pm Tuesday, October 26, 2010

BOTHELL — Crews are speeding forward on a plan to widen a notorious I-405 bottleneck using federal stimulus money.

The state Department of Transportation will add a fourth northbound lane along the freeway. The project, once planned for completion in 2015, is now on track to be done in June.

The $19.3 million job shows that even economic downturns can have a silver lining — in this case, lower construction costs.

“This project originally was expected to be a $30 million project,” said Kim Henry, a Department of Transportation project director. “We had that much stimulus money set aside.”

Crews will add a general-purpose lane to I-405 between NE 195th Street and Highway 527, a 1.8-mile stretch. Right now, that section has three lanes — one carpool and two general-purpose lanes.

Each day, about 125,000 cars and trucks travel along that section of road. It gets choked with traffic during rush hour and the average speed drops to an average of 35 mph, according to DOT figures.

The extra lane will allow traffic to move closer to 60 mph, based on DOT projections.

The lane will be added to the east side of I-405, or the far right hand side to drivers.

DOT doesn’t expect the project to hamstring traffic during construction.

“We already have made the traffic shifts, and all the work will be done behind concrete barriers,” Henry said.

Bids for the job came in notably low for a couple of reasons.

“A lot of different materials are costing less,” Henry said, pointing to a drop in the price of steel, asphalt and concrete. “The contractors are all being very, very competitive.”

DOT intends to use the leftover stimulus money, roughly $10 million, on other projects around the state, Henry said.

Andy Rathbun: 425-339-3455, arathbun@heraldnet.com.