SEATTLE — The Alaskan Way Viaduct is closed in Seattle this weekend for maintenance and repairs.
The Seattle Times reports workers will be sandblasting, patching, gluing and wrapping nine overhead beams in the major north-south roadway through downtown Seattle.
The goal is to lower the risk of damage while a tunnel is dug under downtown streets. Transportation officials want to make sure vibrations from a tunnel-boring machine won’t loosen concrete pieces of the old viaduct.
The giant drill will begin its work in mid-2013. A new four-lane tolled tunnel to South Lake Union is scheduled to open at the end of 2015.
The viaduct will be closed again in two weeks, on the weekend of April 6 to 9.
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