A promise to open the new 41st Street SE overpass over I-5 by Thanksgiving will have to be broken, state officials said Tuesday.
The bridge was on schedule to open next week, but that changed when the city of Everett got involved on behalf of Lowell residents and a business district at 41st Street and Colby Avenue.
So instead of having a new overpass with two new ramps open next week, the 26,000 people who use the interchange per day will get a new bridge and three new ramps – but not until early March.
“I think there will be a lot of people disappointed that the bridge won’t be opened on Thanksgiving as promised,” said Steve Rossano, co-chairman of the Lowell Neighborhood Association.
He also said he could see the logic behind the change because northbound I-5 travelers would not be able to exit to 41st Street until a new ramp leading northbound traffic directly to 41st Street opens in March.
“We’re giving up opening by Thanksgiving to minimize impacts to businesses and residents,” said Mike Cotten, project director for the state Department of Transportation’s Everett I-5 widening project.
About 3,000 drivers per day exit from northbound I-5 on Broadway, use the new fly-over ramp to get on Broadway, and then take a loop ramp up to 41st Street.
From there they can go into the Lowell neighborhood to the east or the business district at 41st and Colby to the west.
The problem is that the loop ramp is in the state’s way, Cotten said. It has to be taken out to build the new southbound I-5 exit ramp to 41st Street.
Everett asked the state to keep the loop ramp in place until a new northbound I-5 exit ramp to 41st Street opens in March, which means delaying the bridge opening.
That means the detour on the Cascade View bridge – right now it’s one way from west to east – also will continue until March.
The state doesn’t expect that to be a problem because the detour has actually reduced the time it takes for people to get through the interchange.
Lowell residents – a very small percentage of the 26,000 people per day who use 41st Street – will continue to have to take a roundabout detour to Broadway to get into Everett.
That’s something that can’t be helped, Cotten said.
“From the city’s perspective, the benefits outweigh the importance of the arbitrary date that was put out there,” said Kate Reardon, the city of Everett’s spokeswoman.
Reardon said Lowell residents would have had to learn an entirely new detour – how to get from northbound I-5 to 41st Street and to their neighborhood – for the extra three months. This way Lowell residents can continue with detour routes that they are now accustomed to using, she said.
Rossano from the Lowell neighborhood thinks delaying the opening makes sense.
“It’s a tough call,” Rossano said. He likes staying with same detour routes.
“I don’t think it is an undue hardship on the people of Lowell,” he said. “When it’s all done, it should be a big improvement over what was there before.”
Ivar’s, LaCuesta Mexican Restaurant and the handful of other businesses at 41st and Colby also depend on keeping that loop ramp open, said Linda Smith, whose B-T Development Co. owns the land that most of those businesses sit on.
“Shutting down that ramp would destroy their business,” she said. “They need (drive by) traffic.”
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