Closure set for I-5 ramp at 41st

EVERETT – Yes, it’s happening again. The state Department of Transportation is planning another weekend I-5 ramp closure at 41st Street SE.

The southbound exit to 41st Street is scheduled to close at 10 tonight. A new, wider ramp is set to open by 4 a.m. Monday.

As with many other planned ramp closures at the busy interchange, the state has had to delay this work before.

This work was supposed to happen last weekend, but bad weather blocked contractors from doing the work.

Sound familiar?

Many planned closures had to be canceled over the winter, making it seem like a closure was planned every other weekend.

The forecast looks good this weekend, but “it is weather-dependent,” said Ryan Bianchi, a Transportation Department spokesman.

Southbound I-5 drivers who want to get to 41st Street are advised to exit at Everett Avenue and use surface streets to get where they’re going.

The ramp closure is needed to tear out the old ramp and finish the last piece of the new ramp, which is already mostly ready to go, said Pat McCormick, the state’s chief engineer for the I-5 widening project in Everett.

He said crews have been working on the new ramp since late February, when an old loop ramp from Broadway was closed.

The new ramp is the third the state is building at the revamped overpass. The fourth – the connection to southbound I-5 – was scheduled to open in June. But, again because of the weather, that opening has been pushed back to October.

If some construction days that were lost to bad weather can be regained, perhaps the ramp will open this summer, McCormick said.

Rebuilding the 41st Street interchange is part of a $260 million I-5 widening project under way in Everett.

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