MUKILTEO — A road that was once a shortcut to the Mukilteo ferry terminal is closed because part of it might be on the verge of collapsing.

Mukilteo Lane was shut down last week after workers found that several feet of soil had been eroded from beneath a portion of the roadway, Mukilteo Public Works Director Larry Waters said.

City officials didn’t realize how bad the problem was until workers — who check on the road often — noticed the pavement appeared to have slumped a couple of inches.

Curious, a worker stuck a metal rod through a crack in the road. The rod went down about 4 feet before hitting solid ground, Waters said.

“We’ve definitely seen the newspaper articles with a hole in the road and a car sticking out of it, and this looks like it was heading that way,” Waters said.

The road could be closed for a month, he said. Several homes line Mukilteo Lane, but none is affected by the road closure.

Mukilteo Lane, a short two-lane road, connects Mukilteo Boulevard in Everett with neighborhoods in Old Town Mukilteo. The road has been seldom used since early 2007, when the Mount Baker Avenue railroad crossing was closed off, severing the road’s link to the Old Town waterfront.

Mukilteo Lane is just south of where mudslides have halted Sounder train service several times during the past couple of years.

Mary Shank, who lives on Mukilteo Lane, said her father used to reminisce about how the road was once wide enough to park a car on the northern shoulder. Now, there is no shoulder. It has eroded down the hillside, Shank said.

The road should be closed permanently, she said.

“I don’t think it’s very safe, because it’s caving in underneath,” Shank said. “It’s used a lot by pedestrians to walk on, and I can’t believe there haven’t been some fatalities on this road.”

The road’s problem is being caused by erosion from water, but it’s unclear where the water is coming from, Waters said. The city is planning to conduct tests to determine whether the flow is from a broken pipe, drainage from development or general runoff.

The city of Everett’s portion of Mukilteo Lane might need extensive repairs over the next five to 10 years, Everett City Engineer Ryan Sass said. A recently completed study of Mukilteo Lane showed Everett’s part of the road to be more stable than Mukilteo’s portion, he said.

However, the entire hillside stretch of Mukilteo Lane will always have problems, he said.

“It’s an area we watch pretty carefully over the long term,” Sass said.

Reporter Scott Pesznecker: 425-339-3436 or spesznecker@heraldnet.com.