ARLINGTON – A major route on the eastside of Arlington is expected to be closed for the foreseeable future after a portion of the roadway began collapsing.
Crews will shut down Tveit Road just east of 92nd Ave NE beginning 7 a.m. Friday morning. Drivers who need to access Tveit Road should take Burn Road off 212th, a detour of about six miles, Arlington spokeswoman Kristin Banfield said.
“It’s really frustrating for us,” she said. “We don’t want to have anyone inconvenienced.”
Officials have had their eyes on Tveit Road since December when flooding and heavy snows cracked an 80-foot fissure in the blacktop, she said. The roadway is carved into a hillside. Heavy rainfall the weekend of April 4 saturated the ground and soil began crumbling down the hillside.
Geo-technical experts investigated the road and determined it’s unsafe, Banfield said. The city considered shutting down a single lane but the crumbling roadway is on a blind curve, she said.
The city doesn’t know how long it will take to fix the problem. The fix won’t be cheap or fast. The road will either have to be buttressed by pilings or workers would have to carve out a chunk of hillside. The fix is expected to cost about $600,000 – money the cash-strapped city doesn’t have readily available. The city has asked the Federal Emergency Management Agency for money.
The city annexed a portion of land that includes this section of road last year.
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