Highway 529 south closure coming

By Brian Kelly

Herald Writer

MARYSVILLE — Aug. 13, 2001: On this date in history, Marysville and Everett-area drivers sat stuck like a pesky piece of popcorn planted firmly in the teeth of traffic. The closure of the Highway 529 northbound bridge over Steamboat Slough brought gridlock and root-canallike joy to commuters between Everett and Marysville, as once simple trips decayed into hours-long motoring marathons.

Get ready again to open wide.

Mowat Construction Co., the contractor for the Highway 529 project, has given notice that the southbound bridge will be closed starting Tuesday, May 14.

But the closure really may start a few days earlier so travelers can have a "dry run" of what they’ll face later that week, said Victoria Tobin, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Transportation.

"We would rather have the closure start on Sunday the 12th, so people can get used to it, rather than on a commute day," Tobin said.

The closure could mean as much as a 157-day shutdown of the southbound bridge over Steamboat Slough. That’s the amount of time the contractor has to finish the job, although they hope to be done much sooner.

Traffic is expected to be more clogged in Marysville this time around, and streets in Marysville near I-5 are expected to be heavily congested during the morning and evening commute hours. Southbound I-5 is also expected to be more congested than normal during the evening hours.

The work is the next phase of a rehabilitation effort for the three bridges on Highway 529. The $13.5 million project includes replacing the southbound bridge deck and steel support beams, mechanical and electrical rehabilitation of the swing span controls and drives, raising the control house, painting the steel bridge and strengthening it to withstand earthquakes. Work on the northbound bridge is complete, except for the replacement of bridge motors.

A number of traffic revisions will be used to keep commuter traffic moving during the southbound bridge closure: