I-5 south to close at midnight in Everett

Published 9:00 pm Friday, April 20, 2007

EVERETT – Folks heading into Seattle for a good time tonight better not plan on arriving fashionably late.

Southbound I-5 in south Everett is scheduled to close at 11:59 p.m., and lane closures are scheduled to start as soon as 8 p.m.

The road needs to be closed so 10 girders that will support a new, wider 112th Street SE bridge can be lifted into place, said Laura Johnson, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Transportation.

“We’re trying to minimize the impact to drivers,” Johnson said, but she added that there could be substantial delays.

Half of what eventually will be a five-lane bridge is going up now. In July, traffic will be rerouted onto the new structure so that the old bridge can be torn out and the rest of the new bridge can be built.

The bridge is scheduled to open in 2008, along with a park-and-ride lot that’s being constructed in the freeway median just north of 112th Street SE. Sound Transit and city of Everett revenues are paying for the project.

Traffic experts are hopeful that tonight’s closure and detour – either to Highway 527 or Highway 99 – will be easy for drivers to handle. They point to a successful closure in March when new girders on the northbound bridge were set.

“That closure went very smoothly,” said Amir Ahmadi, the state’s project engineer. “There was little traffic after the first hour of the total closure, and it flowed well throughout the night. We’re hoping this closure will go as well as the last one.”

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