EVERETT — A wayward trucker who smacked his rig into the bottom of I-5 at Pacific Avenue more than a year ago may delay the finish of the $263 million Everett I-5 widening project.

A damaged girder needs to be carved out of the middle of the southbound I-5 bridge spanning Pacific Avenue. To make space, traffic will be split to drive around an island-like construction site while repairs are made.

It may be until the end of March or beyond before work to extend carpool lanes from the Boeing Freeway to the Snohomish River is finished, officials said.

Repairing the banged up bridge likely will start in mid-February, said Mike Cotten, project director for the state Department of Transportation’s Everett I-5 widening project.

The state is struggling to figure out how to replace the girder and keep three lanes of traffic open — at least during the day — while still providing construction workers safe access to the freeway median, where they are still working on another piece of the widening project.

“We need to fix this while we’re out here,” Cotten said. “It’s unfortunate that it happened the way it did because (repairing it) will affect a lot of people.”

Meanwhile, bad weather and a lack of supplies have kept the state and the contractor from meeting their own goal of finishing the widening project by the end of the year.

“I’m not tickled, but it was our self-imposed goal,” said Dave Doles, project manager for contractor Atkinson-CH2M Hill.

There was hope to open the new northbound carpool lane by the end of the year, but even that goal won’t be met.

“If it’s wet, I can’t put asphalt down,” Doles said. “If it’s too cold, I can’t put asphalt down. If it’s raining too hard, I can’t put concrete or barrier down.”

Work on the northbound I-5 carpool lane almost is finished, but the state may need to keep it closed to provide the contractor with the room he needs to get workers safely into the median. That’s necessary to finish widening southbound I-5 and to reach the Pacific Avenue bridge area.

Despite the problems, however, the freeway project is still on schedule to finish well before its June deadline.

On a positive note, the state is just days away from opening two miles of new carpool lane on southbound I-5, stretching from the Lowell neighborhood south.

Also, a new merging lane from 41st Street SE to U.S. 2 already is open on northbound I-5, Cotten said. A similar lane on southbound I-5 won’t open until the carpool lane in that direction opens.

State officials may face challenges when they start work on the bridge over Pacific Avenue. Setting up “islands” in the freeway for construction doesn’t always click with drivers.

On southbound I-5 at 164th Street SW, the state three years ago struggled to keep traffic from hitting cones that warned drivers to not change lanes right before they drove up on a similar island.

That island was put in place so that crews could build a bridge that would allow buses in the Ash Way park-and-ride to merge directly to the freeway’s carpool lanes.

The state was forced to find another way to build that bridge in part because drivers were having trouble avoiding the island. Drivers came upon that island just as many of them were prepared to start merging right to exit to I-405.

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