EVERETT – It’s another day, another bridge and another $30 million for state Department of Transportation officials.
They want to close down the 112th Street SE I-5 overpass for 20 nights spread out in two- or three-day clusters over a period of months. There will be no I-5 closures connected with the project.
The bridge will be widened to five lanes and will connect with the new South Everett Freeway Station, which will be built where a grove of trees now stands between I-5’s northbound and southbound lanes.
By 2008, the freeway station will have a 400-stall park-and-ride lot and a bus stop. Sound Transit and Everett Transit buses will use the station.
But before then, drivers will be forced to avoid the 112th Street SE bridge on select nights during the summer. The Everett City Council is expected to approve a detour that will take drivers up Seventh Avenue SE and onto Everett Mall Way, then down 19th Avenue SE to reach the other side of I-5.
The bridge will be closed between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. on those nights, city engineer Ryan Sass said.
“The goal is to keep the bridge open during commuting hours,” he said. “There will be times when there will be flaggers, and it may be down to single lanes, but for prime commuting hours there will be at least one lane in each direction.”
The project is a partnership among Sound Transit, the Transportation Department and the city of Everett, Transportation Department engineer Amir Ahmadi said. The costs will be shouldered mostly by the state. The city will contribute to the bridge replacement.
After city and state projects are complete, 112th Street SE will be five lanes from Airport Road to the west to Highway 527 to the east.
| What: The 112th Street SE I-5 overpass will close so it can be widened to five lanes and to connect to a new 400-stall park-and-ride lot.
When: For 20 nights at various times throughout the summer. Why: To improve the Everett-Seattle commute by as much as eight minutes. Effect: The proposed detour will send drivers around Silver Lake. |
The new transit station could improve the Seattle-Everett commute by as much as eight minutes.
The station will affect 2,500 of the 5,000 people who ride Sound Transit buses each day, Sound Transit officials said. It will be easily accessible for bus passengers who currently catch the bus at the Eastmont park-and-ride on El Capitan Way.
Once the project is finished, carpool traffic will be able to reach the freeway station from the I-5 carpool lanes. Other traffic will be able to reach the station from the widened 112th Street SE bridge.
However, the construction is yet another headache for drivers in an already snarled corridor.
Improvements on Bothell-Everett Highway where it curves around Silver Lake are nearly finished, but traffic still is slow during commute times. Cars are frequently bumper-to-bumper on I-5 northbound as traffic approaches Everett’s left-hand Broadway exit, where carpool lanes are being added and the 41st Street bridge will soon be closed.
That construction is part of the state’s $220 million I-5 expansion project.
Reporter Krista J. Kapralos: 425-339-3422 or kkapralos@ heraldnet.com.
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