Soper Hill roundabout and pedestrian trail work wraps up

MARYSVILLE — A new roundabout is open and managing traffic, and a nearby pedestrian trail keeps people and vehicles apart along the border of Lake Stevens and Marysville.

Developers have built dozens of homes in the Soper Hill Road area over the past decade, which added traffic to the once pastoral place with two-lane roads. The two cities agreed to build a small roundabout at 83rd Avenue Northeast and Soper Hill Road to help control vehicle flow, with Lake Stevens doing design and permit work and Marysville funding and managing the $635,000 project. The roundabout replaces an intersection that handled on average 4,000 vehicles per day, according to Marysville data.

Work on the roundabout closed the intersection for almost a month. It reopened on schedule June 18. Other small tasks around it recently ended.

“Reece Construction was very efficient and worked with both cities, Marysville and Lake Stevens, to build a successful project,” project engineer Kyle Woods said in a statement.

Roundabout construction can require expensive and intensive traffic control, the city of Marysville said in the statement. But closing the intersection saved 1,030 hours of flagging work and improved safety for construction workers.

“The saved funds remain in the city’s transportation improvement budget and will go toward other transportation improvement projects,” Marysville spokesperson Connie Mennie said in an email.

The project also added a trail on the north side of Soper Hill Road for bikes, scooters, skateboards, strollers and pedestrians. A bioswale, which acts as stormwater retention and treatment infrastructure, separates vehicles from the path. Marysville plans to extend the trail east and west as homes and other developments are built.