Revive I-5 returns to Seattle with a full freeway closure

Traffic near I-5 flyover at Pine St. (Photo courtesy SDOT / Flickr)

It’s time to plan your Seattle trip in advance for the next weekend when Revive I-5 is back with the first full weekend off the freeway.

WSDOT will tackle I-5 where expansion joints failed in April

You will not want any part of I-5 southbound on the weekend of Friday June 25th through early Monday June 28th. All lanes of the motorway heading south will be closed at the I-90 exit for the Revive I-5 project. The lanes are closed on Friday at 7 p.m. and on Monday until 5 a.m.

“We’re going to move all traffic off the main I-5 line to the collector hub for the entire weekend,” said Tom Pearce of the Washington Department of Transportation. “That means that we will only have a single track from the collector distributor.

The I-5 expressways will also not be opened to the south this weekend.

“We can’t really open it to the south because the highways join the freeway after the collector junction, and that’s part of the area we need to close,” said Pearce.

The express lanes to the north will open as usual.

With just one southbound lane squeezing through the collector-distributor lanes, you can imagine what this will mean for traffic in the region. Pearce wants you to start thinking about your plans now.

“Think about where you are going and whether you really need to take the freeway,” he said.

I-405 is a good option if you are from Snohomish County. Highway 99 would also be a good option, but the tunnel is tolled. That’s $ 1 for Good to Go users, pay $ 3 in the mail.

The Good-to-Go system will be switched off for two weeks and tolls will still be charged

This is the first of 16 weekend closures on this section of motorway over the next two summers. The first two are intended for sanding and re-paving. The next 14 are for repairing expansion joints.

“This project will replace 40 expansion joints on I-5 going south and another 16 on I-90 and the various ramps in the area,” said Pearce.

And he knows this is going to be a huge pain for anyone trying to get around downtown Seattle, but Pearce said it was better than having to do emergency repairs during rush hour.

“We actually had six expansion joints in the past three months,” he said. “We had to go out in the late morning or early afternoon and do repairs to these expansion joints during the week with heavy traffic.”

So plan ahead.

The Mariners are out of town, but the Sounders have a game on Saturday. Getting in and out of the stadium district this weekend will be a challenge at best.

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