Sullivan: Closures are clogging Ballard, and will be for next two months
Jul 16, 2024, 6:26 AM
SDOT is in the midst of a two-month project to pave the Ballard Bridge and make improvements to 15th Avenue Northwest near Market Street. (Photo: Chris Sullivan, KIRO Newsradio)
(Photo: Chris Sullivan, KIRO Newsradio)
Getting through Ballard along 15th Avenue Northwest can be hard enough as it is, and that was before the closures. Now the city is closing lanes for a massive paving project.
We’re a week into a two-month project to pave the Ballard Bridge and make improvements to 15th Avenue Northwest near Market Street. The Seattle Department of Transportation’s (SDOT) Jules Posadas said nightly lane closures will make it difficult to get through the area.
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“For the next six to eight weeks, we will be reducing the traffic lanes on the Ballard Bridge to make sure that we’re doing this as efficiently and safely as possible,” Posadas said.
SDOT is shutting down one lane in each direction from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. before all southbound lanes shut down from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m.
What’s the best option for southbound drivers?
“What we’re asking people is to use as a detour route is to go on Aurora Avenue or I-5,” Pasadas said.
I asked Posadas why SDOT decided to leave one lane of the northbound Ballard Bridge open, instead of one lane heading south.
“If we were to detour people going northbound at Ballard Bridge, it’d be a lot harder for people to detour to other locations to Aurora Avenue,” Posadas said.
There just isn’t an easy way to get to a detour driving north. Queen Anne Hill is sitting in the way. There are plenty of ways to get to Aurora Avenue or Fremont or Interstate 5 (I-5) if you are driving south — it’s just a matter of the easiest detour routes at that point in time.
Work is also underway between NW 57th Street and NW 56th Street, near Market Street.
“Work has started on 57th. Doing some pavement improvements, sidewalk improvements and those are during the day times, approximately 7 a.m. to 5 p.m.,” Posadas said. “One way to look at 15th Avenue Northwest is to see how we can modernize it to be safer for people not only driving, but also walking and biking around the area.”
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And you should prepare now for potential full closures on the corridor later this year.
“Come early fall, we’ll have select weekends that we will be doing full closures over the weekend,” Posadas said.
You should start preparing now.
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