Prepare for even more I-5 construction in 2018
Jan 3, 2017, 8:40 AM
Work on advancing I-5 HOV lanes in Tacoma continues this week. (WSDOT)
(WSDOT)
Drivers who use I-5 need to watch for a week’s worth of ramp closures in Tacoma.
We’re in the middle of years worth of construction as the state extends HOV lanes from Fife through the Highway 16 interchange in Tacoma.
The on-again, off-again ramp closures return this week, starting Tuesday night and running through Saturday morning.
Related: Six additional miles of toll lanes opening on SR 167
“We’ll have a series of ramps that will be closed through that area, allowing crews … to continue work involved with putting together these new HOV lanes,” Washington State Department of Transportation spokesperson Doug Adamson said.
Adamson says the closures will block the ramp from Bay Street to State Route 167 in downtown Tacoma. The collector-distributor lanes from northbound I-5 to Highway 705 and Highway 7 will also be closed on some nights, as will the ramp from Highway 705 to I-5.
The closures will begin after 10 p.m. and be cleared by the following morning commute.
Adamson says there’s so much going on with these projects the contractors need the room to move.
“This is a large project,” he said. “We are relocating, essentially, Interstate 5 through the Tacoma area … we’re building new bridges, adding new stormwater facilities. There’s a lot of new work that is going on. We’re building a bridge over the Puyallup River.”
And drivers will have several more years of construction to deal with. The projects through Tacoma are scheduled to wrap up in early to mid-2018.
More is planned for I-5 as well. Work to add a lane to I-5 between Mounts Road and Dupont is scheduled to begin in the near future. Construction should be complete by the fall.
Construction on major interchange improvements at Berkeley and Thorne Lane will likely begin in 2018, and that will include a new lane on I-5.
Construction of new interchanges at Mounts Road and Steilacoom-DuPont Road will begin in 2020.
So the orange cones aren’t going anywhere.
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