Expect major I-5 delays: Ship Canal Bridge construction starts this summer
Jun 5, 2025, 5:45 AM
A wide view of the Ship Canal Bridge in Seattle. (Photo courtesy of the Seattle Department of Transportation)
(Photo courtesy of the Seattle Department of Transportation)
We’re just a few weeks away from the Summer of Ship Canal Bridge construction. You’re going to need to prepare for significant delays through Seattle.
Northbound I-5 is going to be a mess in the middle of the prime summer driving season because the Ship Canal Bridge is getting a serious makeover. Approximately 20% of the bridge deck will be repaired and resurfaced over the summer, work that is long overdue.
“It’s work that needs to be done,” Tom Pearce, communications consultant with WSDOT, said. “The Ship Canal Bridge is 60 years old. We’ve been out to do repairs more than 200 times in the last five years on the bridge, both northbound and southbound, and we need to get in there and do more work so that we can preserve the bridge.”
Construction starts June 20
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On the weekend of June 20, the northbound Ship Canal Bridge will be reduced to just two lanes, but that’s just the appetizer.
All northbound lanes will be closed across the bridge the weekend of July 18, and that will be followed by four straight weeks of construction, where only two lanes of the bridge will be open. A final full-weekend closure is set for the weekend of Aug. 15.
“This is going to be a really challenging project for us and for the public,” Pearce said. “We recognize that for people who are traveling. This is going to create some headaches.”
Expect this to have a regional impact.
“This is really going to affect everybody who travels, usually along I-5, because whenever you reduce lanes, all those people still have to go somewhere,” Pearce said.
The northbound express lanes will be open the entire time of these closures, which will impact the southbound morning commute as well.
The plan had been to do this work over several months, but that was scrapped by budget issues earlier this year. This smaller-scale work was set up to try and get ahead of the work that’s coming next year.
“Doing the work this year gives us a head start so that we can be sure to have things wrapped up in time to open the whole bridge during the World Cup,” Pearce said.
WSDOT hasn’t figured out how and when it will do the southbound repair work on the Ship Canal Bridge. That is expected later this year, but it’s not expected to be a week-long closure at this point.
Chris Sullivan is a traffic reporter for KIRO Newsradio. Read more of his stories here. Follow KIRO Newsradio traffic on X.
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