Why WSDOT won’t switch express lanes, despite huge southbound I-5 backups

This is a question that I have pondered since last summer. It is a question that drivers asked me then. It’s a question drivers continue to ask me today.

Why won’t the Washington Department of Transportation (WSDOT) open the I-5 express lanes for a few hours each morning to prevent the 45-50 minute delays out of Lynnwood?

If you haven’t made this trip recently, WSDOT just closed two left lanes on northbound I-5 across the Ship Canal Bridge. To help with potential backups, WSDOT has decided to keep the express lanes open in the northbound direction 24/7.

Here is the impact of this configuration. Northbound I-5 has been running 15-20 minutes faster from Federal Way to Seattle. Most of it is because there is no forced merge at the express lanes entrance. The northbound backup to the actual closure on the Ship Canal Bridge during the morning commute has been about 15 minutes, from the Convention Center.

With the express lanes unavailable southbound during the morning commute, drivers have experienced massive delays from Mountlake Terrace to the U-District.

Many driver questions are like this one from Tom.

“With Revive I-5, I don’t know why they don’t still switch the express lanes,” Tom said. “Right now it’s 8:10 in the morning, and the express lanes going northbound in the virtually empty.”

I reached out to WSDOT again, asking whether it might consider testing the idea for a day. Here is its response.

“WSDOT is not considering any changes at this time,” the department stated. “We’re constantly evaluating and re-evaluating the entire system, but we also know that during the work last summer with this traffic configuration, we had much greater volume in the express lanes after four weeks than we had during the first few days. Part of that may be that people traveling north of downtown are not used to having the option to use the express in the morning.”

Also, there is a safety component – with only two lanes open on the northbound I-5 mainline, a single collision could block a significant portion of the roadway, or even both lanes, with no way to go north through the city. We need to maintain some northbound capacity at all times.

We will continue with the traffic control strategy we have in place at this time. We understand people’s frustrations and wanting us to do something different, but today, two days into this work, we are not going to flip the express lanes.”

Keep the questions coming. Keep looking for alternate ways to get around this. We have five months of this to go.

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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