Air show, last-minute construction a recipe for Tacoma traffic
Aug 23, 2016, 7:31 AM | Updated: 9:06 am
We lived through the Sno-Co Squeeze. We lived through the South King Slowdown. Now we have a last-minute addition to our construction list, and it is going to make getting through Tacoma this weekend a very difficult proposition.
Contractors are going to pave southbound I-5 through Tacoma, and that means a greatly reduced freeway from Friday night until Monday morning.
Only two lanes of southbound I-5 will be open from before Portland Avenue to about the Tacoma Dome. Highway 16 is also undergoing a paving project. Doug Adamson with the Washington State Department of Transportation said westbound drivers are going to be funneled onto the eastbound bridge all weekend. This is the first of two weekends Highway 16 drivers are going to have to deal with this.
This would be bad enough on any summer weekend, but this couldn’t come at a worse time. The JBLM Air Show is this weekend, featuring the Thunderbirds. The show typically grinds I-5 to a halt.
Adamson said contractors are running out of time to get this work done.
“We recognize it’s an inconvenience, and the timing could have been a lot better,” he said. “There are a lot of moving parts, a lot of variables. We’re running out of summer. We have to get this work done. There are other construction projects that are going on that we can’t conflict with.”
The best advice is to avoid Tacoma this weekend if you can. If you’re headed to the air show, leave really early. If you’re just heading south through Tacoma, avoid being on the road during the show, which starts at 11 a.m. both Saturday and Sunday.
I’ve been on I-5 during the show. Believe me, you don’t want to be there. The planes perform over the freeway, which is more than distracting for drivers.
