Expect major closures for final month of construction

As you scramble to fit in your last summer vacation days, construction crews are scrambling to take care of major road projects while the weather is still warm and dry.

A lot of the local mega-projects need consistent good weather and the Washington State Department of Transportation can really only rely on that through August. Drivers will see a lot of road closures in these final weeks of summer.

“As we start to get further on in the month of August, we’re going to see [Highway] 520 being shut down both for construction and maintenance,” said Washington State Department of Transportation spokesperson Travis Phelps. “So we’re going to piggy-back on this as much as we can.”

Tell us what slows you down

State Route 520 will be closed most of this weekend. The closure will start after the Seahawks game Friday night, but that’s not the only big event this weekend.

“(It) also comes on the same weekend that we have Hempfest and we also have some major special events downtown,” Phelps said. “The Sounders are playing at CenturyLink Field on that Sunday at 2 p.m. So we’re going to try to get all of our work done before that Sounders match to help alleviate traffic through that downtown core.”

WSDOT has a few major culverts to work on before the rain starts. Both Highway 524 in Maltby and Highway 99, south of Federal Way, will be closed this weekend for culvert repairs and replacement. A six-mile detour is set up around the Federal Way closure, located between 356th and 373rd.

A culvert replacement on Highway 203 in Duvall begins next Monday.

I-405 is going to be down to one northbound lane through Bothell during the last weekend in August.

“We’re targeting opening up the new Bothell braids at the end of the month &#8212 the weekend of the 29th &#8212 and that’s going to need some traffic closures to make sure that we pull that off without a hitch, give our crews space and time they need to switch to the new braided system,” Phelps said.

The state has a lot on its plate and you can expect to be caught up in this work over the next few weeks.