‘Month of Hell’ on I-5 is just the appetizer — next two years will be brutal

We’re almost through the “Month of Hell” on I-5 through Seattle, but commuters need to realize that this was just the appetizer. The main course will be served over the next two years.

For every one of you who struggled through the lane closures on the Ship Canal Bridge and fought your way through the loss of the southbound express lanes, please pat yourselves on the back. You deserve it. This has not been easy.

But this was just a practice run. This was only one month. There will be two, four-month extended lane closures on the northbound Ship Canal Bridge in 2026.

“We’ll work for about four months, and then we will pause and pick everything up when the World Cup comes to town,” Tom Pearce, spokesperson for the Washington Department of Transportation (WSDOT), said. “Once the World Cup ends, we’ll have another weekend-long closure, reset the work zone, and then we’ll start to work on the right lanes of the northbound Ship Canal Bridge.”

That’s two, four “months of Hell” to deal with.

More lane closures on the menu

That will be followed in 2027 with up to nine months of lane closures across the Ship Canal Bridge in the southbound direction. The state will be looking closely at how the current month went and see what engineers can learn for the upcoming closures.

“We have used the past month as kind of a practice run, give us some ideas on how people are going to react and drive,” Pearce said. “We will be analyzing that information, and that will help us formulate any plans that we have for ’26 and ’27.”

There will also be several weekends of southbound I-5 lane closures coming up this fall. Those have not been scheduled.

But before we get to that, WSDOT has to wrap up this current work. All lanes of northbound I-5 will be closed across the Ship Canal Bridge late Friday night through 5 a.m. Monday morning.

“That will allow us to pick up the concrete barrier on the Ship Canal Bridge, restripe the bridge, and have all lanes open by 5 a.m. Monday,” Pearce explained.

If you’re heading to the Seahawks game, northbound I-5 won’t close until just before midnight, though ramp closures will start earlier. The express lanes will remain in the northbound direction.

WSDOT’s work on I-5 so far

So what did WSDOT get done during the last month?

“We have replaced more than 100 drains on the bridge, and we have replaced the left half of five expansion joints,” Pearce said. “We’ve accomplished all the stuff that we wanted to get done this time.”

As for how commuters fared during this event?

“We know that it was difficult for travelers, particularly southbound in the morning on I-5, but people did well at adapting and using other transportation methods, adjusting their schedule, so it went relatively well,” Pearce said.

Daily drivers might dispute that. My unscientific analysis suggests the morning commute out of Snohomish County averaged about 30 minutes longer than normal.

It’s fair to say that we will see similar issues over the next two years.

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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