Ship Canal Bridge construction could mess with your weekend plans
Jun 19, 2025, 5:04 AM
The Ship Canal Bridge. (Photo: @SounderBruce via Flickr Creative Commons)
(Photo: @SounderBruce via Flickr Creative Commons)
It’s a practice weekend for a month of lane closures on the northbound Ship Canal Bridge. Drivers will get a taste of what the upcoming summer will look like.
We’ve been warning you for months about the upcoming lane closures on the vital I-5 bridge. This weekend is the appetizer.
Only two lanes of I-5 north over the Ship Canal Bridge will be open from late Friday night to early Monday morning. For a short time early Saturday morning and early Monday morning, all lanes will be blocked for re-striping.
“What congestion is going to look like this weekend depends on what people choose to do,” the Washington Department of Transportation’s (WSDOT) Tom Pearce said. “If people do not alter their plans, if they just think they’ll drive the same way as they always do, then we’re going to see more traffic.”
The express lanes will remain open in the northbound direction to try to ease some of that congestion.
“The express lanes are going to be open northbound only, all weekend,” Pearce said. “We will have some lane closures Saturday night and Sunday night, because as we work on the drains, we need some room to work in the express lanes.”
WSDOT working on Ship Canal Bridge
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WSDOT is using this weekend to do much needed work on the bridge and prepare for the month-long closures coming up next month.
“We’re going to be working on the drainage system on the bridge,” Pearce said. “We hope to get about 80% of that work done to set us up for the bigger project that we have coming in July.”
If you have forgotten what is coming up in July, here’s what you need to know. The weekend of July 18, all lanes of the northbound Ship Canal Bridge will be closed. That will be followed by a month of 24/7 lane closures, and then another full weekend closure of the northbound bridge the weekend of August 15.
And that will be it for the major closures this year.
They will return in the northbound direction next year and the southbound direction in 2027. WSDOT is replacing expansion joints and the concrete between downtown Seattle and Northgate in this portion of the ongoing Revive I-5 project.
Chris Sullivan is a traffic reporter for KIRO Newsradio. Read more of his stories here. Follow KIRO Newsradio traffic on X.
