Ship Canal Bridge construction on schedule as WSDOT pushes toward World Cup pause

It’s been three months since two lanes of northbound I-5 were shut down over the Ship Canal Bridge for maintenance and construction.

Will the project be ready to wrap up in time for the World Cup as scheduled?

If you drive the Ship Canal Bridge often, you can see that the workers have been slowly moving from south to north across the bridge. They have been stripping the driving surface, fixing the underlying structure, and then re-paving as they move. Most of the drainage work was done before this phase of work.

“We’re making really good progress, and we do plan to be open by Monday morning, June 8,” Washington Department of Transportation (WSDOT) spokesperson Tom Pearce said.

The plan is to finish all the work in the two left lanes by the first weekend in June. That’s when work will stop for the World Cup. That break will start with a full weekend closure of the northbound lanes.

“We are going to have to have a full closure of northbound I-5 Friday night, June 5, through the early morning hours of June 8,” Pearce said. “That’s because we need to get out and pick up the barrier. We need to re-stripe the lanes.”

Ship Canal Bridge work pauses for World Cup, resumes in July

The I-5 corridor will return to its normal configuration for the morning commute on Monday, June 8. That means the express lanes will be open southbound at 5 a.m., but this is just a temporary return to normal.

“We will get about a month reprieve where the express lanes are operating on their regular schedule,” Pearce said. “Once we go back to doing our work in mid-July on northbound I-5, of course, the express lanes will switch back to northbound only.”

Once that month-long break is over for the World Cup, WSDOT will need another full weekend closure.

“We’ll be back the weekend of July 10 through 13,” Pearce said. “We’re going to need another full closure to reset the work zone. After the World Cup games in Seattle have finished, we’ll reset the work zone, and then we’ll be working on the two right lanes.”

And that’s the key change for northbound drivers. Work will switch from the two left lanes to the two right lanes starting in July. That means drivers will have to merge to the left heading toward the Ship Canal Bridge. Northbound I-5 will remain in this configuration until work finishes late this year.

How drivers have adapted after three months of construction

What have we learned in the first three months of construction in relation to our traffic patterns?

It’s pretty clear that drivers coming from north of Lynnwood, who used to choose I-5, are choosing I-405 to avoid the forced merge in Northgate. That corridor is running about 10 to 15 minutes slower than southbound I-5 during most mornings.

“We’re still seeing probably around 55 minutes average from I-405 and Lynnwood to 520,” Pearce said. “It’s not as bad as what we saw at the start, and people have adapted.  They’re doing different things, and that has helped.”

It is clear that many drivers are choosing to change their shifts to avoid the worst of the congestion. The southbound commute out of Snohomish County is starting about an hour earlier than normal.

Just a reminder that this is just the latest phase of work on the Ship Canal Bridge. The southbound direction will be reduced to two lanes all of next year, with no breaks currently scheduled.

During that phase, the I-5 express lanes will remain open southbound 24-7.

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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