Two Snohomish County bridges to close for four months

A popular shortcut between Bothell and Lynnwood is going to be shut down for several months as Snohomish County replaces an old wooden bridge.

Nine thousand drivers a day use this spot to avoid SR 524, or Maltby Road, between the north end of Bothell and the east side of Lynnwood. It’s also a more direct route than using I-405 to I-5.

Swamp Creek Bridge 503 is so short you might not even realize that it’s a bridge. Your only indication is the load restriction signs on either side. It’s on Locust Way, just north of the stoplight at 228th Street Southwest. It’s a wood-pile bridge that no longer serves the needs of the growing community.

“It’s two lanes with a guardrail, so there’s no pedestrian access,” Snohomish County Construction Supervisor Lisa Calkins said. “You really have to time it to cross through there if you are a pedestrian. I even watched  a woman with a baby stroller getting through there, and she had to wait a while.”

Design manager Charlie Green told me this new bridge will be a big improvement.

“We’ll have our standard lanes, and then we’ll include bike lanes and then pedestrian paths,” he said. “We’ll also be adding a couple hundred feet of sidewalk on the north side of the bridge to connect to the next neighborhood to the north.”

The bridge closes June 25. The road won’t reopen until the end of October. There are houses on either side of the project.

“There are different ways to go around, but our sign detour route is actually a four-mile detour route,” Calkins said. “It’s significant, but it kind of depends on where you’re going, which route you have to take.”

This has the potential to be a major inconvenience for residents.

“When we look at road closures, we don’t take those lightly,” Green said. “We’ll look at whether we can work out there safely without a road closure, what the costs and duration are when we don’t do road closures. Projects take longer, so we always want to consider that.”

Jordan River Bridge closure

This isn’t the only bridge Snohomish County is going to close for the next several months. The Jordan River Bridge, which crosses the Stillaguamish River just north of Granite Falls, will close June 19. It is also expected to be out of action through October.

It’s a much less populated area, but the detour is 26 miles. You have to go all the way up to Arlington to find the next bridge over the river. This bridge is way out of date.

“Not only does it have wood pilings, but it also has a wood deck,” Green said.

It will be replaced with a bridge that can handle the expected growth over the next 50-plus years.

“We’ll be pulling these old creosote-treated wood piles out of the stream, which is a huge upgrade for the fish,” Green said. “From a safety standpoint, we’ll be adding the bike lanes and sidewalks.”

These are two of the 38 timber bridges still in operation in Snohomish County.

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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