It took one stalled bus on 520 to cause another awful commute
Aug 30, 2016, 12:06 PM | Updated: 12:07 pm
Another day, another horrific commute on the new 520 Bridge.
After a King County Metro bus stalled in the eastbound lanes of the bridge, traffic quickly began backing up and caused major delays Tuesday morning.
Well-IRT is on scene EB 520 stall but a dbl long bus is a bit too big for even our mighty IRT. Use EB I-90 this A-M! pic.twitter.com/aW4SvBtH2L
— WSDOT Traffic (@wsdot_traffic) August 30, 2016
The stall, which was reported around 7:30 a.m., took about an hour to clear, but not before it forced drivers to find alternate routes.
Good news for those bus commuters – just got loaded onto an alt bus & are off. Crews now working to move EB520 stall pic.twitter.com/U9hFYnk5RT
— WSDOT Traffic (@wsdot_traffic) August 30, 2016
KIRO Radio’s Chris Sullivan reports traffic backed up on I-5 in both directions. Delays were as long as 50 minutes. I-90 began backing up as well. If the stalled bus wasn’t cleared when it was, Sullivan says I-405 would have begun backing up as well.
Sullivan says things wouldn’t have been so bad if there were bigger shoulders on the west side of the bridge.
“That’s the ripple effect,” Sullivan said.
The bridge will eventually be widened at the west end. According to state plans, the west approach bridge will be complete by the summer of 2017. Plans call for the corridor to be expanded all the way to I-5, but that only has an anticipated start of sometime in 2018.
Until all that work happens, Sullivan says drivers could continue to see similar incidents during their commutes.
Drivers were probably reminded of the two-vehicle collision on the bridge last week that Sullivan dubbed the “worst overall morning commute of the summer.”
That title now goes to Tuesday morning’s commute.
Hooray! The EB 520 stall has been cleared. All lanes open, expect lingering delays on many area roads. pic.twitter.com/SlRIqWWOeT
— WSDOT Traffic (@wsdot_traffic) August 30, 2016
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