Commuters implement strategy for viaduct shutdown

SEATTLE — Friday, April 29, marked day one of a two-week viaduct closure in Seattle.

• Find travel time updates and developments during the closure here.

Lorenzo Wright stepped off the light rail train moments after it arrived at his Tukwila International Light Rail station. He was asked if the train was full coming out of Seattle.

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"Yeah, it was pretty full," he said. "It's a lot of people."

"I won't be on the road," said Penny Nobis. She drove from her Maple Valley home to Tukwila two hours early for the train ride into downtown Seattle.

How does she feel even being in position?

"Too more weeks?" she said, sighing. "I'm going to be very tired. I'm already tired."

Incredibly, not everyone saw the signs that the viaduct would be closed.

Has she been out of town, Suzie Scollon was asked?

"I just got back Wednesday night, midnight," she said.

Scollon said she had no idea she couldn't take the viaduct into downtown Seattle.

"And nobody told me," she said.

Not so, for Don Roberts. This longtime West Seattle resident shared his commuting strategy to downtown.

"Going down Roxbury," Roberts said. "Going down that way. Come across the First Avenue Bridge."

So that means going south to go north?

"Yeah," he confirmed. "That's not good."

He is already looking to this weekend, expecting it to be a big traffic mess. And then there's Monday morning and a chance to start it all over again.

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