SEATTLE — Good news for anyone traveling through the Seattle area: the Washington Department of Transportation says crews finished their work on northbound I-5 earlier than expected.
This is the first time in several months that drivers have been able to use any of the four lanes on the I-5 mainline, northbound over the Lake Washington Ship Canal Bridge.
Two lanes of the bridge were shut down back on January 9.
The work to reconfigure the lanes was supposed to last until 5 a.m. Monday.
Tom Pearce with WSDOT told KIRO 7 that crews got everything they needed done, so they wanted to open as early as possible.
“This weekend we removed the concrete barrier between the left and right lanes, and then we had to go through and clean all that up and do some patching on the bridge deck because that concrete barrier was pinned into the deck,” Pearce shared. “So we had to do some patching on that, and then we had to restripe the northbound lanes across the ship canal bridge.”
What’s next?
All lanes of mainline I-5 will be open, and the express lanes will operate on regular southbound/northbound schedules between June 8 and July 10 as Seattle hosts FIFA World Cup matches.
“Then we’re going to come back after the soccer championships on July 10, and we’re again going to close northbound I-5,” Pearce told KIRO 7. “We’ll put the barrier back, and then we will reopen on Monday morning with just the two left lanes open. We’ll have the right lanes closed and then we can fix those.”
Work is expected to wrap up in late 2027.
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