Check out our new site Mercer Mess to see a live traffic cam and interactive Waze map
This weekend, the Mercer Street exit is closed again for repaving and the installation of overhead signs.
When the entire Mercer corridor project is complete -- with a combined $259 million price tag -- city staff expects overall travel times from the Seattle Center to Interstate 5 to improve by about a minute.
As a look back into the KIRO 7 archive shows, the so-called Mercer Mess has been a traffic nightmare for decades.
The report embedded above aired on July 19, 1977 -- the day the City Council heard from concerned drivers and gave proposals to solve the Mercer Mess.
"We've all been caught at one time or another in the Mercer Mess, and there has been a lot of talking about it," KIRO anchor Kim Marriner told reporter Ken Woo. "But when are we going to see some actual work done to alleviate the problems there?"
Woo interviewed William Van Gelder, with the city's engineering department, and Van Gelder explained the city had reviewed more than 200 proposals to fix the Mercer Mess.
The city expected to have a solution in place by the end of that summer. But 36 years later, the Mercer Mess continues.
"Folks at the traffic department tell us there's a better way to wade through all this," Woo said in his 1977 report. "But it's going to cost all of us who are taxpayers."
Cox Media Group
