What’s Up With All The Road Projects?

I know it is spring and after a particularly rough winter some roads and highways have huge cracks and holes from the snow and ice.

This weekend there will be the usual weekend migration over the pass as city dwellers venture to wine country and eastsiders head over for concerts and more. That makes for a congested interstate to traverse this spring with Washington State Department of Transportation working tirelessly to repair our damaged roads.

Snoqualmie Pass East improvements are actually targeted at the weekend traffic congestion. The multi-year project WSDOT has been working on between Hyak and Easton is going to relieve that congestion by widening I-90 from four to six lanes.

This weekend on Sunday, Todd will be braving the one-lane I-90 construction zones to see U2 at CenturyLink Field.

WSDOT is also removing rock from the slopes above I-90 to stabilize the hillside and prevent rocks from falling onto the roadway – hence all the nighttime blasting closures over the years.

Don't worry about blasting yet though, the blasting isn’t expected to start until June.

Don't expect this to be the last warm season for all the road work, this project is also calls for more brand new bridges, some even for wildlife and avalanches. Seven of the project's 15 miles will be completed by 2019, but the rest have not been finished by the planning engineers and design team according to WSDOT.

Before reaching Snoqualmie zones though, work continues in the first bottleneck spot between Cle Elum and the Elk Heights area to replace cracked sections of the westbound lanes. WSDOT says the pavement along that stretch is more than 45 years old, but work to replace it should be finished by this fall.