This February the Washington State Department of Transportation will begin work to repair the worst of the worst pavement on both directions of I-5 between South Seattle and Shoreline and on the I-5 express lanes. Due to the scale of the project they are expecting up to 14 weekends of closures and more than 100 nights of closures lasting into late summer. Each weekend or night closure would affect one direction of the freeway and reduce I-5 down to just one or two through lanes. Ramp closures may also occur, depending on the location. They expect to learn more in the next couple of weeks about how these closures would specifically affect I-5 near the Pinehurst neighborhood.
In addition to traffic delays, they also expect that construction noise and vibration will affect those living and working within 500 feet of the freeway, particularly at night when people are trying to sleep. Although they are taking steps to minimize noise where they can, much of it is unavoidable. They have a noise variance from the city of Seattle for night work and will notify I-5 neighbors about the work by delivering fliers to everyone within 500 feet of the freeway. They are also conducting outreach to neighborhood, governmental and business groups.
A representative from SDOT will be at our Pinehurst community meeting on Monday, January 26th. If you want to learn more about the project in advance of the meeting, visit the project Web site linked below. The Web site will be updated frequently as new information becomes available. It will be the best source for up-to-date information about work locations, times and durations.
http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/projects/i5/seattlepavementrepair/
You can also sign up to receive I-5 Seattle to Shoreline e-mail updates at http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/Northwest/EmailUpdates.htm.
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