The SunBreak » I-5

Road News: Mercer Exit Closure, Cracked 520 Pontoons, Tunnel Tolls

Michael van Baker — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 18:31:06 +0000

Traffic on I-5 at Mercer Street may or may not be horrible this weekend, says Seattle's Department of Transportation. Though there's a full weekend closure of the I-5 on- and off-ramps at Mercer Street scheduled to start today, June 7, at 11 p.m. (and last until 5 a.m. Monday), the work is dependent on the weather.

New War on Cars to be Led by Roads

Michael van Baker — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 19:15:18 +0000

Over the weekend, reports KOMO TV, a family was driving I-5 near Northgate when a chunk of concrete from the road flew up, smashed through the windshield, and hit the driver. "The rock hit me so hard in the chest, it literally took my breath away," Henry Jessop told KOMO.

Seattle’s Shunpikers Slice $200 Million From Tunnel Toll Estimates

Michael van Baker — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 19:09:08 +0000

WSDOT is not normally in the habit of announcing that they have $200 million in fun money they have no use for. There exist WSDOT projects with perhaps more impact than ferrying 57,000 vehicles (per day by 2030) past Seattle's core. For comparison, Mercer Street, which carries 80,000 vehicles per day, is getting a makeover costing $164 million, $36 million less than WSDOT's estimating error on their $3.1-billion tunnel project.

Why Don’t We Tell People Not to Drive All The Time?

Michael van Baker — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 16:00:35 +0000

Seattle, of course, had its own version of Carmageddon in 2007. 19 days of a partially closed I-5, not just a weekend. But at the end, out came the Y2K comparison: "Traffic got a little worse later in the first week — but remained far better than average, despite slowdowns through the construction zone. [...] Now that we know how the story turned out, it's tempting to poke fun at all the dire predictions," wrote Clark Williams-Derry in the Seattle Times.