Date:
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Contact:
Howard Diep, Project Engineer, (253) 589-6100
Jamie Swift, WSDOT Communications, (360) 357-2703
TACOMA – Pay attention, be careful and plan ahead for delays.
That’s the advice WSDOT is offering the thousands of drivers who travel each day through downtown Tacoma – where crews this week will be implementing traffic revisions to move vehicles around bridge-demolition work and keep drivers safe.
Here is a tentative and weather-dependent timeline for this week’s major traffic revisions:
•11 p.m. Wednesday: Crews will close the on-ramp from SR 16 to northbound I-5 for striping work in preparation for a lane reduction.
•5 a.m. Thursday: On-ramp reopens, with merge lanes from SR 16 to northbound I-5 reduced from two lanes to one. This revision will be in place until fall.
•8 p.m. Saturday: Crews begin reducing lanes on northbound I-5 to prepare for second traffic revision, which shifts mainline traffic to the right, onto new lanes, to get vehicles around bridge-demolition work. This revision also will be in place until fall.
•9 p.m. Saturday: Crews again close the SR 16 on-ramp to northbound I-5, then close the I-705 off-ramp to conduct more preparation work for the shift.
•11 p.m. Saturday: Mainline northbound I-5 near the Tacoma Dome is down to one lane, with just the left lane open.
•5 a.m. Sunday: Traffic shift in place and SR 16 and I-705 ramps re-opened.
WSDOT thanks drivers for their patience, as an already tough commute through downtown Tacoma becomes more difficult.
Fortunately, there is a payoff at the end. WSDOT and its contractor, Kiewit Pacific Co., will deliver a safer, less congested I-5 through downtown Tacoma in spring 2008. The improved and widened freeway also will accommodate future HOV lanes.
For more information about this project, visit www.tacomatraffic.com.
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