$7M project to repair Western Washington's battered highways now underway

SEATTLE - A sprawling project to repair Western Washington’s battered highways is now underway.

Starting this week, the Northwest Region Emergency Pavement Repair project will begin across King, Snohomish, Skagit and Whatcom counties. The aim is to repair roughly 20 miles of highways damaged by cold weather and heavy snow last winter.

The $7 million project was awarded to Lakeside Industries and includes some 80 worksites on three interstates, 12 state highways and four bridge decks.

Gov. Jay Inslee issued an emergency proclamation in January following a winter that devastated miles of infrastructure.

WSDOT says cold, wet winter weather constantly freezes and thaws the roads, cracking and damaging them. Salting the roads to reduce ice buildup further degrades the pavement. 

Affected roadways include I-90, I-405, 12 state routes and I-5—the latter of which is already part of the years-long Revive I-5 project.

Most notably, the project looks to repair a quarter-mile stretch of westbound I-90 stripped of drivable surface near North Bend. That work is expected to finish in September.

Some work will involve daytime hours, but WSDOT is shooting for the bulk of it to be done in low-travel times.

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"We don’t want to add more inconvenience to drivers who have spent the last several months navigating these rough patches of road," said WSDOT Project Engineer James Harper. "We’re especially sensitive to folks who are planning to travel during the Labor Day holiday. This project will have zero effect on drive-times over that weekend."

The Emergency Pavement Repair project is scheduled to finish by April 2023.