520 to Close This Weekend for Construction

State Route 520 will be closed again this weekend, but construction crews will open the roadway to traffic in time for the Seattle Sounders game on Sunday.

“We want to be sure our crews open the road before match day traffic picks up,” said Brian Dobbins, construction manager for the Washington State Department of Transportation’s SR 520 Eastside Transit and HOV Project. 

During the closure crews will install 34 concrete girders at the new 84th Avenue Northeast lidded overpass (pdf 280 kb). Each girder is up to 75 feet long and weighs as much as 85,000 pounds. These are the last girders to install on the 84th Avenue Northeast lid before crews can complete the lid deck. Crews still need to place the final girders at the new 92nd Avenue Northeast and Bellevue Way overpasses. 

Crews will also shift eastbound traffic to the north at Evergreen Point Road as they make room to build a new median transit stop. Sunday afternoon and Monday morning, drivers should use extra caution adjusting to the new lane alignment.

Oct. 19 - 21 Closure Details

Crews will close both directions of SR 520 and all connected ramps between Montlake Boulevard in Seattle and Interstate 405 in Bellevue from 11 p.m. Friday, Oct. 19, to noon Sunday, Oct. 21. Drivers will need to take Interstate 90 or find alternate routes around Lake Washington.

During previous SR 520 closures, the longest delays on I-90 happened Saturday afternoon. To help keep traffic moving, the I-90 express lanes will remain open westbound from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 20, then switch at 3 p.m. to eastbound traffic. On Sunday, Oct. 21, the lanes will remain open westbound from 6 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. and to eastbound traffic by 7:30 p.m.

Closure information and detour maps are online. Night work is planned, so residents near the work zone may be affected by construction noise.

SR 520 Eastside project overview

Crews working on the Eastside Transit and HOV Project are widening SR 520 to six lanes between Medina and Bellevue, rebuilding interchanges, constructing highway lids and transit stops in the center of the highway, and installing fish-friendly culverts. In 2010, WSDOT awarded a $306 million design-build contract to Eastside Corridor Constructors, a joint venture of Granite Construction Company and PCL Construction Services. The completed Medina to Bellevue corridor is scheduled to open to traffic in December 2013.

More information about the SR 520 Eastside project is online at www.wsdot.wa.gov/Projects/SR520Bridge/MedinaTo202.