Motorists planning a trip over Interstate 90 east of Snoqualmie Pass will face several major road improvement projects that will delay drivers this year as the Washington State Department of Transportation improves sections of roadway across a 50-mile stretch of I-90.
WSDOT and contractor crews will start work in the next several weeks on a number of projects that will add lanes, build bridges, repave bridge decks and repair cracked sections of pavement.
Several locations east of Snoqualmie Pass will have single-lane closures and rolling slowdowns this summer, which will add to travel time. During construction, drivers need to add at least an hour to their east-west trips.
Motorists can check several websites for information, including What’s Happening on Snoqualmie, Snoqualmie Mountain Pass, and Traffic Alert Pages.
This week, crews resume work on a $551 million project that builds a wider, safer and more reliable stretch of I-90 from Hyak to Keechelus Dam. Later this month, crews on this five-mile-long project will resume blasting along the rock slopes east of Snoqualmie Pass.
Drivers need to plan for hour-long closures, Mondays through Thursdays, starting an hour before sunset. Due to the nature of blasting operations this year, some closures may last longer than an hour.
Later this month, crews will begin deck repair on five bridges along I-90 between Easton and Ellensburg. Crews will remove a thin layer of the existing bridge deck, repair damaged concrete, reinforce the deck with steel and repave with asphalt.
Crews will also begin repaving deteriorating pavement in both directions west of Easton Hill this spring. Drivers could experience delays Monday through Friday through the work zone.
During construction, I-90 is closed to bicycles in both directions between the Hyak interchange (Exit 54) and Stampede Pass interchange (exit 62) because there is no shoulder for bicycles to use. Bicyclists can use the John Wayne Pioneer Trail as an alternate route when weather conditions allow. Map boxes with maps are located at each interchanges to help cyclists navigate their way over the trail.
