Washington State Department of Transportation photo

Crews previously installed wiring to support the suspended scaffolding.

Construction has begun on a $203 million project to improve Interstate 5 in Snohomish County, Washington, according to herald.net.

From June 20-23, the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) closed two northbound lanes of I-5 on the Ship Canal Bridge in Seattle.

And northbound I-5 will be closed entirely between July 18-21 in much of Seattle in advance of a two-lane reduction between July 21 and Aug. 15. Northbound I-5 will fully close again from Aug. 15-18 before reopening, according to herald.net.

Guy F. Atkinson Construction is the project's contractor, according to WSDOT.

During this summer's closures, contractor crews will:

• repair and resurface about 20 percent of the northbound Ship Canal Bridge;

• partially repair five expansion joints; and

• replace bridge drain inlets.

More construction is set to take place through 2027 to complete more repairs and repave the surface of the bridge.

"It's work that needs to be done," Tom Pearce, communications consultant of WSDOT, told mynorth-west.com. "The Ship Canal Bridge is 60 years old. We've been out to do repairs more than 200 times in the last five years on the bridge, both northbound and southbound, and we need to get in there and do more work so that we can preserve the bridge."

The bridge carries about 200,000 vehicles daily.

When planning the repair project, WSDOT considered limiting the closures to nights and weekends, but that would have extended the timeline of the repairs significantly, Pearce told herald.net.

"This thing would have taken a minimum of 10 years to finish," he said.

Additional closures are planned in both 2026 and 2027. Construction work will briefly pause during the FIFA World Cup in the summer of 2026, according to herald.net.

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