Project near its end — almost

A season of confusion is nearing an end.

Motorists traveling Interstate 5 through Everett have endured a summer of constant change — late-night closures of lanes and exits; deeply gouged and grooved stretches of highway prepped for paving; hard-to-decipher lane markings; half-paved lanes that lend an off-kilter, an amusement-park feel to the driving experience.

By this week's end, the state Department of Transportation (DOT) expects to complete the repaving of northbound I-5 between the Everett Mall and the city's north end. Then the southbound paving will begin along the same corridor, with completion projected by month's end.

The $263 million overhaul of a six-mile stretch of freeway began in September 2005. By June, it should wrap up — with new car-pool lanes between the mall and a point beyond Highway 2, a widening to four general-traffic lanes in each direction between 41st Street and Highway 2, major improvements to several interchanges, widenings or replacements of more than 20 bridges, and fiber-optic technology for traffic cameras, ramp meters, reader boards and embedded traffic sensors.

Late-night and weekend closures of lanes and ramps will continue through the winter as crews work on interchanges, car-pool lanes and final stripings.

The project is more than 80 percent complete, but its milestones — new bridges and interchanges at Broadway and 41st Street and a newly opened northbound lane between 41st and Highway 2 — are easily overlooked by motorists focused on the current lane maze.

"I get e-mails from people who say, 'You've had this grooved for days and days. Why aren't you doing anything?' " said Ryan Bianchi, project spokesman for the DOT. "The reality is, every night something is going on."

While late-night lane closures have happened off and on since the project began, they became a staple when summer arrived. On a typical night, northbound traffic is funneled into a single lane between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., creating slowdowns and backups of varying degrees.

"Definitely the people traveling at night are carrying the brunt," Bianchi said. "I feel for them."

Two weeks ago, a lane-striping job ran overtime one weekday morning, adding 40 minutes to the northbound commute. The highway fully opened shortly after 7 a.m.

Late night is when the paving and preparation work happens. First the old, rutted asphalt is ground down with machinery that removes two inches of pavement and leaves behind deep, parallel grooves. Prominent warnings are posted, advising motorcycles of the dangers ahead.

Next, the deeper cracks are sealed, and electronic "traffic loops" — circular, embedded sensors to measure traffic flow — are installed. Then comes the asphalt.

The project employed more than 325 workers at its peak last winter, during construction of the 41st Street bridge replacement. Now it supports 220 to 250 workers, said project director Mike Cotten.

One of the project's more dramatic events is under way this week, along the path of the former Broadway exit. Since the late 1960s, northbound traffic heading into downtown had exited on the left, tunneling beneath the freeway's southbound lanes to reach Broadway. That exit closed in June 2006 when the state opened a new exit on the right, with a ramp that arches over I-5 to reach Broadway.

Now crews are working on two separate but interrelated jobs.

Broadway's former exit lanes are being reconfigured into new routes for car pools and buses heading north into Everett or south toward Seattle. The southbound lane will merge onto I-5 from the median.

Just above that work, southbound I-5 is undergoing a transformation. Two weekends ago, in the middle of the night, DOT shifted all three lanes of traffic to the left onto a new stretch of elevated freeway. Now the abandoned lanes are being demolished; eventually they will be replaced with two new lanes which will be constructed to allow a higher clearance for the buses that must pass beneath.

Diane Brooks: 425-745-7802 or dbrooks@seattletimes.com