NCW Road Construction Season About To Kick In
The Washington Department of Transportation is moving quickly into construction season as temperatures warm up.
There are a number of repaving projects in the works for North Central Washington.
WSDOT spokesperson Lauran Loebsack says there's a narrow time frame to complete road projects in the region.
"In Central Washington, we have snow on the ground for a good part of the season, and so we don't have as big of a window to do those construction projects," said Loebsack.
One of the longest projects will require almost three months to repave a 12-mile stretch of U.S. 97 north of Blewett Pass.
It'll start June 1st and run through most of August.
It’s one of the few repaving projects that’ll disrupt traffic during the daytime, with work scheduled to take place Monday-Thursday ½ hour after sunrise to ½ hour before sunset.
The project will shut down on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays to accommodate heavy weekend traffic in the Cascades.
Most of the road repaving projects operate during the overnight hours of 10pm-6am Monday through Friday mornings.
They include three sections of U.S. 2 between Leavenworth and Peshastin. The first section within the city of Leavenworth starts overnight this Monday morning (April 10) and should wrap up by Memorial Day weekend.
Two other sections stretching from Leavenworth east to Peshastin start on May 1 and wrap up by June 20.
A repaving project on the westbound lanes of U.S 2 in Cashmere will be restarted this Monday (April 10) after being suspended by time constraints last year.
A longer-term road project will get going this summer.
Crews will replace the existing bridge deck on the I-90 Vantage Bridge to maintain the structural integrity, ensure the safety of the highway and extend the life of the bridge.
The Vantage Bridge was built in 1962 and the last time the bridge received a major overhaul was in 1982.
Major impacts from that project will begin next summer, but drivers could experience minor delays due to lane closures this year.