State Route 520 Eastside Transit and HOV Project crews will be hard at work over this coming weekend as they place asphalt on new ramps and stripe the freshly paved lanes east of the S.R. 520 bridge. Beginning Friday night, Aug. 8, all S.R. 520 lanes across Lake Washington will be shut down in both directions between Montlake Boulevard and I-405 for a weekend-long closure.
Late-night drivers should also prepare for three nights of westbound closures this week, Aug. 4-8, between 92nd Avenue Northeast and Montlake Boulevard as crews pour concrete and put the finishing touches on the new West Connection Bridge. The structure, due for completion this fall, will connect S.R. 520’s existing lanes in Seattle with the highway’s new, six-lane floating bridge when it opens in spring 2016.
“We’re making steady progress and seeing a ton of improvements in the corridor,” said S.R. 520 Program Administrator Julie Meredith. “In the past couple of months alone, we’ve opened two new median transit stops, paved all of the Eastside’s six new mainline lanes and opened new direct access ramps to buses.”
Construction of both the S.R. 520 Eastside Transit and HOV Project and the West Connection Bridge will be complete later this year. The Washington State DOT (WSDOT) also continues to focus on replacing the existing, structurally vulnerable floating bridge. Sixty of the new floating bridge’s 77 pontoons are now built, and more of them will be towed to Lake Washington from Aberdeen this month.
