After two marathon days of driving, we got together with Chris and tooled around the Seattle and Tacoma area during day 4, and then rendezvous with Andy’s cousins in Burien.
The day started off with some typical Seattle weather, even with it being late August. A rainy mist converted into light rain and then a solid sheet of rain as we ate breakfast at a local diner in Shoreline, Washington. Since Chris had to work this day, we decided for some local road stuff before dropping him off in downtown Seattle.
First up with Interstate 5 north to Interstate 405’s northern terminus. There are end and begin signs posted on the I-405 overpasses above I-5, and the freeway itself converts into the Washington 526 freeway spur north to Washington 99. Andy’s one cousin said to us “you should never take Interstate 405 under any circumstance”, or something to that effect, because of its traffic. Even with it being around 11:30 am, traffic definitely complied with that statement. As for Washington 526, which technically is Washington 5-26, as Washington uses an implied route family numbering system neaning that 500 is 5-00, 501 is 5-01, etc, it provides a continuation of “the 405” (thanks L.A.) northward to Washington 99 at Lynwood.
Next we continued south on Interstate 405 to the Washington 520 floating bridge west across Lake Washington to Interstate 5. With the afternoon now in progress, we needed to get Chris dropped off to work, so we opted for the floating bridge to I-5 to Washington 99 and downtown. The floating bridge is one of two across Lake Washington (I-90 being the other), and one of Seattle’s many congested freeways. Washington 520 carries four lanes with no shoulders, and similar to the three-mile bridge of U.S. 98 at Pensacola, it is unlawful to run out of gas along the span. However with that stated, WSDOT does that one more, but also “outlawing” breaking down on the bridge as well. Since there are no shoulders, either running out of gas or breaking down blocks one of the two travel lanes in either direction, so it’s rather detrimental to traffic. Crews will come and move/tow the offending vehicle, and officers will follow that up with a citation. Sure enough as we took Washington 520 west, there was a disable red pick-up truck in the left-lane of eastbound, causing a midday back-up all the way to Interstate 5 from near the east end of the span.
Washington 520 joins Interstate 5 just north of the Mercer Street off-ramp. It’s this setting with oncoming traffic from WA 520 to the left and outgoing traffic to north of downtown to Mercer Street and the right, that a crippling traffic situation emerges. Known locally as the “Mercer Street Merge”, the configuration causes congestion on a regular basis (and we encountered it just above every time we traveled through there!).
Futher south, Interstate 5 splits into a local/express configuration as it travels along the eastern reaches of the central business district. Much of the freeway travels through cut and cover tunnels near the skyscrapers of the Emerald City. The median lined express lanes are reversible depending upon time of day, while the outer lanes facilitate travel to Interstate 90, the eastern suburbs, and stadium district.
Washington 99 meanwhile travels along a surface boulevard/hybrid expressway southward to the Alaskan Way tunnel and viaduct. The state highway serves the zoo area and Space Needle before emerging along the wharf district of the Seattle waterfront. A double-decker freeway carries the former U.S. 99 southward to the West Seattle Bridge (freeway) and industrial area/port of Seattle. The state highway continues south first as a surface boulevard parallel to railroad lines, and then again as an expressway from Washington 509.
After parting ways with Chris, we poked around downtown a bit, taking in the only original U.S. 99 sign around, the overhead at the Columbia Street on-ramp at the intersection with 1st Avenue. There are a handful of state-named shields for Interstate 5 and 90 also around downtown, so we documented a few of those as well.
Back in the car, we decided to clinch Interstate 405, and then head south toward the sun in Tacoma. Tacoma is the site of a major Interstate 5 widening for the addition of HOV lanes. It also is home to Interstate 705, the shortest three-digit Interstate in Washington. Interstate 705 provides a spur into downtown Tacoma and also to the waterfront and port areas north of the cbd. Also tieing into I-705 is Washington 509, an east-west freeway leading to the industrial areas north of Interstate 5, and ultimately as a surface road/freeway variation to Burien (Washington 509 merges with Washington 99 in south Seattle).
Before heading back to Burien for dinner and such, we decided to take Washington 16 north across the famous Tacoma Narrows Bridge. WSDOT is in the progress of constructing a new suspension bridge for southbound Washington 16, while overall widening and modernizing the freeway on both approaches. From how the traffic was at 3:30 pm, it definitely needs it!
The original Tacoma Narrows Bridge (well replacement of the one that fell into the Narrows), will be retained for northbound. The southbound span will be a toll bridge, the only highway with a fee in the Seattle area. There’s a bridge view area at a narrows-side park that we took advantage of for views of the span from the west.
We trudged back northward via Interstate 5 through Tacoma, Fife, and Federal Way to Burien via Washington 518. Like Washington 522 to the north, Washington 518 also provides a state-highway freeway spurring from the end of Interstate 405. Washington 518 spurs west to SeaTac International Airport and Washington 509 at Burien.
Salmon was on the meal for dinner, as was good company and great conversation. That’s all for Day 4!!
The WA state freeways that end at I-405 and I-5 are actually WA 518 and WA 525 (not WA 526 – That is the ‘Boeing Freeway’ located in Everett junctioning I-5 at Exit 189).
The Tacoma section of the WA 509 freeway will for sure be extended past Port Of Tacoma Rd in the SE direction – as a WA 167 extension. The WA 167 freeway section currently ends in Puyallup, and the need to extend is based on the heavy truck traffic that inundates Valley Ave between I-5 and Puyallup. 5 new interchanges will be constructed including a 4 level stack with I-5. I would not be at all surprised though if the new freeway gets the WA 410 designation instead due to the direction of travel. Another proposed freeway would follow WA 509 into Federal Way and connect to the WA 18/I-5 cloverleaf (which will become a semidirectional Par clo in the future).
Also of note is that the northern section of WA 509 freeway is slated for southward extension from S 188th St in a SE direction to I-5 near S 210 St. Four new interchanges are planned – including a South Airport Access Road.
More later ….. Cheers!!
~Chris Kalina
“Seattle Road Geek”
Historically speaking, the Puyallup-Tacoma segment *was* signed 410. This dates to the original US highway system, in which US-410 was a signed auxiliary stretching from Aberdeen to well beyond the Idaho line.
The opening of an all-weather highway through White Pass left the seasonal Chinook Pass route obsolete. At the same time, decommissioning of US-10 west of the Twin Cities left 410 without a parent, and the Aberdeen-Missola route became an extension of US-12.
The remaining segment of 410 between Elma and Naches was split up into SR-8 and SR-410 in 1969. It was only in the 1970’s with the construction of the Valley Freeway and SR-512 that River Road was resigned as 167, with the intent that its ultimate freeway replacement would form part of a continuous bypass route for I-5.