Believe it or not, work to extend Route 167 to begin in early 2020
Construction is scheduled to begin early next year on the $1 billion project to extend state Route 167 from North Meridian Avenue in Puyallup to the Port of Tacoma by 2028.
The project will begin in Fife with a new, four-lane bridge over Interstate 5 at 70th Avenue East and a roundabout at 70th Avenue East/U.S. 99. That part of the project will take about two years.
“The contractor will be out doing some testings and borings of the soil over the next couple of months, but people won’t start to notice actual construction with high-visibility fencing and equipment out there until the end of January,” said Chris Hoffman, spokesman for the Puget Sound Gateway program.
The rest of the timeline calls for:
▪ Construction to begin in 2021 on two miles of new highway between I-5 and the Port of Tacoma that will take five years to complete.
▪ Work to begin in early 2024 on four miles of new highway between North Meridian Avenue and I-5 as well as several new interchanges. That is expected to take four and a half years to complete.
The result will be two lanes in each direction between Puyallup and I-5, and one lane in each direction between I-5 and the Port of Tacoma, with the goal of reducing traffic congestion, improving safety, and moving freight faster to the port.
The original route for Route 167 stretched from Renton to Tacoma, but construction halted near Puyallup in the 1980s, according to the state Department of Transportation.
In this year’s legislative session, state Sen. Hans Zeiger, R-Puyallup, and Rep. Jake Fey, the Tacoma Democrat who is chairman of the House Transportation Committee, succeeded in amending a bill to move up completion of the Route 167 project from 2031 to 2028.
That will be accomplished by using toll revenue to repay bonds sold for construction.
There will be tolls on all lanes on the new sections of Route 167. The Washington State Transportation Commission is in charge of setting toll rates, which will be charged based on the time of day — more during peak traffic periods rush and less during mid-day, evenings and weekends.
The Route 167 Completion Project is part of the $1.96 billion Puget Sound Gateway program. The other project is building a new four-lane highway in King County to extend State Route 509 from South 188th Street near Sea-Tac Airport to I-5. The work includes improvements along the interstate to South 272nd Street in Kent.
This story was originally published November 26, 2019 at 6:00 AM.
