Yes, troopers are enforcing that 'All traffic must exit' sign on Interstate 5 when they can
Q: Is the state patrol actually going to be monitoring the "Re-entering freeway prohibited" sign on northbound Interstate 5 at the South 56th Street exit and ticketing drivers? — Aaron
A: This little traffic Q&A is part deux to a very popular question Aaron asked awhile back, which we wrote about last month.
According to former Washington State Patrol spokeswoman Trooper Brooke Bova (who is moving on to become a detective — happy for her, sad for us), a lot of people have been asking about the sign that's visible as you approach the South 56th Street exit headed north on I-5: "All traffic must exit. Re-entering freeway prohibited."
It means that if you exit onto the collector/distributor lanes, you need to exit the freeway and not try to merge back on. So, don't zip around the collector/distributor lanes in an effort to dodge the traffic that's patiently slogging it out on I-5.
The sign was put there last year by the state Department of Transportation at the request of the State Patrol, a DOT spokeswoman said. During rush hour, drivers who were trying to dodge I-5 traffic by using the collector/distributor lanes and then merging back onto I-5 were creating a massive bottleneck as they tried to get back onto the freeway, according to Bova.
Bova said troopers have done enforcement emphasis there at times and will spend time there to enforce the sign when they can. But she said it's not a high priority if there are accidents or other traffic issues going on.
After we ran that traffic column, I asked Bova if she had any statistics on whether people have been pulled over and cited for violating that sign.
Here's what she came back with:
Between January 2017 and March 2018, "We had 236 contacts and 113 tickets at that location. That was specifically for failure to observe a restricted zone."
As a reminder: You can get a $136 ticket if a trooper catches you using that exit as a thoroughfare.
This story was originally published May 19, 2018 at 8:00 PM with the headline "Yes, troopers are enforcing that 'All traffic must exit' sign on Interstate 5 when they can."