After two decades of construction it’s finally here: Tacoma’s I-5 HOV project opens Friday
After 22 years of construction, Tacoma’s High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) project on Interstate 5 will be partially open for business Friday morning, the state Department of Transportation (WSDOT) announced Thursday, and the entire HOV lane project will be open by 9 a.m Sunday.
Starting Thursday night, WSDOT contractors will remove barriers and paint the final stripes on a southbound section of the project. On Friday morning, drivers will be able to use a portion of the new carpool lanes from Port of Tacoma Road to the state Route 16 interchange.
Beginning Friday night, crews will work in the northbound lanes. On Saturday morning, drivers will be able use the HOV lane from Route 16 to King County, uninterrupted.
The majority of the new commuter lanes are separated from general purpose traffic with only a solid white stripe. But as both northbound and southbound HOV lanes travel beneath Pacific Avenue, they will use an old I-5 alignment. That old roadbed is separated from general purpose lanes by concrete barriers.
The $1.4 billion project was scheduled to wrap up in late 2021 but supply-chain issues pushed the completion date back eight months.
Here’s more of what drivers should expect when the project is fully opened Sunday.
Southbound I-5
The wide solid white line that denotes HOV will be striped from the Fife curve where the current HOV lane from King County ends to past Pacific Avenue where the current HOV lane starts.
The result will be a continuous HOV lane from Seattle to Tacoma.
Drivers exiting from southbound I-5 onto state Route 16 in the HOV lane will continue to be unable to access Sprague and Union avenues. Drivers needing to use those exits will have to use the general purpose exit lane.
Further north, the current far right lane that becomes an exit-only lane onto 54th Avenue East in Fife will become a general purpose lane. The exit will remain open but drivers will no longer be required to exit.
Northbound I-5
The years-long headache of merging from the eastbound Route 16 HOV lane onto northbound I-5 will disappear.
Currently, that lane merges into the northbound I-5 HOV lane and then both merge into general purpose lanes. When the HOV project opens Saturday, drivers will still merge with the I-5 HOV lane but that lane will stay HOV all the way to Seattle.
“You no longer have to merge into the fast lane on northbound I-5,” WSDOT spokesperson Cara Mitchell said.
In June, northbound I-5’s general purpose lanes were put into their final configuration. It’s been making a difference, according to WSDOT.
“We noticed immediately the disappearance of this area as a trouble zone from the morning traffic reports,” Mitchell said.
New L Street overpass
The L Street overpass is not finished but it opened to traffic Friday, Aug. 19. The final work will require some overnight lane closures into September.
The two-lane overpass has wider traffic lanes and a larger mixed-use sidewalk than its predecessor. It also has dedicated bike lanes in both directions.
Nighttime lane closures
After the HOV lanes are opened, WSDOT will need a few overnight closures in September to put down reflective pavement markings and paint, Mitchell said.
“We have to have warmer, drier weather to put that down,” she said.
This story was originally published August 25, 2022 at 1:10 PM.
