Chip seal project will cause delays on Highway 97A
Both lanes of the Vantage Bridge, pictured, will be open during the week of July 1 through 8. The bridge is undergoing a major renovation to improve its surface which is expected to be a years-long project.
R. HANS MILLER/COLUMBIA BASIN HERALD
CHELAN — Drivers on U.S. Highway 97A should be prepared for delays as construction crews work on chip-seal projects between Chelan and Wenatchee.
Crews will be repairing sections where drivers have worn down the pavement, starting July 1 and 2, according to a press release from the Washington Department of Transportation. After July 2 work will be suspended until July 8 and then will continue through the week of July 11. Crews will be chip-sealing from 7 a.m. to about 5 p.m.
The work includes sections of the road about one mile north at the intersection of U.S. 97A and U.S. Highway 2, two miles near Entiat and nine miles south of Chelan.
“Travelers should expect flagger-controlled traffic and pilot cars with delays,” wrote Sebastian Moraga, WSDOT communications, in a press release.
It’s part of a region-wide project of crack sealing and chip-sealing on state and federal highways from Othello to Brewster and Wenatchee to Coulee Dam. Moraga wrote.
A slope stabilization project to reduce the possibility of rocks falling in the road on State Route 17 along the shore of Soap Lake is on schedule. If it stays that way, the project should be complete sometime between late August and early September.
The project area is the section of SR 17 from Soap Lake to the Lake Lenore Caves, where the road runs between Soap Lake or Lake Lenore and the rock embankment. It’s designed to stabilize the rock face.
Crews are climbing the embankment, taking out loose rocks as they go. Along the embankment there are rocks that are stable now but could be subject to erosion, and those rocks are being bolted to the still-stable rocks behind them. The third phase is installing metal netting to catch anything that falls, to keep it from bouncing off other rocks into the road.
The netting installation will require closing the road; Moraga wrote that work has not been scheduled, but could be some time in July.
Otherwise, traffic is subject to 20-minute delays through the project zone. Drivers are stopped for 20 minutes, traffic is let through in one direction, then the other direction, then traffic is stopped for 20 minutes. Loads more than 12 feet wide are prohibited in the construction zone during work hours. There are no traffic restrictions before and after work hours.
The Vantage Bridge will be open for the week of July 1 through 8. Since April one lane of the bridge has been closed while crews work on repairing the surface. It’s the first year of a project scheduled for completion in 2027.
Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at cschweizer@columbiabasinherald.com.