Lane closures on SR 17 this weekend, other projects continue

MOSES LAKE — Lane closures are scheduled for the State Route 17 bridge that crosses Interstate 90, starting at 8 p.m. today and lasting through Monday. Crews will be working 24 hours per day, from Friday night through 6 a.m. Monday. 

Drivers should plan for some delays, according to a press release from the Washington Department of Transportation. 

Construction crews are resurfacing the bridge south of Moses Lake, where SR 17 narrows from four southbound lanes to two, the DOT press release said. Drivers will be able to access the on-ramps and offramps on I-90.

“To complete the work, the contractor will close one half of the bridge at a time,” wrote Sebastian Moraga, DOT communications. “Traffic in both directions will be reduced to a single lane and shifted to the other side of the bridge. When the work is completed on one side, traffic will be shifted over and the contractor will complete the repairs on the other side of the bridge.”

The work is part of a resurfacing project on the four-lane section of SR 17 where it runs through Moses Lake. The work will include three other bridges, two over Parker Horn and the third at SR 17 and Stratford Road.

Construction crews have replaced the ADA-accessible sidewalk ramps, which was the first phase of the project. Total cost is about $7.6 million.

In a resurfacing project — as opposed to repaving — crews shave off and replace the top two to three inches of asphalt. The project started at the south end of Moses Lake and is working its way north to Patton Boulevard. It’s scheduled for completion in July 

Crack-sealing projects are going on throughout the Columbia Basin and Central Washington, with the first phase in mid-May to June, resuming in July and finishing in September. Selected sections of regional roads are considered to be high-needs repairs, Moraga wrote. 

The DOT’s Strategic Pavement Preservation project involves a mix of repairing existing pavement, repaving some sections and adding rumble strips. The project will begin on State Route 24, from the Othello city limits south for about 15 miles. Drivers should expect flagger-controlled construction zones, with estimated delays of up to 20 minutes during work hours. 

State Route 26 east of Othello also is on the list, from the Othello city limits to the intersection at Highway 395. Two sections of State Route 28 will be paved; one section is east of Quincy, starting at Winchester and ending about two miles southwest of Ephrata. The second section of SR 28 is northeast of Soap Lake, from its intersection with Pinto Ridge Road to the intersection with Road W Northeast.

Chip sealing and crack sealing continue on State Route 26 between the I-90 intersection and the Grant-Adams county line. The work on SR 26 will stop temporarily in June and resume in July and August.

The speed limit in the chip-seal zone is 35 miles per hour until the rocks get swept off the road.

“Increased speeds can cause gravel to break loose from a fresh chip seal, cheating the risk of flying rock,” according to the WSDOT website. 

Lane closures are scheduled on the Vantage Bridge on Saturday — no, it’s not the start of seven days a week closures for bridge repair. From 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday crews will be repairing damaged concrete barriers and replacing signs across the bridge and for a mile or two in each direction. 

One lane of I-90 will be closed each way during working hours. Drivers will be able to access the ramps to SR 26. 

Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at cschweizer@columbiabasinherald.com.