With warmer weather construction season shifts into high gear

QUINCY — School is almost out, summer is dead ahead, and the open road beckons – um, well, the open road beckons but drivers also know there are road projects, and delays, out there. 

The 2026 construction season is relatively uneventful in most Basin cities, with most projects in the design phase. The exceptions are Quincy and Ephrata. 

A section of Quincy’s A Street Northeast will be repaved, with sidewalks added on one side of the street and a guardrail between the street and the train tracks on the other side. Quincy Public Works Director Carl Worley said construction is scheduled to start soon after Quincy School District classes are dismissed for the summer.  

The street is home to a number of industrial businesses and is a truck route. It’ll be repaved but not widened. 

“There is not much right of way room to widen it very much,” Worley wrote in response to an email from the Columbia Basin Herald. “The project will use all the available right of way allowed.” 

Ephrata City Engineer Shawn O’Brien said a number of streets in town will be seal-coated, beginning in early July. Sections of Alder Street, A Street Southeast, First Avenue Northwest, Fourth Avenue Northwest and Frey Road, and Third Avenue Northeast will get a new surface coat, along with Railroad Street and Airport Street at the Port of Ephrata. 

“Sections of Frey Road and First Avenue Northwest will be reconfigured to add bicycle lanes and increase the number of parking spaces,” O’Brien said.  

Robin Adolphsen, Othello public works director, said there aren’t any major projects planned for city streets. There is roadwork going on around Othello, but those are projects on state highways, she said.  

One of those state highway projects around Othello is wrapping up with the addition of lane striping at the roundabout at South First Avenue and State Route 26. The roundabout was built last fall, but winter weather delayed the final work.  

Construction on the other roundabout at State Route 17 and West Cunnigham Road began in early May and is scheduled to continue through mid-July. There’s 24-hour traffic control at the intersection and will be until the project is completed in mid-July. 

“One-way alternating traffic controlled by temporary signals will remain in place, including weekends and off-duty hours,” Sebastian Moraga, communications consultant with the Washington State Department of Transportation North Central region, wrote in a press release.  

Construction crews will be working from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, Moraga said. 

Travelers on I-90 are encountering a repaving project on the east side of the Vantage Bridge near George, and the bridge itself is in its third year of bridge deck replacement. 

Crews are working on repaving sections of the eastbound and westbound lanes of I-90 between the bridge and George. Moraga said crews will be working at night, so drivers should plan accordingly.  

“Work will occur from 7 p.m. to 6 a.m. Monday through Friday each week,” Moraga said. “Contractors will repave and restripe approximately 11 miles of I-90 to extend the service life of the pavement.” 

Crews are working on the bridge in the daytime – but traffic restrictions and reduced speed limits in the work zone are in place 24 hours per day. Crews are replacing the existing bridge deck. 

Design is underway on two projects in Moses Lake, but construction is not scheduled until 2027. Sections of South Pioneer Way will be resurfaced, sidewalks will be added in some sections and widened in others, and crosswalks and bus stops will be getting some upgrades. The second will add a roundabout at the intersection of South Pioneer Way and Yonezawa Boulevard. The roundabout will replace the existing traffic lights.  

Yonezawa Boulevard ends at Pioneer Way, but improvements to the intersection will allow Yonezawa to be extended and provide options for development across the intersection.