Lane reductions coming to eastbound I-90 in Preston/Issaquah area starting Sunday night, April 30

By Tom Pearce

We’re making progress on our Interstate 90 bridge repairs requiring multi-day lane reductions in the Issaquah/Preston area, and we’ll take a big step toward wrapping it up starting Sunday, April 30. That’s when one of our contractors starts two big lane reductions:

• 10 p.m. Sunday, April 30, to 7 a.m. Wednesday, May 3, eastbound I-90 about a mile east of the Preston interchange will be reduced to one lane.
• 10 p.m. Friday, May 5, to 5 a.m. Monday, May 8, westbound I-90 just east of the Highlands Drive Northeast interchange will be reduced to one lane.

Starting Sunday night, April 30, crews will begin repairs on eastbound I-90 at the location on the right. Starting Friday night, May 5, they start work on westbound I-90 at the leftmost location. Work on the westbound bridge between the High Point and Preston interchanges is complete.

Two more lane reductions that were planned for later in May have been postponed as another of our contractors gets materials needed for bridge deck repairs. We’ll let you know when those are rescheduled.

Early May work

The two scheduled closures will repair bridge decks that are in rough shape after years of heavy traffic and winter weather. Our contractor for this work came up with an innovative way to reduce the amount of time required to complete the work. Instead of two separate closures, they will leave the left lane open and work on the right lanes. When that part is finished, they’ll shift traffic to the right early Tuesday morning, then repair the left lanes.

Drivers on I-90 between Issaquah and North Bend are well aware of the deep gouges in several bridges.

They’re able to do this work with this schedule because they can do each half of the bridge in about 30 hours, or about 2½ days total for both sides.

Final bridge work delayed

Repairs on the last bridge on westbound I-90, about 3½ miles west of the Preston interchange, are being rescheduled because it may take longer than the pair of four-day lane reductions originally planned. This bridge deck has deep wear over long sections with exposed rebar, which helps hold the concrete together.

For this westbound work, we will need the better part of a week to do the left lanes, then several more days to do the right lanes. In addition to the repairs, this work requires concrete that needs nearly two days to cure. We’ll let you know as soon as we reschedule these repairs, most likely in June or July.

We hoped to finish up this work before the start of the summer vacation season. We will schedule the final westbound repair as soon as possible. In the meantime, thanks for your patience with all of our preservation projects.