Seattle traffic watch: Light-rail disruptions and more I-5 roadwork

Light-rail trains under downtown Seattle will be canceled Friday through Sunday, and freeway ramps from I-90 to southbound I-5 closed this weekend, as crews work on a pair of major projects.

Service between the Capitol Hill and Sodo stations will be suspended all day Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Friday is Veterans Day, a federal holiday. Shuttle buses will run every 15 minutes to all stations. Travelers should allow a half-hour delay per trip, or try other options.

Contractors will replace overhead catenary wires that supply power to the trains. The old wire network will be divided into quadrants, so when spot maintenance is needed in the future, most of the tunnel can still operate, said Sound Transit spokesperson John Gallagher. And new wires will connect to the future Eastside line.

Those wire changes are intended to make light rail more resilient before more riders and rail cars from Redmond, Federal Way and Lynnwood extensions enter the network in 2024 and 2025.

Along I-5, sunny skies will allow the Washington State Department of Transportation to resume its two-year Sodo project to replace pavement and worn-out expansion joints. The lanes entering southbound I-5 from I-90 still jolt cars at each joint, unlike the finished mainline.

The ramp will close at 9 p.m. Friday and reopen by 5 a.m. Monday. Also, drivers in the right-side collector-distributor lanes will have to exit into downtown, the stadium area, or eastbound I-90, instead of continuing into mainline I-5 toward Tukwila.

This was supposed to be the final weekend, but crews can only apply the synthetic concrete in daytime, because temperatures overnight will drop below 40 degrees, said WSDOT spokesperson Amy Moreno. Therefore, they will need next weekend to pave the last two of the four remaining joints, she said.

The time is prime to disrupt traffic because the Seahawks are playing in Munich, Germany, this weekend. And unlike last weekend and many others, the weather is forecast to be dry.

However, traffic for a Saturday night concert by the Smashing Pumpkins at Climate Pledge Arena, bookended by Friday and Sunday night Kraken hockey games, might cause drivers to feel that despite all their rage, they are, as Billy Corgan sang it, “still just a rat in a cage.”