R8A and two-way HOV on I-90 – update
Amazing coincidence! Just the other day I was wondering “whatever happened to the plan to add two-way HOV lanes to the I-90 bridge?” (to supplement the current reversible lanes and eventually replace them when the reversible express lanes are switched to dedicated transit lanes).
So I started digging around on the WSDOT site, and eventually ended up at this project on the SoundTransit site. When I first looked at this page, it still said “Estimated Start: 2006”, but no additional timeline detail. But it did list Andrew Glass Hastings as a contact, so I sent him an email.
He quickly replied, answered my timeline question, and included a preview of the announcement newsletter that had just gone out. The newsletter is available online now also, and the website is updated with the timeline details.
It has some good news, and some bad news…
The good news: It’s getting started ASAP! We should (finally) see the beginnings of this in 2007!
The bad news: It’s being dragged out into three stages, and we won’t see end-to-end two-way HOV lanes until TBD. (TBD = we have no idea when we’ll get it done).
And of course, the worst news is that without the HOV lanes running end-to-end, buses and carpools will continue to get stuck in traffic during peak commute times. Ugh. I suppose it’s unreasonable — and it would cause even worse commute problems while it was being done — but it sure would be nice to just get some of this stuff DONE!
