Southbound traffic was restricted along 14th Street between Galveston and Newport Avenues today as crews from Cascade Natural Gas are tearing up sections of the street in order to do some structural updates ahead of the city’s road restoration project. City crews are expected to start their work on April 2nd.
City crews will be working on 14th Street between Galveston and Newport Avenues and on Century Drive between Simpson and Albany Avenues in the coming weeks. The Simpson Avenue round a bout will also be closed as part of the project. The city has provided detours along Shevlin Park road, Skyliners Road and Mt Washington Drive for this project, which is meant to fix some failing infrastructure.
The 14th Street reconstruction is the final project of the city’s General Obligation Bond, which was passed by voters in 2011.
“This project is basically upgrading a lot of failing infrastructure to meet urban standards,” said project manager Garrett Sabourin. “So we’re reconstructing the road to basically have that same three lane and two lane configuration that you see today. With the addition of wider bike lanes, connected sidewalk, safer crossings and accessibility between the commercial and residential areas.”
Drivers will still have access to the businesses along Century Drive despite the closure of the Simpson round a bout. The round a bouts on Newport and Galveston Avenues will both remain open during construction.
The city is asking drivers to be cautious when navigating both the construction zones and the detours since they run through residential neighborhoods on the west side. Construction will also shut down two bus stops; one on west Kingston Avenue and one on 14th street. Transit riders can find out more about detours and stop closures on cascadetransit.com
The city will also be updating detours as needed and will be sending that information to the Google Waze app to help drivers find the fastest route.
City crews will primarily be working along century drive starting next week then will move down to work on 14th street. The entire project is estimated to take about 10 weeks to complete.
