$9 million project to improve South 277th Street; project gets underway this summer
Published 12:38 pm Wednesday, April 13, 2016
The South 277th Street Corridor Capacity and Non-Motorized Trail Improvements project calls for 3,300 feet of intersection improvements and major roadway widening on the street from Auburn Way North to L Street Northeast.
Ryan Vondrak, capital projects manager for the City of Auburn, provided the City Council a general project update on Monday, including the status of environmental permitting, right-of-way acquisition and scheduling.
South 277th Street in Auburn is the last two-laned segment on the corridor between State Routes 99 and 18, and that creates a bottleneck that causes terrible congestion, delays and safety issues. The $9 million project, which is funded by state and federal grants, private development and the City, is aimed at improving access to urban centers in Auburn, Kent, Federal Way and Covington.
Auburn’s project adds two eastbound through-lanes, one new westbound through-lane, street lighting improvements, storm drainage improvements, streetscape improvements, Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) improvements, intersection capacity and safety improvements, and auxiliary turn lanes at Auburn Way North and D Street Northeast.
It provides a turn lane for the future extension of I Street NE through the old Valley 6 Drive-In Theater site, now the Robertson Property Group’s holding.
It will complete a separated, non-motorized trail connection between the Interurban and Green River Trail systems and connect with the the City of Kent’s trail across the Green River.
It will add a variable message board sign.
“This is pretty cool because it will be the first of its kind in the city of Auburn. They’re very similar to the message signs you see on the freeway that flash traffic ahead and what not,” Vondrak said.
Vondrak said the City will change the speed limits on the roadway from Auburn Way North to L Street Northeast in both directions to 35 miles per hour.
The project team recently met with residents of the Trail Run development on the south side of the project to talk about the project’s impact and what kind of noise mitigation could be added if the community there decides it needs a noise wall.
The City is still in the design phase of the project.
Construction should begin this summer and take up to 18 months to complete. Lane closures are expected, but the City said it intends to maintain at least one travel lane in each direction throughout the construction period. Generally, construction will occur between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m. Night work is not planned at this time but may be needed at some point.
