Crews To Rebuild Sprague Interchange Work To Relieve I-90 Bottleneck Starts Monday

You thought the road construction season was almost done?

Think again.

Starting Monday, crews will begin rebuilding one of Spokane’s biggest traffic bottlenecks - Interstate 90’s Sprague Avenue interchange.

Work on the $14 million project will last into next year.

While that means headaches for motorists now, transportation officials say it’ll mean big payoffs later.

When the project is completed, I-90 will have three eastbound lanes to Broadway. No longer will eastbound motorists in the outside lane be forced to exit at Sprague.

“When all this is done, they’ll be able to drive on through there,” with the option of exiting, said Jerry Lenzi, eastern region administrator for the state Transportation Department.

Once construction begins this week, drivers will have to maneuver through heavy congestion, sometimes being squeezed into one lane of traffic. Some will have to find new routes on and off of I-90.

On Monday, drivers should expect intermittent single-lane traffic from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. between the Havana and Broadway exits on the westbound lanes.

On Tuesday, there’s a possibility of single-lane traffic on the eastbound lanes.

By Wednesday, transportation officials hope to have two lanes open in both directions and expect to be able to maintain that for the duration of the project.

The Sprague Avenue eastbound on-ramp will be closed within the next few days and will not reopen, Lenzi said. The same goes for the westbound Havana off-ramp. The eastbound Havana on-ramp will also be closed but will reopen in February 2000.

Work on this year’s portion of the project should last into November if weather permits, Lenzi said.

The majority will be completed by fall of 1999. Some work could carry over to 2000.

This year’s work is part of a three-phase project designed to relieve congestion and connect the Sprague Avenue interchange to the $18.7 million Valley Couplet.

The final - and still unfunded - part of the project includes adding an extra lane on the westbound side of I-90 from Broadway to Havana. During that phase the interchange will be connected to the Valley Couplet.

This sidebar appeared with the story: LOOKING AHEAD Here’s what drivers should expect in the coming weeks and months: Westbound drivers heading onto Interstate 90 from Sprague Avenue will have to merge immediately into freeway traffic, rather than continuing in their own lane. Sprague Avenue will be reduced to one lane of traffic in each direction between Fancher and Dyer roads. Work will stop at noon on Friday for the Labor Day weekend and resume the morning of Sept. 8.