Getting There: Moses Lake road improvement project to begin mid-July

The Washington State Department of Transportation will begin a construction project on a stretch of Interstate 90 on July 14 in Moses Lake.

Construction will continue until November for the $13 million project, said Miguel Castillo, project engineer for the agency.

“Because of temperatures and weather that starts to affect the work, we’ll do a suspension of work right around November of this year,” Castillo said.

Castillo said the first two sections of the Moses Lake project include removal of the top surface of asphalt and replacing worn-out directional signs that may be hard for drivers to see or read, such as rest areas, exits to the next city and stop signs.

Castillo said they will only work on the second section this summer, which goes from Dodson Road Exit 164 to milepost 181.77 east of Moses Lake on I-90.

Travelers will encounter construction from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. and single-lane closures, he said.

“There shouldn’t be a lot of impact to the driver, other than just seeing that the two lanes in each direction have been reduced to one,” Castillo said.

He added that because another WSDOT construction project is happening at the Vantage Bridge, the first section won’t start until next year.

The project’s first section will go from the bridge to the city of George on I-90.

“We’re hoping to pick it back up in April of 2026,” Castillo said.

With construction beginning soon, Sebastian Moraga, communications consultant for WSDOT, suggests travelers prepare for construction causing delays.

“It is a very important project in the sense that it is affecting one of our major highways in the state in the middle of summer, so we ask that travelers pack extra patience when they encounter single-lane closures,” Moraga said.

“We just want to make sure that people are aware that there will be crews working, and to take the precautions, and to take the measures necessary to have a safe trip.”