Alert now-Spring 2024: I-90 Trail detour in Factoria

The alert from WSDOT.

Well, I hope you enjoyed that new section of the I-90 Trail in Factoria, because a section of it will be detoured to the other side of SE 36th Street until Spring 2024.

As part of work on the really cool I-90 Sunset Creek Fish Passage project, crews will be detouring the I-90 Trail between the existing crosswalks at 132nd Ave SE and the crosswalk near the Kaiser Permanente Factoria Medical Center. That's not so cool. There is skinny painted bike lane on 36th in the eastbound (uphill) direction, but westbound riders will have to choose between riding with mixed traffic or riding on the sidewalk, neither of which are great options. The official signed detour will direct riders to the sidewalk. SE 36th Street will also be reduced to a single-lane of alternating traffic" at some point, so it's unclear how bike-friendly the on-street options will be.

News of the Monday detour came as a surprise when WSDOT sent out their hand-drawn map in a tweet 6 p.m. Friday evening. That was the first I had heard about the project having an impact on the trail, and the project website does not mention the trail anywhere. I am on every imaginable local transportation email list, and a search showed that this trail impact was never sent out to any of them. I did find 2 emails mentioning the Sunset Creek project, but neither mentioned an impact to biking or the trail. It seems like the trail detour was either forgotten or ignored, which is frustrating. This is a major regional trail, and it really should not be treated as an afterthought like this.

This concept graphic from the project website does not show the I-90 Trail.

The fish passage project itself, though, is really cool. Many year ago, WSDOT put Sunset Creek into dingy culverts that fish in the creek cannot travel through because they are elevated at points and too shallow. It's amazing that freeway engineers of the past through they could do this to a stream and it would be fine, but then again they didn't treat the communities they were bulldozing any nicer.

Now the state is investing $117 million to make the creek passable for fish again. The four-year project also includes a six-month closure of SE Eastgate Way on the opposite side of I-90.