Repaving Begins on Ballard Bridge & 15th Ave NW

A southbound RapidRide D bus climbs onto the Ballard Bridge. Photo: Nathan Dickey.

Starting tonight, the stationary portions of the Ballard Bridge and 15th Avenue NW from Leary to NW 57th Street will be getting a major facelift. Associated closures will have significant impacts to buses using the bridge (specifically, RapidRide D, Route 17X, and Route 994 when it operates), and people attempting to walk, roll, drive, or otherwise cross Salmon Bay.

When the project is completed in 2025, there will be a wide planted median between NW 50th and NW 54th streets replacing a southbound lane, a new signalized pedestrian crossing at NW 51st street, and new red-painted bus lanes to help RapidRide D get past a few pinch points in the area(PDF schematic of improvements, here).

SDOT's rendering of the new pedestrian planned for NW 51st Street, planted median, and red-painted northbound bus lane.Road Work Ahead

From now until the project is complete in 2025, expect delays attempting to walk, roll, or ride along 15th Avenue NW or crossing the Ballard Bridge. You can sign up here for project updates and information on upcoming closures directly from SDOT.

This map shows traffic impacts planned from July 8 to July 19, but impacts like these can be expected throughout the summer.

During the day (7am to 5pm, Monday-Friday), crews will work on repaving 15th Avenue NW, starting north of Market street and working southward over the coming months. Overnight (7pm to 5am, Monday-Thursday), crews will work on repaving the Ballard Bridge.

All of this work will reduce traffic to one lane in each direction, creating significant bottlenecks for traffic and more delays for an already traffic-prone RapidRide D.

From 10pm to 5am, no southbound traffic will be allowed across the bridge, forcing southbound trips of RapidRide D to detour along Leary to cross the Ship Canal at the Fremont Bridge, taking Nickerson to rejoin the route at 15th Avenue W south of the Emerson interchange. Despite the lack of dedicated bus lanes on Leary, these overnight detours should only add 10-15 minutes to a rider's trip across the Ship Canal.

SDOT will keep at least one of the sidewalks open on the Ballard Bridge for people walking or rolling.

Potential Full Weekend Closures This Fall

Part of the project includes a seismic retrofit of 15th Avenue NW's bridge over Leary Way and replacement of expansion joints on the Ballard Bridge itself. Completion of this work will require total closure of the bridges, which the agency is tentatively planning to perform over several weekends this fall. The bridges would close on Friday evenings and reopen the following Monday morning. Current potential closure weekends are listed as follows:

• September 6-9
• September 13-16
• September 27-30
• October 4-7
• October 11-14

Of course, SDOT is very clear in that the dates of these closures are subject to change.

During these weekends, buses crossing the bridge will detour to Fremont Bridge, resulting in major delays to any trip across the Canal. Transit riders between Downtown and Ballard might consider alternative routes, such as the 28 or 40, or using the 5 to connect to the 44 or 45.

Folks looking to walk or roll across the Ship Canal on these weekends can cross at the Locks west of the bridge or head east along either of the trails flanking the canal to cross at the Fremont Bridge.

Repaving for Public Safety

The Urbanist recognized this project last Spring as having an oversized importance citywide, as the department takes steps to further integrate safety into projects". However, at 90% design completion, the project had incorporated very little new safety features despite requirements from the beefed-up Complete Streets ordinance for all major repaving projects to consider safety improvements as part of the design.

A few months later, transportation safety advocates celebrated a significant win as the final design of the project was revealed to not just be a 1-to-1 repave, but to include several new features:

A new bike and pedestrian signal and crosswalk at NW 51st St, providing a new safe crossing point where none existed between Leary and 53rd.

Replacement of a southbound lane on 15th Ave NW with a new landscaped medianbetween NW 50th St and NW 54th St, which is intended to calm driving speeds and provide pedestrian crossing refuge.

New lighting under the bridgealong Leary Way NW at its north end, and along the pedestrian path near Nickerson street at its south end.

New southbound transit laneswith red bus only" markings on 15th Ave NW between NW for one block between Market and 54th, setting up an effective queue jump across Market for the southbound RapidRide D, and for one block south of Leary on the onramp to the Ballard Bridge, guaranteeing space for the D to stop at its southbound station at 15th and Leary.

Click the map for a complete map of improvements north of Leary Way.

The Home Stretch for Move Seattle in Ballard

This project is funded in part by Seattle's Transportation Benefit District, but mostly by the 2016 Levy to Move Seattle which expires this year. The levy's replacement will go to voters this November, and is expected to fund similar repaving and safety improvements to Market Street, a project put on the backburner in 2020, and completion of the Missing Link along Leary Way.

In the meantime, the Route 44 Transit-Plus Multimodal Corridor (TPMC) project was completed last September, and the Route 40 TPMC, which will include first-in-Seattle Freight-and-Bus lanes on Westlake Avenue, has started as well. SDOT is phasing construction of the Route 40 improvements, which include significant improvements to Leary in Ballard, in coordination with the 15th Avenue repaving to avoid overstressing traffic in the area.