Despite the weekend rain, the state moved southbound traffic on Interstate 405 to a new bridge over Oakesdale Avenue – ahead of schedule.

The state Department of Transportation needed dry weather so that its contractor could stripe the new freeway lanes.

“The rain was not as friendly as we had hoped,” said Lisa Hodgson, the I-405 project engineer for the transportation department.

The state also had to repair a broken storm grate in the northbound lanes of I-405 in the immediate area, but the impact on travel time was minimal, according to Hodgson.

The broken grate was reported by the Washington State Patrol. Potentially, without repairs, a hole could have developed in the freeway, according to Hodgson.

Moving traffic to the new bridge is a major milestone for helping to relieve congestion on one of the most congested stretches of freeway in the state.

Next, the state will remove the old freeway bridge over Oakesdale Avenue Southwest and Springbrook Creek. Then, the state will build a new bridge for northbound traffic that will be completed next year. The state needs to have the pillars in place by October, when fish start returning to Springbrook Creek.

Now, the state will return to a fairly familiar schedule for lane closures on the freeway, according to Hodgson.

New, however, is the work that will occur in between the southbound and northbound lanes of the freeway that will draw the attention of travelers. Hodgson reminded motorists that they are driving through an “active construction zone.”

The state began funneling freeway traffic onto the new bridge Friday night. Rain delayed the striping and thus the state’s schedule to continue moving traffic to the new bridge.

However, lost time was made up and all traffic was moved to the new bridge by 5:30 p.m. Saturday. The onramp from State Route 167/Rainier Avenue to southound I-405 also reopened at that time.

Originally, the state expected to finish switching the lanes on Sunday morning.

As expected, the weekend work caused some traffic backups. At one point, the trip through the construction zone from roughly State Route 169 to the West Valley Highway took an extra 45 minutes or so. Most travelers are used to backups in that area anyway.

Initially, each direction of freeway will have three lanes – two general-purpose lanes and one carpool lane. Eventually, there will be four lanes in each direction.

Farther north on I-405, the southbound lanes between Southeast Eighth Street and the I-405/I-90 interchange south of downtown Bellevue opened to traffic at 4 a.m. Monday morning after highway crews worked around the clock over the weekend to remove a section of the Wilburton Tunnel.

Crews closed southbound I-405 at 11 p.m. Friday. Crews used bulldozers, front-end loaders, dump trucks along with six hydraulic excavators with specialty attachments such as breakers and crunchers to remove roughly 5,000 tons of concrete and 180 feet of the 360 foot-long bridge.

Crews will use the next two weekends, Aug. 15-18 and Aug 22-25, to remove the rest of the Wilburton Tunnel. Southbound I-405 will be closed at 11 p.m. each Friday night and open 5 a.m. each Monday morning.