I-5 in Seattle sees ‘new normal' for traffic jams and driving habits
A few months into the state's big Ship Canal Bridge repave, the original shock has eased somewhat, as morning commuters adapt their schedules and driving habits to cope with fewer lanes on Interstate 5.
However, the southbound drives from Lynnwood to Lake Union remain an exasperating 56 minutes, on average, on Tuesdays through Thursdays. That's eight minutes less than when the bridge project began Jan. 12, but still 20 minutes worse than at full capacity, before Revive I-5 started, according to Washington State Department of Transportation data.
The modest improvement in trip times likely means drivers are changing when they go to work or run an errand, diverting to other roads, keeping a safe following distance, or benefiting from more hours of daylight compared with midwinter.
There are no signs of a huge switch to transit in January and February data, and more recent counts aren't available, to show whether light rail and buses are taking pressure off I-5.
Although the I-5 repave blocks two left lanes northbound, the worst traffic snarls happen southbound, because WSDOT chose to always point the I-5 express lanes north. That policy protects northbound access from being choked by a single fender-bender in the mainline, but it deprives southbound commuters of express lane access they used to have in the mornings.
Drivers will catch a break June 8 to July 10, when WSDOT temporarily restores the bridge to its full four northbound lanes, during the 2026 Men's FIFA World Cup play in Seattle.
Squeezing through I-5
WSDOT's 56-minute spring average for a Lynnwood-to-Seattle trip, calculated for 11 midweek days in March and early April, shows improvement over some January days that got as bad as 110 minutes from Lynnwood to Highway 520, said Mike Swires, regional traffic engineer. Some days still exceed a full hour, over the 17 miles from Lynnwood to 520.
The INRIX traffic-data company found similar trends in late April, about 54 minutes for midweek and 43 minutes if you include lower-congestion Mondays and Fridays, compared with 34 minutes in the past.
In a surprising nugget, more than 100,000 trucks and cars crossed the bridge southbound on multiple days in early April, a 3,000 to 4,000 increase since early this year, WSDOT found.
"Drivers are adapting and getting used to the commute being this way; things are stabilizing and we're getting slight increases, which are good, Swires said.
Interstate 5 these days is "like an anaconda or python," seemingly too narrow to digest large prey, yet somehow travelers increased the concrete snake's daily throughput, by driving efficiently or taking transit, said Ahmed Darrat, chief product officer for Kirkland-based INRIX.
The slowest time to use southbound I-5 has shifted later, from 7:45 to 8:45 a.m., probably because volumes build all morning and last longer, said Darrat.
People are setting out earlier, so volumes and congestion start just after 5:30 a.m., Swires found. And the busy morning commute period lasts four hours instead of two.
Commuters resorted to this sort of peak-spreading to survive the 2020-22 West Seattle Bridge repair closure, and its 6-mile detour, as well as the Alaskan Way Viaduct closure in early 2019, right before the new downtown tunnel opened.
"Capacity isn't just the number of lanes," Darrat said. "There's a lot of driver behavior that goes into it. The time-of-day, space between vehicles, knowing which lane to be in, not having a scenario where people don't zipper merge very well."
Going around the lake
As a consequence of I-5 slowdowns, the morning peak trips on I-405 from Lynnwood to downtown Bellevue are much worse now, compared with the past average of 35 minutes, as drivers seek relief there instead of using southbound I-5. Samples from March and early April showed midweek averages of 43 to 68 minutes in the general-traffic lanes, and actual times this spring are extremely volatile, Swires said.
If you include the quicker I-405 toll lanes, where drivers often pay up to $15, the late-April average was 38 minutes, INRIX found.
For northbound I-5, from Tukwila to the University District, morning drivers are still making it in a normal 30 to 40 minutes, aided by express lanes. Afternoon drivers also take near 40 minutes lately, but that's almost twice as bad as previous years.
Northbound drivers are heeding WSDOT Secretary Julie Meredith's advice to take the I-5 express lanes, instead of crawling toward the work zone. Express lanes volumes have grown to 6,000 per hour in the afternoon, and Swires doubts they can take much more, given the difficulty of reaching those from the left I-5 lane in Sodo.
Total road and rail demand seems to still be growing in 2026, and the post-pandemic travel resurgence isn't done yet, Darrat suspects. "You still have people returning to work."
Tara Peters, spokesperson for the nonprofit Commute Seattle, which works with local businesses, said she's hopeful transit use will grow this spring and summer. Since the light rail 2 Line began crossing Lake Washington to Seattle and Lynnwood on March 28, a train arrives every four to five minutes west of the lake - and downtown workers are commenting there's less waiting time, and more room onboard.
Rising gasoline prices have sparked employer inquiries about vanpools lately, which would increase the roughly 500 that enter central Seattle on a typical day, she said.
Meanwhile, the Fremont Bridge bike lane carried about 103,000 users in April, which Peters called an encouraging 8% gain since a year ago. That route wouldn't be influenced much by I-5, but might lure some travelers away from worsening clogs on Aurora Avenue North.
"This is a moment in time when more people, more employees, are open to new ways of getting around, she said.
To sum up, the arduous commutes that exist right now will likely stay the same until the World Cup, and again when paving resumes from mid-July to December. Contractors will change to southbound in 2027, and the express lanes will point south all the time.
Copyright 2026 Tribune Content Agency. All Rights Reserved.