Hood Canal bridge closures begin Monday

The first week of month-long nighttime weeknight closures of the Hood Canal Bridge will begin Monday, according to the state Department of Transportation.

The closures, from 10 p.m.-5 a.m. each day, will coincide with the beginning of construction on one of two roundabouts scheduled for this summer at state Highway 104 and state Highway 19.

The first two weeks of roundabout work will be at night and then it will shift to daytime work.

The work on the second roundabout at the intersection of Paradise Bay Road and Shine Road at Highway 104 is scheduled to begin this summer and shouldn’t overlap with the bridge work.

The seven-hour nighttime closures will allow crews to complete the center lock rehabilitation project that was started last summer. The center locks help hold the bridge together.

Due to the nature of the work, the bridge will not open for any traffic, including emergency vehicles. The closures also will be weather-dependent each night and could be rescheduled.

The bridge will close at 10 p.m. on each of the following dates:

• Monday through May 18

• May 20-23

• May 28-31

• June 3-8

• June 10

For more information on the project, visit wsdot.wa.gov/construction-planning/search- projects/sr-104-hood-canal-bridge-center-lock-rehabilitation.

Real-time information about the Hood Canal bridge is available at wsdot.com/traffic/hoodcanal or by downloading the WSDOT app. Email alerts also are available.

Also beginning Monday is the first of the two roundabout projects originally scheduled for last spring on state Highway 104 in Jefferson County, according to Mark Krulish, a spokesperson for WSDOT.

The two roundabouts are part of a long list of road and bridge projects that WSDOT has planned for the next two years in Clallam and Jefferson counties.

“The project itself has not changed,” Krulish said in an email May 3. “We are still building a metered roundabout at Shine Road/Paradise Bay Road and a roundabout at SR 19.”

Contractor Interwest Construction Inc. of Carlsborg will start work with the roundabout at highways 104 and 19, with work at the Paradise Bay Road/Shine Road roundabout scheduled to begin later in the summer, Krulish wrote.

Highway 19 will have access restrictions in three phases from about late May to mid-July, the email stated. During phase one in late May, drivers will not be able to turn left onto or off of Highway 19.

“We call this right in, right out only,” Krulish wrote. “For example, if you’re driving on state Highway 104 eastbound and you want to turn left onto state Highway 19, you will have to turn left onto Center Road instead to detour around. Likewise, southbound state Highway 19 travelers will have to use Center Road to turn left onto SR 104 instead.”

Phase two, currently scheduled for June, will be a full 21-day closure of access to Highway 19 from Highway 104.

“All traffic looking to turn onto (Highway 19) will detour to Center Road instead,” Krulish wrote. “Once the 21-day closure is complete, it will go back to that “right in, right out” phase until about mid-July for phase three.”

Krulish said all road closure dates and detours will be announced in advance.

“We’ll have intermittent lane and shoulder closures on (Highway 104) during this project,” he wrote. “These closures are restricted to 9 p.m. to 6 a.m., Monday through Friday, when traffic volumes are lower.

“For the Paradise Bay Road/Shine Road roundabout, we will have short-term access closures to each of those roads. These closures are currently scheduled for the fall, well after Labor Day. We’ll announce these in advance as well as we get firmer dates,” Krulish added.

The project is expected to be complete by next spring.