Project overview
To address increased congestion, WSDOT has widened SR 9 from two lanes to four from its southern starting point to Marsh Road, except for a 3-mile section in the middle—from 176th Street Southeast to SR 96—where there is only one northbound lane and two southbound lanes. This project will add a second northbound lane to fill the gap and make several safety improvements.
What to expect
Construction plans and traffic effects are currently unknown. We will provide an update when the design process is complete.
WSDOT will widen SR 9 between 176th Street Southeast in Clearview to SR 96. This section is known as the "missing link" because sections immediately to the south and the north are already two lanes in each direction.
Safety improvements
SR 9 is an important corridor for both commuter and commercial traffic. Traffic volumes have exceeded the capacity of the highway. Higher traffic volumes also increase the risk of serious cross over and head-on collisions as drivers try to turn across heavy traffic.
When fully funded, this project will make the following improvements:
- A raised center median and designated U-turn locations reduce the risk of serious collisions by limiting the conflicts that lead to collisions.
- New guardrails, pedestrian crossings, pavement markings and elimination of roadside hazards will bring the highway up to the most current safety standards.
- Shoulders will provide room for cyclists, pedestrians and other non-motorized highway users in addition to providing a refuge space for disabled vehicles.
- This project will improve traffic capacity and flow by adding an additional northbound lane, and rebuilding and realigning the existing southbound lanes as necessary.
- Widening this section will eliminate the bottleneck that regularly occurs near 176th Street Southeast where the northbound lanes are reduced from two to one.
- Congestion is frequently caused by collisions. Reducing collisions will help ease congestion and improve travel times.
Interim improvements
After meetings with the Clearview Community Association, a community open house in January 2017, and consultations with Snohomish County Public Works, WSDOT made several interim improvements to provide limited congestion relief on SR 9 through Clearview until the full project can be completed.
In April 2017, WSDOT reconfigured the traffic signal at the SR 9/164th Street Southeast intersection to provide more green light time to northbound drivers. WSDOT also added flashing yellow left turn arrows at the SR 9/Cathcart Way and SR 9/176th Street Southeast intersections. All three changes reduced backups.
In 2018, WSDOT contractor crews widened and restriped a portion of SR 9 from 136th Street to SR 96 in Clearview to create a second northbound lane. The project extended the existing four-lane section by about 1,500 feet.