Traffic Payout

By Guest Blogger Steve Peer

Lately we’ve received comments from drivers about the lane striping on southbound I-405 in Bellevue on a stretch of road between SE Eighth Street and I-90. The striping in the area has been a challenge for drivers, but rest assured, we’re doing everything we can to try to improve the lane visibility.



Here’s what happened:
As part of the South Bellevue Widening Project, we ground down the surface of the existing concrete to create a smoother and quieter surface. However, grinding the surface exposed concrete that’s shinier and lighter in color. The lighter colored concrete caused the white lane markings to be less visible under specific weather conditions. In addition, during construction, crews shifted traffic into temporary lanes to keep traffic moving. Unfortunately, when the temporary lanes were removed, some “ghost” striping was still visible. This “ghosting” along with the lighter concrete, has caused unusual and, at times, difficult driving experiences for motorists.

We’ve already taken steps to modify this situation and will continue to work on a solution until the problem is fixed.


Here’s what we’re doing:
Several weeks ago we added a black accent stripe to define the white lane striping against the light grey concrete.  Doing this helped, but not nearly as much as expected. Our next option is to add a thick black border around each white lane stripe to further enhance lane visibility against the lighter concrete.

We hope this will solve the problem. If not, we’ll continue to find new solutions to improve the visibility of the lane striping.

We appreciate all of your comments and look forward to improving this section of roadway.  We take each comment into consideration as we work to safely and efficiently operate and improve our highways to keep you moving around our state.

Dry nights means closed lanes for drivers:
To add the black lane stripe borders, crews need a dry night to make sure the paint adheres to the pavement they’ll funnel traffic down to one lane to accomplish this so if you’re in the south Bellevue area at night during these closures, please slow down and give crews a brake