Advice for bypassing Skagit River Bridge?

The "other bridge", joining Burlington Boulevard to Riverside Drive used to be a very narrow, two-lane steel truss bridge of similar design to the one that just collapsed. Since the streets it joined were both 4-lanes, it was a bad bottle-neck. It was replaced about 10 years ago by a concrete 4-lane bridge.

The bad thing about the "close-by" detour using that bridge is that those streets are already badly congested by local traffic. Adding 70,000 more vehicles a day (many of them 18-wheelers) will make a real mess.

We went into M-V yesterday from Anacortes. It took about 15 minutes longer than usual. WADOT has a number of detours on its website. The biggest snag is that, so far, they haven't re-programmed the priority algorithms in the traffic-light controllers. There was a 3-mile back-up at the junction of Best Road and SR 20 for northbound traffic. A 3-vehicle back-up used to be cause for comment!

Headed south from Bellingham, I'd be tempted to head over to Old 99 at Nulle Road and go south to Cook Road (just after the wood trestle bridge over the railroad track) then east on Cook Road to Sedro-Woolley with a short stretch of SR 20 east to get to Highway 9. Headed south, you have a couple of options to get back to I-5.

The first you come to is the roundabout at Big Rock, where College Way meets Highway 9. Unfortunately, the last few blocks of College Way is where the close-by detour goes back on I-5, so it would be backed up a long way. You could take a left turn onto Riverside Drive and go through downtown Mount Vernon and get back onto I-5 at Kincaid Street or go south of town on 2nd Avenue and get back on I-5 at the Cedardale Orchard on-ramp.

The second option is to go south on highway 9 to old-town Arlington, then take the SR back to I-5 just north of the Smokey Point rest area. That's the narrow, twisty stretch of highway 9 mentioned by an earlier post.

It's not just the TV guys that get things wrong. Associated Press put out a story, that made some of the British newspapers, stating that the bridge "connected Seattle to Canada". The would be a VERY long bridge!

Actually, the Seattle TV stations have done a fairly good job getting the facts straight and ABC has a resident reporter in Seattle (Neal Karlinsky) and his report on the evening news was fairly accurate.

msmith1199 wrote:
You better talk to your media people up there because I quoted directly from a Washington TV station website. So if I don't understand then they don't either.

Having lived up there 20+ years I can assure you that the WA TV media people are no smarter than your pet rock.

msmith1199 wrote:
You better talk to your media people up there because I quoted directly from a Washington TV station website. So if I don't understand then they don't either.

I understand what you have seen from the media. They have often been mistaken, and they are now in that unfortunate situation. They are often to quick to report on things that don't relate to reality. I'm sorry if I reacted too strongly, but this is going to be a truly difficult situation for us to deal with. I'm glad that I don't have to transport goods N/S on I-5 through the affected area.

In these difficult economic times, a blip in the system can be catastrophic. Fortunately WA State and out local economic development organizations are working hard to create creative options to this situation.

You better talk to your media people up there because I quoted directly from a Washington TV station website. So if I don't understand then they don't either.

msmith1199 wrote:
Have to chuckle at the Washington guys who are chuckling at the California guys. According to a Washington media website one of the detours is:

"The Transportation Department has set up detours. The closest is within sight of the I-5 bridge and mostly used for local traffic between Mount Vernon and Burlington.
Traffic is being diverted off southbound I-5 at Exit 230. For an alternate route, take eastbound Highway 20, then south on S. Burlington Blvd. and west on E. College Way (SR 538) to southbound I-5."

Funny, where did we see that before? Oh yeah, one of the California guys pointed out there was another bridge close to the one that collapsed.

Unfortunately, that bridge is inadequate for the traffic anticipated... as are all of the others proposed, but it is our fate for a quite a while. Use the DOT detours, don't contribute to congestion to our local traffic routes that you don't understand.

msmith1199 wrote:
Have to chuckle at the Washington guys who are chuckling at the California guys.

Have to chuckle at you California guys who are chuckling.... Never mind. I think the OP was looking for some local knowledge since anyone with a computer could have supplied the info that you did. FWIW, my son just took the detour that was referenced and it added THREE HOURS to his trip. There's just no easy way around this one. I'd actually consider taking 20 all the way out to Rockport and take Hwy 530 back to Arlington. At least that would be a nice scenic drive!

Here's the latest information.

WA DOT Detour Route

Have to chuckle at the Washington guys who are chuckling at the California guys. According to a Washington media website one of the detours is:

"The Transportation Department has set up detours. The closest is within sight of the I-5 bridge and mostly used for local traffic between Mount Vernon and Burlington.
Traffic is being diverted off southbound I-5 at Exit 230. For an alternate route, take eastbound Highway 20, then south on S. Burlington Blvd. and west on E. College Way (SR 538) to southbound I-5."

Funny, where did we see that before? Oh yeah, one of the California guys pointed out there was another bridge close to the one that collapsed.

robatthelake wrote:
There will be a clearly marked Detour! Yes it will add some time to Your trip!

don't sweat it!

Rob: How do you take your bus from the Island to the mainland? What Ferry terminal. To Anacortes looks damn expensive.

I also was getting a chuckle, but Maverick's work-around is probably even longer then the delays in just taking the detours. Which from the reports coming in are currently adding about an hour to the trip.

Now a number of schools and firms decided to not have people cross the bridge today, so there were fewer people. But it's also the Friday of a three-day weekend and the day people start figuring out the detours, so that adds time.

Personally, on a north/south run like the OP is taking about, just add time to your trip. The suggested south bound detour is NOT SR-9 (which is east of I-5, but rather a road to the west. They are doing this to avoid having the north bound and south bound detours over-lap or use the same roads

Some points to consider, avoid "heavy traffic" times, like Monday (all day), like morning and evening commute. Since the commute starts about 6AM, I would guess you best times would be between 10AM and 2PM, or after 8PM.