Even on the off-peak hour of 10:30 AM, traffic on Rainier Ave is grid-locked through multiple stoplights by a lane reduction near Airport Way.

The Rainier Avenue Phase 4 improvement project was originally scheduled to be completed this week, but after multiple delays it’s now expected to continue until at least October.

Delays identified in Change Order for Joint Use Trench (JUT)

The last major delay was approved by City Council last summer, when the Council authorized a change order that added about four million dollars and 129 extra work days to the contract.  Utility franchises will pay the $4,000,000 in additional charges, but Renton’s motorists and businesses are paying for the delays through their lost time, idling, frustration, and lost business revenues.

This latest delay was specifically caused by installation issues with a Joint Use Trench (JUT) that will be used for utility routing by PSE, Lumen, and Comcast.  Because of unexpected conflicts with other in-ground utilities, the JUT has had to be installed at a depth of ten feet underground instead of the planned 5 1/2 feet.  The extra 4 1/2 feet of depth significantly increases the cost of the worker protection shoring in the trench, requiring excavator placing of heavy steel frames instead of hand-placed steel sheets that meet OSHA requirements for more shallow trenches. The extra depth also put the trench deeper into the water table, requiring pumping and loose sand management.  Making matters worse, some of the extra soil being removed has some minor contamination (perhaps from old gas station activities), and the soil has to be taken to a special site.

The 31-month construction project will update the street, sidewalks, signals, planting areas, and utilities

While I understand that utilities can cause delays, I think there could have been more effort placed on minimizing the number of days with lane closures.

In past years Renton Council passionately debated every proposed lane closure; Council used to typically restrict lane closures to hours, not weeks or months, and Council tracked them.  When asked about a planned lane closure, or how long a prior lane closure had lasted, former Public Works Director Gregg Zimmerman always had the answer. Mr. Zimmerman usually knew immediately because he had been personally overseeing the work site.  In the previous (southern) phases of Rainier Ave improvement under Gregg Zimmerman’s management, he famously committed to keeping five lanes of Rainier Ave continuously open. And Council helped Mr. Zimmerman hold the contractor to it.  As quoted in the Renton Patch in 2012 ” Renton Public Works Administrator Gregg Zimmerman’s promise to keep at least five lanes of traffic open throughout construction drew heavy applause and whistles from a crowd of more than three dozen attendees”

Minimizing lane closures should be a requirement in all future road projects.  Even if it makes the job more laborious to keep moving cones and steel plates in and out of position when a lane closure is needed (as opposed to leaving the lane perpetually closed), the extra labor can easily pay off.  Rainier Ave typically carries about 40,000 cars per day.  Many motorists are reporting delays of ten minutes from these lane closures, and google maps confirms this.  If every car suffered ten minutes of delay, that would represent 6,666 hours of lost car/driver productivity per day.  Assuming $50 per hour for a car and driver (the Uber hourly rate), this amounts to $333,000 per day.  (The real losses are people being late for work or school, paying extra for daycare, taking time from family, etc, but these are harder to put a price on.) Whether the delay actually costs $333,000 per day, or half of this, the point is still the same. It’s worth investing $5000-$10,000 per day moving cones, signs,  and steel plates to keep the lanes open when work is not being performed in them.

A Facebook user recently asked about this project on a group page, and the question attracted over 70 passionate responses.  Here is just a small sample:

“QUESTION???? at RAINIER and RENTON AVE
Would anyone care to share why it’s taking so long for the Road / infrastructure project to move forward? It’s been several years and not a single person was working. It’s an absolute inconvenience to all, and taxpayers should know.”

“I have empathy towards construction workers and don’t blame them specifically. Lots of hands at play here. But as someone who travels this intersection at least 4 times a day, it’s absolutely an inconvenience. Is it convenient to have to wait up to 10 minutes to get through a light? Not an exaggeration, has happened multiple times and not only when the power was out. I’m pretty patient and do like city improvements but this project should have been planned better or the city should somehow help navigate the delays.”

“The entire project is an embarrassment to take this long. It would be interesting to know why it has been taking years upon years.”

“Very sporadic as to when they will be working and when they aren’t. Majority of the time not.”

“It shouldn’t be left like it is for the time being. I drive a lifted truck and it feels like I’m out off of exit 38 going through the mountains on Rainier. It’s sick”

“It’s inexcusable and not professional nor is the city functioning in the best interest of it citizens. You don’t just leave it a mess for years. They could at minimum reconfigure the traffic and the ridiculous lane closure if they’re going to do nothing for another six months.”

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