Starting Sunday night, WSDOT crews will be doing prep work for the Aurora Bridge seismic retrofit. Through Thursday night, the on-ramp from Fremont Way will be closed overnight, and up to two lanes will be closed in each direction, narrowing the through-fare to two lanes overnight from Sunday, 9/16-Thursday, 9/20:

· Two southbound lanes will be closed from 10pm-5am
· Two northbound lanes will be closed from 9pm-5am

WSDOT does not expect this week’s work to be noisy, but residents may request free earplugs by calling 206-440-4698 – if you live near the bridge, you may want to go ahead and order them, as “very noisy” night-time work scheduled for September 26-mid-October has been tagged with a “NOISE ALERT!” by WSDOT.

Some light at the end of the tunnel: a brand new sidewalk under the bridge will open in October, and, the Aurora Bridge – which is on the National Register of Historic Places and is a City of Seattle Landmark – will be better protected against future earthquakes when construction is complete this Fall.