Information from Seattle Department of Transportation

Over the past few months, we conducted outreach to businesses and community members and released an online survey to understand your travel needs on 15th Ave W/NW during construction. We received over 900 responses! This feedback will help inform how we can minimize travel impacts during construction and help people find alternate travel routes. We’re now reviewing survey responses and feedback to start developing our construction plan. 

We are nearly finished with the project design, and expect to begin construction second half of 2023

During our community outreach we shared our project plans with neighbors and heard concerns about anticipated travel disruptions along 15th Ave W/NW. Despite this, people acknowledged the necessity of this maintenance project to preserve one of the City’s busiest arterials. We also heard a need for more pedestrian and bike improvements that connect the east and west side of 15th Ave W/NW, between W Emerson St and NW 58th St. This led us to look at our designs to see what better pedestrian improvements we can make while we repave the street. The design is 90% complete and includes:

• Paving 15th Ave W/NW from W Emerson to NW 57th St including the fixed portions of the Ballard Bridge 
• Installing new sidewalks, driveways, and stormwater drainage in select locations
• Upgrading all non-compliant curb ramps to be ADA compliant
• Installing curb ramps at all east-west crossings
• Updating pedestrian crosswalk signs and pavement markings with new paint at existing crossing locations along 15th Ave W/NW
• Planting new trees and replacing old trees with new ones in selected areas
• Installing new or expanded tree pits
• Installing red “bus only” lane markings on existing transit lanes on northbound 15th Ave NW between NW 52nd St and NW Market St
• Replacing bridge expansion joints
• Improving seismic resiliency by strengthening the Leary Way Bridge(located just north of the Ballard Bridge)

(Please see updated project map above)

To see our full 90% design set, please click here.  

Our project team is still in the process of working on the final design to address the recommendations we heard and seeing how we can incorporate additional design elements that provide more improvements for people who walk and bike along the project corridor. As a pavement preservation and Levy to Move Seattle project, we seek opportunities that fit within the budget, schedule and engineering constraints to make important safety and accessibility improvements. We hope to share final the design this spring 2023.