After more than a decade of work, the new Interstate 205 Mill Plain Interchange to Northeast 18th Street was declared officially open Wednesday afternoon.
Staff members of Washington’s federal delegation, legislators from the 17th and 49th Legislative Districts, a staffer from the governor’s office, transportation officials and Vancouver officials gathered on the 18th Street offramp for a ceremonial ribbon-cutting.
The occasion celebrated the new interchange, and officials congratulated the Washington State Department of Transportation on completing the project.
“This has been a long time coming. It’s the end of an era,” said Bart Gernhart, WSDOT assistant regional administrator, referencing the interchange’s status as the final project in Clark County to be completed with the state 2005 Transportation Partnership Program funding packages.
In all, 12 projects in Clark County were funded by the Transportation Partnership Program and the 2003 Nickel program.
The $40.6 million interchange project started with preliminary engineering, outreach, design and environmental work in 2006. It was the second of a two-stage project. The first was the I-205, Mill Plain, 112th Street connector project, which was finished in 2010.
Bart Treece, WSDOT spokesman, said the new interchange cost significantly less to build than initially planned.
“It’s too soon to tell (by how much), but it’s significantly under budget,” he said.
Vancouver Mayor Tim Leavitt reminded the crowd of 2003, when the city of Vancouver declared a moratorium on development in the Mill Plain Boulevard corridor.
“We’ve come a long way since then … infrastructure investments don’t happen overnight,” he said.
He praised WSDOT’s thriftiness and efficiency and said the agency should get more resources for big projects.
“These projects need to last for generations, and we need to be investing as early and as often as we can,” he said. “I urge our representatives at the state level to continue to think further ahead when it comes to funding transportation investment.”
WSDOT says the new northbound offramp and southbound onramp will mean fewer backups on I-205 and the Mill Plain Boulevard interchange. The I-205 northbound offramp to Mill Plain Boulevard was a high-accident location due to the number of rear-end collisions that occurred when traffic was heavy.
Surface street traffic is also expected to improve because drivers will now have another option to get in and out of a busy part of the city.
An average of 100,000 vehicles per day move through that section of I-205. Volume levels are steadily increasing.
“This project is a holistic approach to congestion relief and safety,” WSDOT Southwest Region Administrator Kris Strickler said in a news release on the subject.
Although the interchange is now officially open to the public, there is still work to be done. Cascade Bridge, WSDOT’s contractor for the project, still needs to finish landscaping and erosion controls along the highway on Northeast 18th Street before the end of the year.
