Busy Bellingham street opening, ending summer of closures, detours, construction
Woburn Street is opening after a several-month closure to install a new sewer line from Alabama Street to Barkley Boulevard, news that should make many drivers happy.
Weekday commuter traffic slowed to a crawl along Woburn Street when the work started April 24, and a full closure on Aug. 2 forced a detour around the stretch of road that carries 19,700 cars a day, according to a 2018 traffic survey.
“Work on Woburn will be ongoing, but the road should reopen for traffic on Wednesday. They will be installing the manhole on Monday and patching the trench on Tuesday, so traffic can resume, and the detour will end Wednesday,” Natalie Munro of the Public Works Department told The Bellingham Herald in an email.
Complaints about traffic on the north-south commuter route flooded social media sites in the weeks after the detour began.
But not everyone is looking forward to the road’s opening, especially the residents of Woburn Street, who enjoyed a month of peace and quiet, neighborly gatherings, and watching children make chalk drawings on the asphalt.
“Just the other day, I was in the middle of Woburn, sitting on a lawn chair and having a beer,” resident Brent Davis told The Herald.
“We’ve met so many of our neighbors, it’s been nothing short of awesome,” Davis said.
Neighbors had planned a block party in the closed street on Sunday, but wildfire smoke canceled that.
Even so, the past several weeks have been a reprieve from the traffic noise that starts with delivery trucks at 4:30 a.m. and the drivers who regularly exceed the posted 25 mph limit by 20 mph or more, Davis said.
‘”Things have gotten so bad, the speed issues are just so frustrating,” he said.
Drivers won’t see many changes once the $3.5 million project is finished. But below ground, a larger sewer pipe replaced one that was nearly 100 years old.
“In addition to urban growth in the Barkley neighborhood, more is anticipated in the northern portion of the city in coming years. These sewer mains will be upgraded to larger diameter piping that will be able to handle the increased volume produced by additional development,” Public Works spokeswoman Amy Cloud said in an online description of the project.
This story was originally published August 23, 2023 at 11:04 AM.
