Beginning Monday, March 5 at 9 p.m., King County Metro will be rerouting five bus routes that use Aurora. One of those is the 28 Express, which serves Ballard. Southbound buses will be detoured off State Route 99/Aurora Ave. N. near Broad Street. One southbound lane of Aurora will be closed through mid-April, “to give crews space to relocated utilities buried underneath the far right southbound lane,” according to Metro. The utilities will be relocated to make way for the north portal of the new SR 99 tunnel.
While the southbound lane is closed, the buses will exit at Valley Street. The southbound bus stops on Aurora at Broad and at John streets, and the one westbound on Wall Street at Fifth Avenue, will not be served. Metro estimates approximately 385 bus trips a day will be affected by the closure.
Metro says southbound buses will turn left from Valley Street to Fifth Avenue North to travel southbound into downtown Seattle, where they will resume regular routing. “The buses will not stop along the detour route with two exceptions – they will stop on Fifth Avenue North at both Mercer and John streets.”
Other bus routes to be rerouted are Route 5, Route 5 Express, Route 26 Express, and Route 358. To learn more, visit Metro’s Construction and Events site.
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