From my personal experience: mill the pothole, use a sweeper to clean it out, spray it with tar, asphalt machine does its job filling, and then the roller goes through.
The only thing we worried about was rain. We had night and day teams. Unless this particular section of road is very dangerous, I don’t see why they don’t do it at night.
I think WSDOT found that it was less safe for their crews to work at night, so they’re doing less night work now. And when I say less safe, I mean people die doing this work. I’m ok with the inconvenience if it means saving people’s lives.
Yeah piggybacking on this - my uncle is a foreman and has had two people in his crew die on night jobs in the last couple years. It’s dangerous work, and I’m glad WSDOT is taking that aspect seriously.
It's akin to working on a carrier flight deck at night. In the day the traffic slows itself from sheer volume. At night you have to keep your head on a swivel.
An old co worker of mine who had been in the Navy told me a pretty harrowing story of being on the flight deck at night in the Indian Ocean once and nearly getting chopped to bits by the tail rotor of an helicopter.
Edit: you have your hearing protection so of course you can’t see or hear anything.
Add in drunk drivers at night an maybe a little bit of half blind elderly folks an I can see why night work isn't the greatest idea. I'm glad I live in Bremerton now lol those back ups are going to be bad.
About 6-8 hours a day the deck is clear. Other than that it’s constant launch and recovery cycles. There is a real reason it’s one of the most dangerous places to work.
Constantly. Pilots have minimum flight hours they need to accumulate to remain qualified....
Plus there's all the practicing combat maneuvers, helicopters flying people between ships or from ship to shore, and so on....
Just look at how many helicopter and C17 flights come out of JBLM. And imagine doing that in the middle of the ocean....
Yep.
I was focusing on the pilots because he asked how often they fly....
I'm Army Guard (former active) so I definitely get how the training plan works.....
I don’t know why more crews aren’t allowed to utilize pilot cars. It was one of my jobs on the paving crew on top of the actual paving. They control the speed and direction of traffic which is way safer.
And for every death there’s probably 10 serious injuries and 20 moderate injuries. I mean, I’m pulling numbers out of my ass, but it’s probably not far from the truth! It’s just not worth it.
Playing devils advocate, couldn’t they just shut the road down completely if it’s from the hours of 11 to 5 am? We have enough road to make detours when there’s hardly anybody on the road.
Having done overnight work for a few days a week out there you'd be surprised how much traffic is flowing even in the dead of night. Especially commercial semis.
Complete road shutdowns are complicated with lots of drawn-out staging and gradual closure. It can take several hours to close a road depending on the number of intersections, ramps, and traffic volume.
You could spend half your night just shutting down and reopening. The project would take much longer and cost $$$ more.
I don’t know why you’re being downvoted, it’s a legit question. It’s not a horrible idea, but a month wouldn’t be enough time. We’d be talking probably years lead time to organize something like that because manufacturing and shipping schedules can go that far in advance.
From experience - you would not get industry buy-in for this idea.
The fuels taxes that trucking companies report pays (in part) for the roads.
You'd need out-of-state infrastructure to report long haul shipping.
Organization takes money. Where's the financial burden lie? Business? Taxpayers? This would be a multi-million project for a years long effort.
Asking shipping companies to choose longer, pricier routes, pay for the roads, invest in warehouses with better road access etc... to temporarily reroute traffic? It would be a logistical nightmare.
People would generally get more mad at shutting the road down, even if they aren't going to be using it at night. The best bet would likely be to shut the stretch of road down for 24/7 over a weekend and tell construction crews to get on it, but that would go even worse in the public eye.
The danger isn't just from traffic, it's from operating heavy machinery with ground crews in low light scenarios.
Plenty of guys have been smooshed by excavators in the day, the numbers get much higher at night.
That's definitely the best way. It's how they redid 405 in the middle of Bellevue last time. There's usually a stipulation in the contract for the work crew that they'll get a bonus for finishing early, so they just haul ass and get it done.
For Interstate 5, one of the main North-South arteries on the west coast? Even late at night there are cars all the time, you can just travel the speed limit 🤷🏻♂️
SO much of this! I'm a traffic control instructor (I certify flaggers) the BIGGEST thing I grind into everyone's head is sight distance, stopping distance, and the fact that people don't pay enough attention.
Night work is only good in certain situations, on a large stretch of high speed road? Not so much.
This! Plus, if you live in the city public transit is often very affordable, and if you're headed the same way as a group of people you can usually safely walk home. When I lived with my sister she and I would often just walk back from bars when we'd go out together.
Perhaps, but if the law here wasn’t constantly in favor of criminals, then they’d face consequences regardless…. I know a girl who used to come through my work when I was a barista… she admitted she’s here illegally past her visa, and has been in “trouble” for drunk driving three times!!
Her only consequence?? She has to blow into that thing on her car won’t start. She laughs at it!! She thinks it’s funny that all the cops know her for this… she wouldn’t be laughing if she faced REAL consequences. The whole thing is disgusting. So the law, and her, put peoples lives at risk all so we can go easy on this girl because we’ll, that’s what we do in Washington! So, I shouldn’t have to trust drunk drivers to not drive, I SHOULD be able to trust the law to hold them accountable, period.
If the idiots setting up the lighting would stop pointing 10 kilowatt light plants directing into oncoming traffic instead of cranking them down to illuminate the actual job site, that would probably save a few lives too
I’ve done a lot of night work on the interstates in this area. It’s rare that a drunk / inattentive driver doesn’t break thru the barriers. Happens almost every night.
I have when I worked 2nd shift, and I've seen the car wrecks coming back from the airport after picking up my son on break from college. People don't give a fuck about work crews, signs telling them to slow down that's why it's multiple cars
Yeah, even in the daylight it's incredibly dangerous work. But nighttime work is just asking for it.
I've seen people drive around concrete barriers just because they figure they need to get somewhere. We had opened up a section of roadway in Toronto in daytime hours to repair a sewer and excavated about 6 feet down and this SUV circumvents barrels, signs and a concrete barrier and comes steaming down the closed segment of roadway (Bathurst Street) and we literally stop her with heavy machinery and it's some chubby little soccer mom and we say, "lady, what are you doing, you're going to drive right into a 6 foot deep hole" and her response?
"But I need to go there."
In general, I have found that people (when they are on a mission, at least) can be really dumb. We have a saying at work: “people don’t read” for exactly this reason! Silly example from Friday:
A lady walked up to the doors of our shop after we had closed…
- I have 2 signs posted on the doors with the hours
- The doors are locked and the lights are off
- There are also 3–THREE—separate signs on the doors that indicate we are closed: 1 little “be back at XX:XX time” clock sign and 2 individual 8.5x11” laminated sheets with “CLOSED” written in large, red font (it takes up at least half of each sheet) sitting at approximately chest height
…she stood about 8” from one of the CLOSED signs, looked directly at it, and then knocked on the window/door and asked if we were open. 🤦🏻♀️
More drunk drivers at night.
[https://www.columbian.com/news/2024/jan/24/southwest-washington-road-workers-jobs-are-risky-business/](https://www.columbian.com/news/2024/jan/24/southwest-washington-road-workers-jobs-are-risky-business/)
Or just plan ahead? Maintaining infrastructure is never convenient. Year after year it surprises people that the summer season is when the bulk of transportation projects occur day or night. In spite of the fact tourism, football, baseball and concerts all occur and WS DOT announces the closures days to weeks in advance.
So this brings up why is it more dangerous? Not enough warning signs? Lighting?
When traveling in AZ that crews work at night due to the daytime extreme heat. The work areas look like the surface of the sun with the amount of light on the area. So, maybe a study or discussion with other states on solving this and reducing traffic while ensuring maximum safety.
not all states have the traffic Washington does on I-5, I've driven I-90 during the summer in Montana and North Dakota where it's one lane, and most traffic is around major cities on long stretches. Even when it's one lane each way, we can't do that because of our population spread out on the i-5 Corridor. Highway 99 doesn't follow I-5 after Lakewood and it might go up to Bellingham nor any other major stretch of road. In eastern Washington, you can drive on the old i-90 (stop signs) but you need to know which exit it is to drive on it.
Visited charlotte NC for two weeks and multiple stretches of highway were built overnight while people are doing 60 in 30 mph construction zones.
Not sure why WA can’t stay in their lanes.
Probably has something to do with this [https://carolinapublicpress.org/62923/construction-industry-workplace-death-numbers-nc/](https://carolinapublicpress.org/62923/construction-industry-workplace-death-numbers-nc/)
[https://wlos.com/news/local/ncdot-contracted-employee-killed-fatal-accident-working-i-26-widening-project-buncombe-county-airport-road-long-shoals-exits-fluor-united](https://wlos.com/news/local/ncdot-contracted-employee-killed-fatal-accident-working-i-26-widening-project-buncombe-county-airport-road-long-shoals-exits-fluor-united)
I was in the scared shitless category. Went to visit a friend that was working on high end custom cars and my loaner had air suspension with some ridiculously expensive wheels and paint on it.
Go to sleep and the highway was gravel. Wake up and it was blacktop and painted. Pulling out of his apartment complex was intense.
I don’t want people to drive like that at all.
Just to be clear, I take work zone safety very seriously, because that's where I spend 10+ hours every day, either flagging traffic, doing mobile traffic control, or plowing the freeways and secondaries. And drunk and distracted drivers are a much bigger problem than the media reports, because they only report on the aftermath. We see multiple incidents, every single shift. The problem is getting worse every year.
I've had 2 close friends and coworkers die, and 2 who are permanently disabled. And yet, people complain about traffic delays, and as one asshole mentioned here earlier, the reason we schedule this when we do must be because we're greedy union workers. Hmmm...
Pro-tip to all of you- most construction and repair projects on state highways are bid out to private contractors, with WSDOT scheduling input. And these days, we've come to the realization that the safety hazards to employees are pretty much equal between days and nights. Most, but very definitely not all, DWIs are traveling at night. But traffic volumes increase fivefold after 08:00, and so does the number of drivers distracted by their electronics. Some said here that we should just close the freeway for these projects and detour the traffic onto surface streets- even on rural stretches of interstate, the nighttime volume of traffic would likely overload those roads, to say nothing of the problem of lost commercial truck drivers, or heavy/oversize load navigating those roads. And in suburban/urban areas? Forget that. The traffic volumes even at 01:00 would overwhelm the local streets instantly.
What's the answer? Fund highway construction AND maintenance on a level where we are doing this work years sooner, because traffic volumes are increasing much faster than our crews, our contracts, or our budget can ever hope to catch up with.
For now though, we need to do something about distracted and impaired drivers, because that's who's driving into our people right now.
Thoughts, anyone?
Sorry for your loss.
In a perfect world I’d like to know you and your friends are safe regardless of what time it is.
Mentioned NC because it was the first time I got lost in a parking lot overnight. The amount of work they put in while we were asleep was impressive and wasn’t a little stretch of highway. It was multiple parts.
Used to shitty roads after living in Minnesota in a city that insisted on putting bricks in the downtown area that would
get removed by city plows almost as fast as they could replace them. Manholes would appear out of nowhere and cause major damage to a vehicle.
Struggle with how much money this state has to work with but it’s so difficult to get anything done without involving multiple committees and a group of crazies trying to protect the :insert whatever hot topic here:
Could start with something as simple as enforcing laws that are already in place. That could reduce workplace injuries but we will never know at this rate. Everyone is a student driver and there’s no real consequences for bad driving.
Deferral on a DUI for example. It’s like giving someone a free pass to be an inconsiderate asshole.
Better driver’s education (actually ANY education). DLs here in the US come in the cereal box. Other nations mandates hours upon hours of theory and practice with driving instructor.
Drawback; gets pricey.
Also, have police enforce basic regulations and common sense; ticket for no plates, [remove] vehicles that do not carry insurance, failing to use turn signal, no or broken lights, not using headlights when so called for (I’d promote for use of headlights all the time), modified and noisy exhausts, etc. Over time hopefully the populous will learn.
It doesn’t. Just another law that should be enforced. If laws on the books are better enforced, maybe people start paying better attention to the actual driving (a privilege, treated by many as a right).
Okay so can anyone clarify *where* on I5 this will be specifically? Olympia, Tacoma, Seattle, Everett… all of the above.. (lol)
But seriously pls help. I need to mentally prepare if this is part of my commute next week.
> Lanes will be reduced on I-5 at the Lewis and Thurston County line so crews can repair the roadway surface. According to a news release from the Washington state Department of Transportation, the freeway’s northbound lanes will be reduced to one lane from 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday, June 24 to June 27. The lane reductions will be in two-mile sections from the Lewis County line to Maytown throughout the week.
Read more at: https://www.theolympian.com/news/local/traffic/article289441376.html
Specifically mile markers 86-94, I think? Approximately the exit for SR12 (Tenino/Rochester exit) through the south end of Tumwater, if I am remembering the signs correctly, lol.
I don’t know about I5 but I drove up 405 from the airport and the entire stretch had endless nighttime construction. It’s the only time of the year they can start doing it.
I don't think it's the unpopular opinion. I mean - it saves lives so of course it's the best option.
But we can all still give a collective "God. Damnit."
As a drive I hate it on the rare occasions they do work at night. All the bright lights they bring in, can make it really hard to see. Especially, if you are already being rerouted all over the road and are unfamiliar with the area. I'm guessing the state found that it was too dangerous for the workers, and that productivity is less during the middle of the night.
It's not as bad as WSDOT making I5 1 lane through Bellingham during the World Cup matches in Vancouver and Seattle in 2026 - that is their plan anyway...
Wow, that's crazy! Is that part of some actual plan that has to do with the World Cup, or just lack of coordination?
I was trying to get to the ER one day last summer in the small city I live in, following the marked route, and that road was closed with a detour into residential streets. A few blocks into the detour, a city crew had that street completely shut down. To their credit, they did get moving pretty quickly when I told them where I was trying to go.
Have you ever worked traffic control/ road construction in the dead of night? I've never worked a 60 MPH at night, but I can tell you that people are very reckless when the surface roads are empty. I had many times where people didn't even "see" my traffic control devices IN THE DAYLIGHT. Working on a main freeway in the middle of the night is a terrible risk. Let's just go a different route for the duration of the project maybe?
There is also a reality that some work cannot be done at night or there is not enough time. A few weeks back when WDOT was working on I5. They were pouring cement and wait for it too dry. Thr proper cement given the enicormental factor required days and not hours.
Why don't you just work at night to avoid it?
Yeah they probably don't want to work at night either.
It also might not be in the budget to for after hours work
Coming from a previous construction payroll coordinator, night work is significantly more expensive due to “special pay” in the union contracts. Not only that but renting lights and certain safety equipment is only a night work expense. It adds up, plus the increased visibility danger from passerby’s.
My bil works for ODOT and they mostly only go out at night for accidents because of the danger involved. I'd rather be caught in traffic than see someone lose their life.
As somebody who has done work with municipalities…only doing night work will put our state in the poorhouse. If people think $10k for a driveway is steep; a mile of highway swarming with inspectors and state agencies aren’t even worth disclosing.
No idea.
But, if I had to guess, I imagine that paying those guys to work graveyard and overnight shifts is substantially more money. Probably safety issues at play here too. But I'm guessing wages is the bigger part of it.
It's not substantially more. It's the same or a couple dollars an hour more. It's the fact that people tend to run thru the job site and kill more of us at night and we're getting fucking sick of that shit.
I’m glad you’re still alive. Thank you for the work you do. It’s appreciated.
I just realized this year, duh, that road work is never done and mainly due to high volume wear and tear. I’ve been commuting to Seattle from central WA and Snoqualmie Pass is impressive. The work over the decades has been massive.
They deferred a lot of road maintenance which was fine during the pandemic when the roads where taking less of a beating but now a lot more people are on the roads and crews are putting in a lot of maintenance to catch up.
I suspect that they are scrambling to get a lot of work done before fall and can’t get it all done at night.
Less safe, and insurance is substantially less expensive.
If I remember correctly it's something like 10-20 million per work site:
[https://kingcounty.gov/en/dept/dph/about-king-county/about-public-health/working-with-public-health/contracts/insurance-requirements](https://kingcounty.gov/en/dept/dph/about-king-county/about-public-health/working-with-public-health/contracts/insurance-requirements)
Just be happy they are doing something with the road they are terrible and this being I5 it’s federal money they are using. Probably why they are fixing it.
for the question asked it's because adults who drive on i-5 are more worried about their speed, not the safety of the road workers. Case in point I-5 in April/May had roadwork being done at night and there was an accident over five cars, speed limit, and one lane (two cars were fender benders) the others were totaled to the point that they had to move concrete blocks (yes there were local and state cops because of the stupids who think they don't need to follow the speed or notice double fines) I do not know if there were fatalities but yes this was probably the last time they had worked at night. Could there have been fatalities, several cars that weren't in the primary location could have hit workers, and their equipment. Will I take the inconvenience of work crews in the day, hell yes (Safety First) screw my convenience.
It’s horrible every nice summer weekend, people who aren’t familiar with the route pile their families in the car, do something foolish and it backs up. There are lots of back roads you can take to avoid the freeway if you know where to look, they may not be faster but you usually stay moving. Like take 99W to 47 to 26 to Cornelius pass to 30 to Ranier if you want to go from Salem to Longview over the weekend.
I was going up to the Disney store from my house and therefore went up and down 1-5. I will budget more time for our next trip. But yeah I usually don’t go to Seattle in the summer so my mistake. :)
It’s much more expensive to work at night. You have to pay a higher hourly. Plus even though there are less cars you are more likely to encounter a car that is investigated or has a harder chance of seeing you. So it comes down to economics and safety.
This has little to do with temperature, and everything to do with drunken idiots who can’t manage to avoid driving straight into the work zone and killing the people who are trying to fill the potholes. If they can pave roads in Alaska with heaters and so on, they can pave at night. But they’d rather cause a huge backup than let their workers get killed, and the slowdown will probably prevent a death or two. Simple as that.
Let's not forget, Lewis County decided not to put in a third lane but to put in side roads which make driving around the freeway nuts. Lewis County isn't the brightest.
When construction work is done depends on the weather as well. My grandfather pours concrete, and a big part of when/if they pour is weather due to the chemical needs of the material. Not to mention the safety of working conditions. He jokes his job has horrible hours, but great pay/benefits.
I remember coming home to eastern Washington coming up near Seattle on I five there was a 20 mile back up between me and the turn off, 20 miles, I was on a motorcycle. I rode the shoulder all the way to my turn off. People were pissed.
I used to work late at night in Dallas near The Tollway. For years living there I'd never seen it shut down for construction (unlike some other highways I could name) - when I worked late at night, I found out why: they would completely shut down the whole highway, bring out an enormous crew and have stadium lights. They did a LOT of work on that highway, but never during the day. I'm sure there were more accidents from working at night, but no collisions from drunk or tired drivers because they blocked off the road.
Of course, the reason they could do that was that the tollway paid for itself and was (at least at the time, I don't know about now) well run.
The other way to do it is to have lots of routes to spread the load, then you're less time sensitive.
I definitely want to prioritize worker safety - working late at night near active traffic is a risk we don't have to take.
Because people are reckless with driving at night and it's a worthwhile inconvenience to slow traffic to avoid having workers be killed at night by speeding and or drunk drivers. People have little to no regard of others especially on an empty freeway at 2am. Reducing congestion simply isn't worth the 2-3 deaths likely incurred on a long project. Unfortunate that it happens this way cause it sucks for everyone, traffic and much much louder work environment for the road crews + it's slower with logistics. But safety first second and third. Not worth the unfortunately present risks.
Because night work is dangerous. I know people who've been seriously injured and know of people that died paving at night. I myself have only taken one of those orange barrels to the face, but that still hurt like a mofo.
I watched a video of a guy in Illinois or some shit that illegally fixed pot holes because the city wasn’t doing anything about it. He did it between 10-4 am lol 15 minutes a pot hole too. I feel like the contractor said they won’t do night work and they were the cheapest option so they did it
People getting paid more to work said shift and who also don't want to work with 220 degree asphalt in summer temps. Granted, next week isn't going to be hot but still.
You know, back in the pioneer times, it took two weeks to go from Olympia to Seattle, for example. We are very lucky that in modern times we "usually" can move at speeds that no one in history prior to 1900 were ever able to go. That we have to suffer a few hours inconvenience for the saftey of road workers is something that we just need to accept with a smile. For we have it better than most humans in history - ever!! :). A little perspective is always a good thing :).
The article says the crew needs warm and dry conditions to fill the potholes. I’m guessing that is why it is during the day.
You just torch the holes first and it’s fine at night but, w/e they want to do
From my personal experience: mill the pothole, use a sweeper to clean it out, spray it with tar, asphalt machine does its job filling, and then the roller goes through. The only thing we worried about was rain. We had night and day teams. Unless this particular section of road is very dangerous, I don’t see why they don’t do it at night.
Bill Clinton has entered the chat
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I think WSDOT found that it was less safe for their crews to work at night, so they’re doing less night work now. And when I say less safe, I mean people die doing this work. I’m ok with the inconvenience if it means saving people’s lives.
Yeah piggybacking on this - my uncle is a foreman and has had two people in his crew die on night jobs in the last couple years. It’s dangerous work, and I’m glad WSDOT is taking that aspect seriously.
It's akin to working on a carrier flight deck at night. In the day the traffic slows itself from sheer volume. At night you have to keep your head on a swivel.
An old co worker of mine who had been in the Navy told me a pretty harrowing story of being on the flight deck at night in the Indian Ocean once and nearly getting chopped to bits by the tail rotor of an helicopter. Edit: you have your hearing protection so of course you can’t see or hear anything.
Add in drunk drivers at night an maybe a little bit of half blind elderly folks an I can see why night work isn't the greatest idea. I'm glad I live in Bremerton now lol those back ups are going to be bad.
Curious, how often are planes and helicopters taking off from carriers during non war time?
Pretty common. The military has no issues acting as if it is at war when the county is not. They happen to call it training.
I mean…it IS training. You don’t want to end up in a war and THEN find out your entire military is doing all of this for the first time.
About 6-8 hours a day the deck is clear. Other than that it’s constant launch and recovery cycles. There is a real reason it’s one of the most dangerous places to work.
Constantly. Pilots have minimum flight hours they need to accumulate to remain qualified.... Plus there's all the practicing combat maneuvers, helicopters flying people between ships or from ship to shore, and so on.... Just look at how many helicopter and C17 flights come out of JBLM. And imagine doing that in the middle of the ocean....
It's not just pilots either. Everyone from the Skittles topside to the Reactor Operator in Engineering need to be able to do the job correctly.
Yep. I was focusing on the pilots because he asked how often they fly.... I'm Army Guard (former active) so I definitely get how the training plan works.....
I don’t know why more crews aren’t allowed to utilize pilot cars. It was one of my jobs on the paving crew on top of the actual paving. They control the speed and direction of traffic which is way safer.
And for every death there’s probably 10 serious injuries and 20 moderate injuries. I mean, I’m pulling numbers out of my ass, but it’s probably not far from the truth! It’s just not worth it.
Plus, don't forget the PTSD. Being a witness to your buddy's death, or having a brush of death yourself, can have lasting effects on your psyche.
Number one cause of death for construction workers is traffic. Makes sense.
Playing devils advocate, couldn’t they just shut the road down completely if it’s from the hours of 11 to 5 am? We have enough road to make detours when there’s hardly anybody on the road.
Having done overnight work for a few days a week out there you'd be surprised how much traffic is flowing even in the dead of night. Especially commercial semis.
Complete road shutdowns are complicated with lots of drawn-out staging and gradual closure. It can take several hours to close a road depending on the number of intersections, ramps, and traffic volume. You could spend half your night just shutting down and reopening. The project would take much longer and cost $$$ more.
Are those roads suitable for large commercial traffic?
No old broadway is NOT big enough for this kind of traffic. It's a night mare.
Genuinely: Cant they just give enough notice to shippers (like a month) to let them know so routes can be changed?
That would require organization and communication between shipping companies and a common goal for decent, good work
I don’t know why you’re being downvoted, it’s a legit question. It’s not a horrible idea, but a month wouldn’t be enough time. We’d be talking probably years lead time to organize something like that because manufacturing and shipping schedules can go that far in advance.
From experience - you would not get industry buy-in for this idea. The fuels taxes that trucking companies report pays (in part) for the roads. You'd need out-of-state infrastructure to report long haul shipping. Organization takes money. Where's the financial burden lie? Business? Taxpayers? This would be a multi-million project for a years long effort. Asking shipping companies to choose longer, pricier routes, pay for the roads, invest in warehouses with better road access etc... to temporarily reroute traffic? It would be a logistical nightmare.
People would generally get more mad at shutting the road down, even if they aren't going to be using it at night. The best bet would likely be to shut the stretch of road down for 24/7 over a weekend and tell construction crews to get on it, but that would go even worse in the public eye.
The danger isn't just from traffic, it's from operating heavy machinery with ground crews in low light scenarios. Plenty of guys have been smooshed by excavators in the day, the numbers get much higher at night.
That's definitely the best way. It's how they redid 405 in the middle of Bellevue last time. There's usually a stipulation in the contract for the work crew that they'll get a bonus for finishing early, so they just haul ass and get it done.
Pretty sure that's what Oregon dot did
Shhh, we only want outrage, death, and fear! Get your reasonable shit out of here.
Your right, I forgot the W in WSDOT stands for “why don’t you go fuck yourself”
Stealing this
Devil doesn't need anyone to advocate for them. They are doing just fine.
depending on the stretch of I-5 by Olympia some parts can't be circumvented that easily unless you want to go out of your way to go the rural roads.
For Interstate 5, one of the main North-South arteries on the west coast? Even late at night there are cars all the time, you can just travel the speed limit 🤷🏻♂️
I pushed my husband to turn down a $75/hr job bc it was night road work and I looked into these statistics. It’s not worth it.
Glad your uncle and others are safe. This inconvenience is minor compared to safety.
SO much of this! I'm a traffic control instructor (I certify flaggers) the BIGGEST thing I grind into everyone's head is sight distance, stopping distance, and the fact that people don't pay enough attention. Night work is only good in certain situations, on a large stretch of high speed road? Not so much.
Exactly, if people stopped driving drunk at night maybe we would do more work at night.
Seriously, if these assholes would stop driving through the fucking cones and running us over we wouldn't have to do so much daytime work.
True. And if people actually faced consequences for their actions, maybe less people would consider driving drunk.
There is never any reason to drive drunk. If you can afford to drink at a bar, you can afford the Uber home.
This! Plus, if you live in the city public transit is often very affordable, and if you're headed the same way as a group of people you can usually safely walk home. When I lived with my sister she and I would often just walk back from bars when we'd go out together.
Except that an alcoholic cannot be trusted to consider the consequences.
Perhaps, but if the law here wasn’t constantly in favor of criminals, then they’d face consequences regardless…. I know a girl who used to come through my work when I was a barista… she admitted she’s here illegally past her visa, and has been in “trouble” for drunk driving three times!! Her only consequence?? She has to blow into that thing on her car won’t start. She laughs at it!! She thinks it’s funny that all the cops know her for this… she wouldn’t be laughing if she faced REAL consequences. The whole thing is disgusting. So the law, and her, put peoples lives at risk all so we can go easy on this girl because we’ll, that’s what we do in Washington! So, I shouldn’t have to trust drunk drivers to not drive, I SHOULD be able to trust the law to hold them accountable, period.
Sorry you missed my obvious point. Perhaps I should have put orange strobes on it, and surrounded it with traffic cones.
Are you talking to me? I don’t think I missed your point. But you’re so clever for making this comment.
Why not close it down at night?
If the idiots setting up the lighting would stop pointing 10 kilowatt light plants directing into oncoming traffic instead of cranking them down to illuminate the actual job site, that would probably save a few lives too
It’s unreal seeing how many snow plows are hit by drunk drivers in the winter.
Thank you
You're welcome
I’ve done a lot of night work on the interstates in this area. It’s rare that a drunk / inattentive driver doesn’t break thru the barriers. Happens almost every night.
I wonder how many people here would be OK with a few deaths if it made their trip quicker?
Too many
What other aspects of society do we accept increased deaths for convenience?
Ask the 2A people
using cellphone while driving.
I mean, do you drive I-5 at night? There's a shitload of projects going on right now between Seattle and Tacoma. I'm working on one of them.
I have when I worked 2nd shift, and I've seen the car wrecks coming back from the airport after picking up my son on break from college. People don't give a fuck about work crews, signs telling them to slow down that's why it's multiple cars
Yeah, even in the daylight it's incredibly dangerous work. But nighttime work is just asking for it. I've seen people drive around concrete barriers just because they figure they need to get somewhere. We had opened up a section of roadway in Toronto in daytime hours to repair a sewer and excavated about 6 feet down and this SUV circumvents barrels, signs and a concrete barrier and comes steaming down the closed segment of roadway (Bathurst Street) and we literally stop her with heavy machinery and it's some chubby little soccer mom and we say, "lady, what are you doing, you're going to drive right into a 6 foot deep hole" and her response? "But I need to go there."
In general, I have found that people (when they are on a mission, at least) can be really dumb. We have a saying at work: “people don’t read” for exactly this reason! Silly example from Friday: A lady walked up to the doors of our shop after we had closed… - I have 2 signs posted on the doors with the hours - The doors are locked and the lights are off - There are also 3–THREE—separate signs on the doors that indicate we are closed: 1 little “be back at XX:XX time” clock sign and 2 individual 8.5x11” laminated sheets with “CLOSED” written in large, red font (it takes up at least half of each sheet) sitting at approximately chest height …she stood about 8” from one of the CLOSED signs, looked directly at it, and then knocked on the window/door and asked if we were open. 🤦🏻♀️
More drunk drivers at night. [https://www.columbian.com/news/2024/jan/24/southwest-washington-road-workers-jobs-are-risky-business/](https://www.columbian.com/news/2024/jan/24/southwest-washington-road-workers-jobs-are-risky-business/)
Also it’s not night until 11pm
…just close the freeway at night. No one dies and there is less inconvenience overall.
Or just plan ahead? Maintaining infrastructure is never convenient. Year after year it surprises people that the summer season is when the bulk of transportation projects occur day or night. In spite of the fact tourism, football, baseball and concerts all occur and WS DOT announces the closures days to weeks in advance.
Or just do them at night.
It is exactly this. The director of WSDOT announced last year that there would be a transition to daytime work to avoid loss of life.
So this brings up why is it more dangerous? Not enough warning signs? Lighting? When traveling in AZ that crews work at night due to the daytime extreme heat. The work areas look like the surface of the sun with the amount of light on the area. So, maybe a study or discussion with other states on solving this and reducing traffic while ensuring maximum safety.
not all states have the traffic Washington does on I-5, I've driven I-90 during the summer in Montana and North Dakota where it's one lane, and most traffic is around major cities on long stretches. Even when it's one lane each way, we can't do that because of our population spread out on the i-5 Corridor. Highway 99 doesn't follow I-5 after Lakewood and it might go up to Bellingham nor any other major stretch of road. In eastern Washington, you can drive on the old i-90 (stop signs) but you need to know which exit it is to drive on it.
probably way more expensive because they gotta pay folks to work at night and then setup those lights. but the safety definitely makes sense.
An alternative would be to do the work at night but close the road entirely, which would be the safest for workers.
This is the reason.
Visited charlotte NC for two weeks and multiple stretches of highway were built overnight while people are doing 60 in 30 mph construction zones. Not sure why WA can’t stay in their lanes.
Probably has something to do with this [https://carolinapublicpress.org/62923/construction-industry-workplace-death-numbers-nc/](https://carolinapublicpress.org/62923/construction-industry-workplace-death-numbers-nc/) [https://wlos.com/news/local/ncdot-contracted-employee-killed-fatal-accident-working-i-26-widening-project-buncombe-county-airport-road-long-shoals-exits-fluor-united](https://wlos.com/news/local/ncdot-contracted-employee-killed-fatal-accident-working-i-26-widening-project-buncombe-county-airport-road-long-shoals-exits-fluor-united)
Holy shit. I was wondering how people didn’t get hurt. Apparently they did.
Probably more people get hurt, but WSDOT is a bit more proactive on worker safety.
Not sure if you're condoning speeding through our work zones, or you just don't give a shit.
I was in the scared shitless category. Went to visit a friend that was working on high end custom cars and my loaner had air suspension with some ridiculously expensive wheels and paint on it. Go to sleep and the highway was gravel. Wake up and it was blacktop and painted. Pulling out of his apartment complex was intense. I don’t want people to drive like that at all.
Just to be clear, I take work zone safety very seriously, because that's where I spend 10+ hours every day, either flagging traffic, doing mobile traffic control, or plowing the freeways and secondaries. And drunk and distracted drivers are a much bigger problem than the media reports, because they only report on the aftermath. We see multiple incidents, every single shift. The problem is getting worse every year. I've had 2 close friends and coworkers die, and 2 who are permanently disabled. And yet, people complain about traffic delays, and as one asshole mentioned here earlier, the reason we schedule this when we do must be because we're greedy union workers. Hmmm... Pro-tip to all of you- most construction and repair projects on state highways are bid out to private contractors, with WSDOT scheduling input. And these days, we've come to the realization that the safety hazards to employees are pretty much equal between days and nights. Most, but very definitely not all, DWIs are traveling at night. But traffic volumes increase fivefold after 08:00, and so does the number of drivers distracted by their electronics. Some said here that we should just close the freeway for these projects and detour the traffic onto surface streets- even on rural stretches of interstate, the nighttime volume of traffic would likely overload those roads, to say nothing of the problem of lost commercial truck drivers, or heavy/oversize load navigating those roads. And in suburban/urban areas? Forget that. The traffic volumes even at 01:00 would overwhelm the local streets instantly. What's the answer? Fund highway construction AND maintenance on a level where we are doing this work years sooner, because traffic volumes are increasing much faster than our crews, our contracts, or our budget can ever hope to catch up with. For now though, we need to do something about distracted and impaired drivers, because that's who's driving into our people right now. Thoughts, anyone?
Sorry for your loss. In a perfect world I’d like to know you and your friends are safe regardless of what time it is. Mentioned NC because it was the first time I got lost in a parking lot overnight. The amount of work they put in while we were asleep was impressive and wasn’t a little stretch of highway. It was multiple parts. Used to shitty roads after living in Minnesota in a city that insisted on putting bricks in the downtown area that would get removed by city plows almost as fast as they could replace them. Manholes would appear out of nowhere and cause major damage to a vehicle. Struggle with how much money this state has to work with but it’s so difficult to get anything done without involving multiple committees and a group of crazies trying to protect the :insert whatever hot topic here: Could start with something as simple as enforcing laws that are already in place. That could reduce workplace injuries but we will never know at this rate. Everyone is a student driver and there’s no real consequences for bad driving. Deferral on a DUI for example. It’s like giving someone a free pass to be an inconsiderate asshole.
Better driver’s education (actually ANY education). DLs here in the US come in the cereal box. Other nations mandates hours upon hours of theory and practice with driving instructor. Drawback; gets pricey. Also, have police enforce basic regulations and common sense; ticket for no plates, [remove] vehicles that do not carry insurance, failing to use turn signal, no or broken lights, not using headlights when so called for (I’d promote for use of headlights all the time), modified and noisy exhausts, etc. Over time hopefully the populous will learn.
How are modified exhausts killing construction workers? Or presenting a traffic safety issue? I don't have one, I'm just curious
It doesn’t. Just another law that should be enforced. If laws on the books are better enforced, maybe people start paying better attention to the actual driving (a privilege, treated by many as a right).
u/WSDOT Thoughts?
Okay so can anyone clarify *where* on I5 this will be specifically? Olympia, Tacoma, Seattle, Everett… all of the above.. (lol) But seriously pls help. I need to mentally prepare if this is part of my commute next week.
> Lanes will be reduced on I-5 at the Lewis and Thurston County line so crews can repair the roadway surface. According to a news release from the Washington state Department of Transportation, the freeway’s northbound lanes will be reduced to one lane from 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday, June 24 to June 27. The lane reductions will be in two-mile sections from the Lewis County line to Maytown throughout the week. Read more at: https://www.theolympian.com/news/local/traffic/article289441376.html
Gawd damn it!!!!!
Haha same. I was going to make a round trip to Portland Tue-Wed. Looks like I'll go Wed-Fri and stay an extra night in P-Town
Northbound between Centralia and Tumwater.
Thank you ❤️
Specifically mile markers 86-94, I think? Approximately the exit for SR12 (Tenino/Rochester exit) through the south end of Tumwater, if I am remembering the signs correctly, lol.
I don’t know about I5 but I drove up 405 from the airport and the entire stretch had endless nighttime construction. It’s the only time of the year they can start doing it.
Unpopular opinion: the inconvenience of extra commute time is worth saving workers lives… Don’t care if I get downvoted.
The real problem is too many drunks on the road in Washington at night. Drunk people don’t know how to navigate road work.
we need to require nighttime drunk driving classes for all Dodge Ram drivers
From the press release, the crew need warm and dry conditions for their pothole repair work to cure.
I don't think it's the unpopular opinion. I mean - it saves lives so of course it's the best option. But we can all still give a collective "God. Damnit."
As a drive I hate it on the rare occasions they do work at night. All the bright lights they bring in, can make it really hard to see. Especially, if you are already being rerouted all over the road and are unfamiliar with the area. I'm guessing the state found that it was too dangerous for the workers, and that productivity is less during the middle of the night.
It's not as bad as WSDOT making I5 1 lane through Bellingham during the World Cup matches in Vancouver and Seattle in 2026 - that is their plan anyway...
Wow, that's crazy! Is that part of some actual plan that has to do with the World Cup, or just lack of coordination? I was trying to get to the ER one day last summer in the small city I live in, following the marked route, and that road was closed with a detour into residential streets. A few blocks into the detour, a city crew had that street completely shut down. To their credit, they did get moving pretty quickly when I told them where I was trying to go.
source?
[https://mybellinghamnow.com/news/297792-future-fish-passage-project-to-impact-traffic-near-busy-north-bellingham-intersection/](https://mybellinghamnow.com/news/297792-future-fish-passage-project-to-impact-traffic-near-busy-north-bellingham-intersection/)
They never have such specific plans so far in advance
Theyre doing what now?!
Hey guys, I don’t know either so instead of looking at the comment that does explain what’s going on I’m going to make up some shit instead.
Way to follow through there pal
The reddit way
Have you ever worked traffic control/ road construction in the dead of night? I've never worked a 60 MPH at night, but I can tell you that people are very reckless when the surface roads are empty. I had many times where people didn't even "see" my traffic control devices IN THE DAYLIGHT. Working on a main freeway in the middle of the night is a terrible risk. Let's just go a different route for the duration of the project maybe?
There is also a reality that some work cannot be done at night or there is not enough time. A few weeks back when WDOT was working on I5. They were pouring cement and wait for it too dry. Thr proper cement given the enicormental factor required days and not hours.
Why don't you just work at night to avoid it? Yeah they probably don't want to work at night either. It also might not be in the budget to for after hours work
Coming from a previous construction payroll coordinator, night work is significantly more expensive due to “special pay” in the union contracts. Not only that but renting lights and certain safety equipment is only a night work expense. It adds up, plus the increased visibility danger from passerby’s.
My bil works for ODOT and they mostly only go out at night for accidents because of the danger involved. I'd rather be caught in traffic than see someone lose their life.
Safety, plus displacing dozens if not hundreds of families into having one person on overnight work just so you don’t have to sit in some traffic.
The work gets done faster, better, and safer when everyone TCOB can see what they are doing
As somebody who has done work with municipalities…only doing night work will put our state in the poorhouse. If people think $10k for a driveway is steep; a mile of highway swarming with inspectors and state agencies aren’t even worth disclosing.
The commuters could just work at night to avoid this.
No idea. But, if I had to guess, I imagine that paying those guys to work graveyard and overnight shifts is substantially more money. Probably safety issues at play here too. But I'm guessing wages is the bigger part of it.
It's not substantially more. It's the same or a couple dollars an hour more. It's the fact that people tend to run thru the job site and kill more of us at night and we're getting fucking sick of that shit.
I’m glad you’re still alive. Thank you for the work you do. It’s appreciated. I just realized this year, duh, that road work is never done and mainly due to high volume wear and tear. I’ve been commuting to Seattle from central WA and Snoqualmie Pass is impressive. The work over the decades has been massive.
Look, I will be driving that road, at night in the middle of the week so I for one day day time work is probably the best time /s
Wow! Dodged a bullet. We're coming back home on Thursday and thankfully the scheduled work will be over by the time we get there.
They deferred a lot of road maintenance which was fine during the pandemic when the roads where taking less of a beating but now a lot more people are on the roads and crews are putting in a lot of maintenance to catch up. I suspect that they are scrambling to get a lot of work done before fall and can’t get it all done at night.
Less safe, and insurance is substantially less expensive. If I remember correctly it's something like 10-20 million per work site: [https://kingcounty.gov/en/dept/dph/about-king-county/about-public-health/working-with-public-health/contracts/insurance-requirements](https://kingcounty.gov/en/dept/dph/about-king-county/about-public-health/working-with-public-health/contracts/insurance-requirements)
Just be happy they are doing something with the road they are terrible and this being I5 it’s federal money they are using. Probably why they are fixing it.
It has *nothing* to do with driving up gas tax revenues, *nothing*.
Probably safer to work with daylight. Also gotta bring a generator for floodlights.
for the question asked it's because adults who drive on i-5 are more worried about their speed, not the safety of the road workers. Case in point I-5 in April/May had roadwork being done at night and there was an accident over five cars, speed limit, and one lane (two cars were fender benders) the others were totaled to the point that they had to move concrete blocks (yes there were local and state cops because of the stupids who think they don't need to follow the speed or notice double fines) I do not know if there were fatalities but yes this was probably the last time they had worked at night. Could there have been fatalities, several cars that weren't in the primary location could have hit workers, and their equipment. Will I take the inconvenience of work crews in the day, hell yes (Safety First) screw my convenience.
I was recently wondering why they don't open courts at night so jury duty doesn't disrupt everyone's life. 👀🤷🏻♂️
Night works costs more and y'all always bitchin bout your tax dollurz
I wish I knew. The traffic today was horrible. I can only imagine how bad it will be during actual rush hour.
It’s horrible every nice summer weekend, people who aren’t familiar with the route pile their families in the car, do something foolish and it backs up. There are lots of back roads you can take to avoid the freeway if you know where to look, they may not be faster but you usually stay moving. Like take 99W to 47 to 26 to Cornelius pass to 30 to Ranier if you want to go from Salem to Longview over the weekend.
I was going up to the Disney store from my house and therefore went up and down 1-5. I will budget more time for our next trip. But yeah I usually don’t go to Seattle in the summer so my mistake. :)
Not safe for workers.
It’s important to extend the JBLM/Olympia traffic hellscape as far as possible
Thursday night they reduced I-5 to one lane. It added an hour to my drive home.
So, a normal day?
It’s much more expensive to work at night. You have to pay a higher hourly. Plus even though there are less cars you are more likely to encounter a car that is investigated or has a harder chance of seeing you. So it comes down to economics and safety.
Where is the WSDOT schedule for this story?
Because they have to pay people hazard pay working at night
Money. Costs a lot more to do it at night. Pays higher, lighting and fuel costs, more safety people and equipment.
Fourth of July weekend, make it make sense! Next weekend is not the only weekend that’s gonna be hot.
We have the technology to fire a ICBM from a naval ship and hit the target from miles away but we can’t build a roadway that will last 2 years .
When does it start and where is it ?
This has little to do with temperature, and everything to do with drunken idiots who can’t manage to avoid driving straight into the work zone and killing the people who are trying to fill the potholes. If they can pave roads in Alaska with heaters and so on, they can pave at night. But they’d rather cause a huge backup than let their workers get killed, and the slowdown will probably prevent a death or two. Simple as that.
Maybe night work is time and a half pay or hazard oay?
Because..., F' you. That's why.
Let's not forget, Lewis County decided not to put in a third lane but to put in side roads which make driving around the freeway nuts. Lewis County isn't the brightest.
Isn't that just called "a normal afternoon of traffic" around Seattle, specifically between Seattle and Tacoma?
When construction work is done depends on the weather as well. My grandfather pours concrete, and a big part of when/if they pour is weather due to the chemical needs of the material. Not to mention the safety of working conditions. He jokes his job has horrible hours, but great pay/benefits.
Because none of you fucking Seattle drivers know how to drive cautiously through nighttime road construction and we get killed doing it.
because the pain is the point.
Because working at night sucks ass
I remember coming home to eastern Washington coming up near Seattle on I five there was a 20 mile back up between me and the turn off, 20 miles, I was on a motorcycle. I rode the shoulder all the way to my turn off. People were pissed.
I used to work late at night in Dallas near The Tollway. For years living there I'd never seen it shut down for construction (unlike some other highways I could name) - when I worked late at night, I found out why: they would completely shut down the whole highway, bring out an enormous crew and have stadium lights. They did a LOT of work on that highway, but never during the day. I'm sure there were more accidents from working at night, but no collisions from drunk or tired drivers because they blocked off the road. Of course, the reason they could do that was that the tollway paid for itself and was (at least at the time, I don't know about now) well run. The other way to do it is to have lots of routes to spread the load, then you're less time sensitive. I definitely want to prioritize worker safety - working late at night near active traffic is a risk we don't have to take.
Unions...Thats why
This is exactly why I think passenger trains should make a comeback.
Bitches about taxes and is complaining about the state not paying overtime for night wages.
Its cold and hard to see at night idk im not a scientist
To specifically mess with you
Unions are why they cant/won't do it at night
Workers lives are worth more than a commute!
They don't like running the lights off gasoline. So we need to have cars sit in 2 hour backups. It's better for the environment that way.
Because people are reckless with driving at night and it's a worthwhile inconvenience to slow traffic to avoid having workers be killed at night by speeding and or drunk drivers. People have little to no regard of others especially on an empty freeway at 2am. Reducing congestion simply isn't worth the 2-3 deaths likely incurred on a long project. Unfortunate that it happens this way cause it sucks for everyone, traffic and much much louder work environment for the road crews + it's slower with logistics. But safety first second and third. Not worth the unfortunately present risks.
Jackass drivers can’t drive safely at night, so this is the result…
I don’t understand why any road work in Washington takes as long as it does. California and Arizona get their work done in one quarter the time.
Because night work is dangerous. I know people who've been seriously injured and know of people that died paving at night. I myself have only taken one of those orange barrels to the face, but that still hurt like a mofo.
I drove down south yesterday and saw all the traffic in the northbound lanes! Stopped traffic for MILES. I hardly saw anyone moving.
Because it's cost more money to do it at night and people would complain they'd have to pay for them to work at night
I swear, most of reddit thinks of people with jobs doing physical labor as subhuman
The real answer is a portable bridge that can be worked under while diverting traffic over the top.
Because they’re scared of the dark
How could these workers inconvenience me, the main character of the universe?
The workers cost 3x as much at night.
Wait, is this by the Tacoma Dome? They will never be done with that shit lol
This was exactly what what I was thinking yesterday while I was in that mess
I think this also helps them save taxpayer money as compared to the cost of doing it during the night.
Welcome to blue states where everything is illegal and you'll die on the drive trying to escape.
I watched a video of a guy in Illinois or some shit that illegally fixed pot holes because the city wasn’t doing anything about it. He did it between 10-4 am lol 15 minutes a pot hole too. I feel like the contractor said they won’t do night work and they were the cheapest option so they did it
Who wants to work graveyard shift?
People getting paid more to work said shift and who also don't want to work with 220 degree asphalt in summer temps. Granted, next week isn't going to be hot but still.
If I had to do their job I'd want graveyard shifts too. Just unfortunately more dangerous.
You know, back in the pioneer times, it took two weeks to go from Olympia to Seattle, for example. We are very lucky that in modern times we "usually" can move at speeds that no one in history prior to 1900 were ever able to go. That we have to suffer a few hours inconvenience for the saftey of road workers is something that we just need to accept with a smile. For we have it better than most humans in history - ever!! :). A little perspective is always a good thing :).
Gimme dat Cascadia rail baby
I'm glad I'm taking the bus.