The state and Lewis County governments are spending a lot of time and money to make improvements to Interstate 5 throughout Southwest Washington.

    The combined efforts at the Chamber Way overpass in Chehalis, the repaving of the interstate from Koontz Road to Harrison Avenue in Centralia, eight miles of widening from Grand Mound to Maytown and the upcoming big project to add new freeway lanes at Mellen Street show the value that transportation experts place on a well-maintained I-5.

    The $4.7 million Chamber Way project is set to be completed next week. This is good news to the retailers that need easy traffic flow for shoppers, especially during the critical upcoming holiday shopping season.

    At Grand Mound, the $90.6 million widening project is about halfway finished. Already the tight curve just north of the Great Wolf Lodge indoor water park resort has been taken out, in anticipation when the speed limit is ramped back up to 70 miles per hour.

    The big Mellen Street interchange project won’t begin for a couple more years. The project’s aim is to have roads that parallel I-5 and would connect Harrison Avenue with Mellen Street. This would allow for local traffic to stay off of I-5, creating better traffic flow on the interstate. That project was slated to cost about $150 million.

    I-5, the major north-south transportation route for the West Coast, needs this constant upgrading and repairs if it is to remain an effective interstate.

    All this time and money being spent to keep I-5 rolling underscores the importance of developing the most effective way to keep I-5 open during times of extreme flooding. We remember the four days the interstate was shut down during the flood of December 2007, which crippled the trucking industry’s ability to move needed products. At the peak of the flood about five miles of I-5 were underwater — some of it under 10 feet of water.

    The Washington State Department of Transportation estimated during that flood event about 54,000 vehicles travel on I-5 through the Twin Cities each day. When it closed down, truckers had to either pull to the side of the road and wait out the closure, or reroute from Portland to the Tri-Cities in Eastern Washington and then over Interstate 90 to Seattle, a trip of about 440 miles.

    We continue to urge those agencies in the driver’s seat for I-5 flood protection — the governor’s office, WSDOT and the Army Corps of Engineers — to look at all solutions, including retention dams in the headwaters of the Chehalis River.

    We believe a combination of many projects will offer the best protection for not only I-5, but for the entire river basin.