Wallyhood recently reported on a presentation to the Wallingford Community Council regarding the deep tunnel boring in south Wallingford, along the waterfront. The purpose of the tunnel is to create a storage tank for storm water so the West Point Treatment Plant in Discovery Park is not overwhelmed during a downpour and the mixture of storm water and residential waste water is not dumped out into the Ship Canal.
Back in the day when Wallingford was first developed it seemed like a very good idea to combine the residential waste water and rain water so the wastes would be diluted when it all got dumped into Lake Union. One hundred and twenty years on we see that was not such a good idea. To stop the overflows into the Ship Canal it is necessary to intercept the main Wallingford drain sewer line that runs down Stone Way to the Canal. A hole will be dug down to the sewer line and a connector pipe installed to route the water over to the new tunnel. Because the drain is right in the middle of Stone Way it is going to be necessary to shut down one block of the street while they dig down to install the connecting pipe.
The map above shows the route of the new connector from Stone Way to the new storage tunnel. So not only will it be necessary to shut down the one block of Stone Way N, from N 34th to N 35th, for a year, eventually they will also need to shut down N 35th to Woodlawn Ave N. The gas company will be doing work on the block to reroute their lines this week. The complete shut down of the Stone Way block will begin February 6. A two-way bike lane and the sidewalk on the east side of Stone Way N will remain open. We’ll let you know when they shut down N 35th in 2024.
The map here shows the detour is relatively simple. Traffic to and from N 34th and N Northlake Way to and from N 35th will be rerouted to Woodland Park Ave N, just one block west of Stone Way N. Some traffic that now uses N 34th will be encouraged to use N 40th as an alternate.
If you want more information on this project, go to the Public Utililties website.