Mercer To Get Messier? I-5 Metering Comes To Notorious Street

SEATTLE, WA - It might sound bad - yet another set of traffic lights added to Seattle's notorious "Mercer mess" corridor through South Lake Union. But the Washington state Department of Transportation thinks new I-5 metering will improve traffic.

Starting Saturday, metering lights will be added to the northbound and southbound Mercer Street I-5 entrances. Like many other ramps around the region, the lights will control the flow of traffic onto the highway. The meters are also supposed to relieve "merge anxiety."

"Many of us can feel a bit stressed looking ahead to merging traffic. Whether merging lanes or merging from the on-ramp to the freeway, predicting fellow driver behavior can be taxing. The new signals will help to ease some of the anxiety by alternating traffic and taking out the guesswork," WSDOT officials wrote in a blog post.

For now, the meters will only be turned on during weekends. Traffic engineers will monitor the results, and the meters could be turned on full-time by April 10.

Read more on the WSDOT blog

Image courtesy WSDOT