You’ve probably seen the construction.
But it takes a tour to understand how a completed State Route 167 will be transformative.
“This is where it all comes together,” said Tom Slimak of the Washington State Department of Transportation, as he gave a tour of the construction site.
Slimak is the project engineer administering the SR167 contract.
WSDOT is building, in stages, a new six-mile highway between the Port of Tacoma and Puyallup that creates direct connections to Interstate 5.
It’s part of the Puget Sound Gateway Program, which includes an expansion of State Route 509 to better connect I-5 and the Port of Seattle, including Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.
SR167 Completion Project Manager Steve Fuchs said the Port of Tacoma’s advocacy led to the program finally getting funded, decades after it was first envisioned.
“We've actually got copies of those original design reports from the late 1950s,” Fuchs said.
The reason the project made sense then, and now, is that freight routes are squeezed near the Port because the highway system ends.
When trucks are forced onto local streets, they’re slowed, and so is everyone else.
A direct connection will especially benefit Washington growers sending agricultural products to the Port.
WSDOT’s work to save travel time and improve freight mobility is well underway.
Stage 1-A is already done, with a new bridge over I-5 in Fife and a roundabout on State Route 99.
Stage 1-B work is happening now, building a two-mile expressway between I-5 and the Port.
The 167 expressway will tie into State Route 509 northeast of Alexander Avenue, where the intersection will be centralized to improve traffic flow.
The current stage of the project includes three new interchanges, 20 bridges, and a million cubic yards of soil.
“That's enough to fill some 380 Olympic-size swimming pools,” Slimak said.
The soil on one embankment came from the port’s habitat restoration project on Lower Wapato Creek, which saved the cost of hauling it away and then hauling it back.
In all, the Port of Tacoma contributed $30 million to the project.
The Port also built a regional coalition that led SR167 to be one of the top funded projects in the 2015 Connecting Washington package.
Port Commissioner Dick Marzano has long served on the Puget Sound Gateway Program’s executive committee.
Commission president John McCarthy said the project is critical for the Port.
“This is essential to create jobs in our community and throughout the state,” McCarthy said. “We're so proud that we've had so many involved in this process.”
The current stage of construction includes new connections to 54th Avenue East, along with street-level improvements, and a diverging diamond interchange at I-5 that will be fully built in the final construction stage of the project.
The expressway will be tolled, with variable rates set by the Washington State Transportation Commission and collected using overhead sensors that read Good to Go passes and license plates.
Tolling helps to pay for the project, and to manage traffic volumes to ensure reliable travel times.
“The whole point is to attract trucks. We want trucks on this to keep them off the local street network and get them more efficiently into and out of the Port,” Slimak said.
Steve Fuchs said the project’s benefits go beyond moving cars and trucks.
“We're doing a lot of things that are good for the environment,” he said.
Alongside the new expressway, WSDOT is doing a major habitat restoration of Hylebos Creek, and building new sections of the spuyaləpabš trail, a shared use path that will eventually run 12 miles from Puyallup to downtown Tacoma.
The stage of the SR167 project between I-5 and the Port of Tacoma is expected to be done in 2026.
Construction on the connection to Puyallup is scheduled to finish in 2030, as a long-envisioned highway completion project becomes reality.
“To be here and actually constructing this for the Port and for Washingtonians, that's what's rewarding,” Slimak said.