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Motorists on South Second Street are warned about Rainier Ave traffic delays ahead
One key lesson every good project manager learns early in their career: if you want a project to come in on budget, it must come in on schedule. Delays create extra labor costs, out-of-sequence work, tool and equipment shortages, evolving requirements, and other consequences that can dramatically increase the costs.
I previously described the eight months of delays and $4,000,000 cost increase on this project in a blog post in March: “Motorists and businesses losing patience with delayed Rainier Avenue project, originally scheduled to finish this week”
Monday we learned that these delays have cost Renton another $3,400,000. The complete ten-page spending bill can be found here.
Excerpt from this December 1, 2025 spending bill
The following excerpt from one of the engineering contractors on this project shows how initial delays cascade into further delays, and new costs rapidly accumulate as requirements and processes shift over time (emphasis added).
“All documentation was developed by our team and subsequently approved by the City and its legal review team expeditiously following Notice to Proceed. Unfortunately, we were unable to proceed with presenting and securing these property rights due to evolving pre-certification review complications between WSDOT and City management lasting approximately seven to eight months. That said, we’ve been notified recently that these oversight issues are resolved and that our team will shortly be given approval to make offers.
The complicating factors at this point, and the purpose of this contract amendment request, is that all valuations are now over six months old, as are the project’s title reports, and WSDOT recently has undergone extensive updates to its Right of Way Manual in the last 60 days resulting in a total redrafting of all of the City’s temporary construction easement documents. Also notable: in an unprecedented compliance order for all local public agencies, WSDOT is now requiring pre-approval on all Administrative Settlement Justifications on a parcel-by-parcel basis for negotiations settlements $1 or more above Fair Market Value. It is difficult to estimate how much more effort this WSDOT review will cost, but we will be diligent to secure these approvals as efficiently and quickly as possible.
Regarding our increased fee request, the revisions to all (26) Appraisal Waivers and redrafting of all of the offer packages are effectively a restart of most of our efforts.”
Keeping on schedule starts at the top. Renton’s previous Public Works director brought in earlier phases of Rainier Avenue improvement on time and on budget, with very few lane closures. He personally inspected the construction sites daily, and kept the project moving as planned. When anything got off schedule, those of us in elected office would help him get it back on schedule. Renton’s current Public Works director often phones into meetings from his home on Bainbridge Island, and has never lived in King County. Lengthy lane closures and delays have been the norm on this project, and it feels like little has been done to protect the schedule or cost to taxpayers.
Motorists have had to contend with perpetual jams from constant lane closures during most of this project; previous phases of Rainier Ave Improvement were done with few lane closures.
Residents should make it clear to Renton leadership that no more delays and no more tax money will be tolerated for this project– it’s way past time to get it done.
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