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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.
The Rainier construction project is such an ongoing nightmare for everyone, except apparently our current elected officials. Those poor business whose access has been severely limited for YEARS, the commuters wasting time sitting in never-ending traffic lineups, the mess and dirt that makes Renton look like a dump, is this really what our mayor and council believe is “just a temporary issue”? Temporary that goes on and on and on and on… I am so tired of our taxpayer money being wasted due to mismanagement and lack of care by our administration and council. Why has Transportation Committee Chair McIrvin not demanded the project get back on track months/years ago? Why has Council President Alberson ignored all pleas to reign in the ridiculous apathy by the Administration and kept them accountable? Where is the leadership? Oh, the mayor will take care of it, you council people just be quiet and fall in line so he’s not embarrassed by another poorly run project. How many businesses have we lost or will we lose before this is finally complete? We’re tired of excuses. But truthfully, that’s all this City’s “leadership” has. Don’t worry Renton, SOCCER is coming!!! That will fix everything, and you stupid people will be happy to have it here, says the mayor. Um, um, um, um, um says the mayor.
Not to mention the random murders we now have to deal with in Renton.
Oh yeah, because those are new.
They’ve gotten more rando. Most murders and violence happens when the victim knows the assailant, but we’ve had quite a few violent crimes recently that happed just because the victim was in the wrong place.
How do they make sure every change orders is legit? Are there audits?!! King County has a problem with this.
Its laughable the amount of money they are spending on that ridiculas project next to the old Roxy Theater. Not going to do anything for the city but be yet another place for rif raf to gather….
Nothing say rotting downtown core like bunch of white people saying “Let’s use ball sport to attract the youth!”
North Renton has suffered under this administration with no representation. None of the council or the mayor lives in our district. Thus, Rainier Av, the issues at Safeway, ION Renton LLC derelict and dilapidated building don’t matter to them. The downtown has such potential, but there doesn’t seem to be any cohesive vision. It seems our leaders just want to keep us looking as though a bomb went off. I can’t imagine how we can host any events around the World Cup without huge embarrassment to the city. Come on leadership, LEAD!
North Renton is experiencing the outcome of decisions made at the ballot box. Representation matters, and they chose unwisely over the last election cycles. As a group, they promoted Carmen over Mary, for example.
I genuinely hope North Renton sees the same kind of improvement in time, but frankly, at some point, they need to understand that they’re getting what they voted for.
You people are pathetic. You lost for good reason. Carmen is best for all of us.
Ya.. she is a latter climber. Won’t be here long. Does not really care about what is best for residents just gaining her way up and out…
Follow the leadership trail. A full outside project audit of decision making and finances would likely uncover the quality of our elected leadership and those responsible for managing projects such as this one. The results should cause us all to question the qualities of our future elected leaders those hired they entrusted to oversee. As a life long resident the visual audit I see every day is unbelievably sad.