Construction on more Hwy 99 upgrades in Edmonds set to begin in 2029
Published 10:43 am Wednesday, September 16, 2026
EDMONDS — Construction on a series of upgrades to Highway 99 in Edmonds is expected to begin as soon as 2029, a city transportation official said at a roundtable discussion Monday.
The upgrades to Highway 99, which will add wider sidewalks, new bike lanes, improved lighting, safer crosswalks, new ADA curb ramps and improved stormwater management to the busy road, have been a long time coming, according to Edmonds transportation engineer Bertrand Hauss, who spoke at a Monday meeting of the Edmonds Civic Roundtable, a nonprofit group.
Initial work on the upgrades began in 2017, Hauss said, with the city looking for ways to make a 2.5 mile portion of Highway 99 between 244th Street and 210th Street safer for drivers, cyclists and pedestrians. The challenge is that the upgrades came with a hefty price tag: about $173 million in total, according to Hauss.
The city split up the upgrades into seven different segments, each about a quarter to a half mile in length, to make it easier to find funding for each of the projects and spread the costs over time. Before starting on those segments, it first built a central median over what used to be left turn lanes along most of the corridor and also dropped the speed limit from 45 miles per hour to 40. That was because the median would address the most critical safety needs, Hauss said Monday.
“There was a lot of conflicting points,” Hauss said. “You have left turns, you have people coming out of driveways. There is almost like there’s conflicts everywhere on the corridor.”
Now, the city is planning to begin construction on major upgrades in the next few years. Edmonds has now reached 30% of the design of two segments of the Highway 99, according to Hauss.
The first segment that will be built is about 2,500 feet long, between 244th Street Southwest and 238th Street Southwest. That project includes the safety upgrades like bike lanes and new crosswalks, while also adding a number of left turn lanes on 238th Street to reduce congestion. The project will also relocate overhead utility poles underground, while adding tree buffers between the road and the bike and pedestrian paths.
It is expected to cost about $30 million, paid for largely via state allocations. The city also got a federal grant toward the project. Edmonds expects to begin construction on that segment in 2029, lasting until 2030.
Construction on a second segment, stretching from 224th Street Southwest to about 1,000 feet north of 220th Street Southwest, is expected to begin in 2030 and end in 2031. That second segment is expected to cost about $49 million. Edmonds still needs to find additional funding to complete that project, Hauss said.
Agencies throughout Snohomish County are studying ways to improve safety along the busy corridor of Highway 99. The Washington State Department of Transportation spent more than two years studying possible improvements to a 6.6-mile corridor of the highway Lynnwood and unincorporated Snohomish County; those upgrades, including new medians, bike lanes, bus lanes and sidewalks, could cost over $600 million in total.
Everett has also received grant funding to start planning work and early design of safety improvements along Evergreen Way, city traffic engineer Corey Hert said in a June committee meeting.
It will likely take years before the remainder of upgrades along the 2.5 mile corridor of Highway 99 in Edmonds are completed, Hauss said, but an exact timeline is unclear as the projects are contingent on finding funding.
Will Geschke: 425-339-3443; william.geschke@heraldnet.com; X: @willgeschke.
