The city of Renton will be repaving and changing the lane pattern on Oakesdale Avenue this fall.

On Aug. 11, the Renton City Council accepted the funds from a federal grant through the Puget Sound Regional Council for $1.737 million to restore Oakesdale Avenue SW between SW 34th Street to SW 16th Street.

Renton Public Works project manager Keith Woolley said the preliminary cost estimate for the project is $3.3 million, but the figure could change based on the bids they receive. He said the city will cover the remainder of the costs.

Woolley said the road was last paved around 1998.

“It’s getting close to 30 years old,” Woolley said. “If you drive it, you see there’s lots of cracks. If you can resurface it now, it’s a lot cheaper than letting the whole road go to pot.”

Woolley said resurfacing involves taking the top two inches of pavement off and replacing it with new asphalt. While resurfacing, they are also installing bike lanes, updating the lanes and upgrading intersection ramps to current ADA standards. He said they are not going to alter the curb, gutter or sidewalk on the road or update any of the utilities under the road.

Woolley said the number one concern on Oakesdale Avenue is vehicles speeding on the road, and the police department encouraged them to look into ways to reduce speeds through engineering. They will be “revising the channelization in order to accommodate all modes of transportation.” He said the current lane layout is more than what is needed for the current demand, and the road is “basically a runway” at 66 feet wide of straight road that allows people to speed.

“We’re going to make sure it still accommodates the commercial vehicles,” Woolley said. “It will certainly still be well under capacity for the volumes currently going in the project.”

Woolley said their research found they could reduce the road to one lane in each direction, double the traffic and still be within capacity.

With the decrease in driving lanes, Woolley said they plan to add temporary channelization such as islands, medians, buffered bike lanes to “take away the feeling of a runway.”

Oakesdale Avenue is bordered by land known as Longacres, which was bought by Unico Properties in 2021. Since the acquisition, the real estate investment and operating company has divided up portions of the property to the Seattle Sounders training facility and a training facility for Alaska Airline employees. However, an article in the Puget Sound Business Journal in 2022 suggested the company also plans to build “up to 3,000 apartments units” on the property bordering the Souder commuter rail station in Tukwila.

Woolley said people may be concerned about taking lanes away from the road with a possible future development, but he said they are not doing anything that will permanently impact the road, and the lanes can be changed in the future if the traffic demands it.

“They can easily pop off buttons or take up a median and that nice, brand-new, 66 feet of pavement will still be there,” Woolley said.

The project is expected to start around Oct. 1. He said they plan to repave half the road at a time, allowing traffic to flow on the other half while construction is underway. He said they will be working during the day.

“There really should be minimum impact traffic,” Woolley said.