Washington State Route 18

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State Route 18

RCW 47.17.075

Length:

28.41 mi^[1] (45.72 km)

Formed:

1964

West end:

SR 99 in Federal Way

Major
junctions:

I-5 in Federal Way

SR 167 in Auburn

SR 516 in Covington

East end:

I-90 near Snoqualmie

Washington State Routes
< SR 17		SR 19 >

Map of State Route 18

State Route 18, also known as SR-18 or Highway 18, is a 28-mile long state highway in the U.S. state of Washington, which connects State Route 99 in south King County with Interstate 90. It runs northeast from Federal Way, through Auburn, connecting to Green River Community College, then through Covington, Maple Valley, over the 1,375 ft Tiger Summit, and then terminates at I-90 about eight miles east of Issaquah near Snoqualmie.

Highway 18 is a dangerous roadway due in part to the heavy truck traffic between I-5 and I-90. For the past several years, work as been done on a project to turn SR-18 into a limited access highway and widen it to four lanes, two in each direction. Almost three-fourths of the highway upgrade has been completed; it now has four lanes from Federal Way to Issaquah Hobart Road (although currently only one lane is open in both directions between Maple Valley and Hobart Road while construction is being completed on the expansion). The last one-forth of the expansion still needs $267.5 million in funding and construction is set to be completed by 2015.

SR-18 forms part of one possible route for a proposed future Interstate 605, though the idea faces considerable opposition. However, an appropriate measure would be to convert the highway to an Interstate after completion of the widening, as it links Interstate 5 to Interstate 90.

1 Cultural references
2 Related routes
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Cultural references

A band local to the Kent/Covington/Auburn area called Daphne Loves Derby wrote a song entitled Midnight Highway which sings "I miss our midnight rides on highway 18, 18 is gone."