A project to widen State Route 18 near Tiger Mountain will continue on its original timeline under a new biennium transportation budget adopted by state legislators.

Following concerns of a potential delay earlier this year, construction to widen a five-mile stretch of highway between Deep Creek and Issaquah-Hobart Road will begin, as planned, around 2025. Construction will begin shortly after work on a separate expansion at the SR 18/I-90 interchange is finished.

Once both projects are complete, the entirety of SR 18 will be four lanes wide.

Protecting the original timeline comes as a relief for Valley officials, who roughly five years ago joined forces with leaders from other cities along the SR 18 corridor to advocate for roadway improvements.

The group, known as the Southeast Area Legislative Transportation Coalition (SEAL-TC), see State Route 18 as a key to the region’s economic stability. An estimated two-thirds of the Valley’s workforce commute over SR 18, including service workers, hospital staff and teachers.

SnoValley CEO Kelly Coughlin and former Maple Valley Chamber CEO Erica Dial, both SEAL-TC members, thanked legislators for keeping the project’s original timeline during a Senate committee meeting last month.

“This project will benefit the entire state, it will decrease death, it will increase economic vitality and it will relieve congestion,” Dial said.

Fears of a delay emerged following the release of Gov. Jay Inslee’s proposed 2023-2025 transportation budget, which delayed funding for several highway projects into the next biennium, including the widening on SR 18.

Legislators originally earmarked funds to widen SR 18 in a 16-year, $17 billion Move Ahead Transportation package adopted last year, with money made available by the 2023-2025 biennium.

SEAL-TC members expressed frustration with Inslee’s proposal, noting it would push completion back by six years compared to original estimates from the Washington State Department of Transportation.

Mayors from seven cities near SR 18 — including North Bend, Snoqualmie and Carnation — wrote a letter to leaders of the state’s transportation committee voicing “strong opposition to any postponement.”

Snoqualmie Mayor Katherine Ross testified to the House transportation committee, saying: “Any funding delay for the State Route 18 widening project increases the risk of additional serious traffic accidents on this dangerous stretch of highway, delays the transports of goods from both Seattle and Tacoma, and further increases traffic congestion along this heavily used commuter corridor.”

Since the transportation budget’s approval, the Inslee administration has told legislators it has concerns about the budget and the capital projects it promises to deliver.

In an April letter, David Schumacher, director of the state Office of Financial Management, told House and Senate transportation committee leaders that their proposed budget was unrealistic and is “set up for failure and disappointment,” according to the Seattle Times.

Speaking to reporters during an April 24 press conference, Inslee said he did not want to delay transportation projects, but noted he did not see a way to have a sustainable budget in future years. It is a difficult time to find contractors or materials, he said.

“I am concerned about the outyear ability to deliver these projects on the scale and the timeframe that legislators wanted or have suggested in this budget,” he said.

Inslee said there could be some hard decisions in future years about which projects get paused.

“For the first biennium or two I think we’ll be OK,” he said. “After that I think there will have to be tough decisions.”

State Sen. Mark Mullet, a Democrat from Issaquah who also represents Snoqualmie, said the Legislature and governor had different opinions about the budget. There was a large bipartisan push in the House and Senate to avoid any proposed project delays, including on SR 18, he said.

“Right now we need to keep as many projects on time as possible,” Mullet said in a phone interview this week.

Mullet said he did not share the governor’s concerns and questioned why the state would limit itself before seeking out contractors for transit projects.

“I don’t know why we would assume we wouldn’t have success,” he said.