About Those Missing SR 16 Miles

SR 16, the busy Washington state highway that connects I-5 in Tacoma and SR 3 in Gorst, is missing a couple of miles. I don’t mean that it’s not all there, just that there isn’t as much of it as you might think if you go by the official state mile posts alone.

The mileage error shows up right away. Headed west, if you set your odometer to 0 when you exit I-5 and check it when you reach the mile post on the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, an accurate odometer will read 6 miles. But through some Twilight-zone measurement, the mile post indicates that you’ve already gone 8 miles. Before the second bridge opened a few years ago, the time lost in the massive traffic back-ups along that stretch made it seem like you were driving a couple of extra miles. You weren’t.

Conversely if you are headed east on SR 16 toward Tacoma and happen to notice mile post 10 in Gig Harbor, you might reasonably assume that there are 10 miles left before the road ends. There aren’t. Whatever your feelings are toward SR 16 at that point, only 8 miles remain until you reach I-5. Don’t waste them. Sure, you are about to pay a bridge toll, a negative experience for most drivers. But things usually get worse when you reach the SR 16/I-5 junction, site of some of the worst traffic on the I-5 corridor.

Curious about the reason for the missing miles, I sent an email to the state Department of Transportation. Their reply:

A portion of SR 16 in Tacoma used to travel a different alignment. When the route was realigned to its current configuration it was significantly shorter. To match the mileposts after the realignment, there was a milepost equation inserted (Milepost 5.05 = Milepost 7.28) at the east end of the Narrows Bridge thereby eliminating mileposts 6 and 7.

I have lived here long enough to remember the improvements to SR 16 in Tacoma. Portions of the road were surface streets back then, and there were a couple of traffic signals that seemed to take forever to get through. I don’t remember the old route being 2 miles longer, but I will take DOT’s word for it.

Of course upgrading SR 16 to be a limited-access highway from Tacoma to Gorst just lead to more people using it—vacationers and people moving to Gig Harbor and the Key Peninsula to enjoy the good life. Traffic around the Tacoma Narrows Bridge got so bad that DOT opened a second span in 2007. That fixed the traffic flow on SR 16 but helped make things worse along I-5. You can see why some planners say that we cannot build enough lanes to stay ahead of traffic congestion.

I also asked DOT how long SR 16 is, reasoning that there might be some room for confusion. There isn’t if you remember the missing 2 miles. According to the email I received, total mileage is 27.16 miles. That fits because the last mile post marker—visible just before SR 16 ends in Gorst—is 29.

Actually it’s hard to tell exactly where SR 16’s endpoint is as there isn’t much fanfare or notice other than a big sign for SR 3, which takes you north to the Hood Canal Bridge or south to Shelton. I doubt whether most drivers notice the final mile post or mourn the ending of SR 16. At that point they are too busy battling the heavy traffic in the chokepoint that is Gorst.

But if they just had 2 more miles to get ready…