The freeway that carries one of the worst daily drives in the our region is getting its first major improvements in more than 60 years.

I-5 simply crawls through Joint Base Lewis-McChord. The freeway just can’t handle all the new people in Pierce and Thurston counties.

“It’s one of the most congested areas of I-5 mostly because that stretch of I-5 has not received significant upgrades since the 1950s,” said Brent Champaco, City of Lakewood’s communications manager.

Tell us what slows you down each day

The state plans to widen the freeway. The funding for that major improvement was in the new legislative package passed earlier this year, but small improvements will proceed that, including what started this week at the Berkeley exit.

Lakewood secured a $5.7 million grant from the Department of Defense to improve that interchange. The city pitched it as a way to improve access to Madigan Army Medical Center. The project will add a second left turn lane off of southbound I-5 and widen the overpass itself.

“What we’re trying to do is open up more lanes and free up some of that congestion that hits there on a daily basis,” Champaco said.

He said it will open up the surface streets into Tillicum as well, but admitted this is not a magic bullet for all of the congestion on I-5.

“Is it going to be the one thing that solves all the traffic in the area, no,” he said. “It is a good start, and it is part of a bigger plan.”

The project is set to finish in about nine months.

It does come with a change for truck drivers. Beginning Monday, big rigs can no longer take left turns onto the Berkeley overpass. They will have to find another way into Tillicum.