Tacoma’s missing freight link opens: SR 167’s first two miles are live.

WSDOT’s project release, issued 8 September and opened for this edition, set the clock: open to all vehicles by 9 a.m. Sunday the 13th. The new expressway runs two lanes each way between I-5 and 54th Avenue East. Southbound I-5 drivers can enter near the Fife curve and exit at 54th Avenue East or southbound SR 509. Drivers can enter from northbound SR 509 near the Port of Tacoma or a new roundabout on 54th Avenue East. All northbound travelers must exit to northbound I-5 until later stages finish — the stub is a working connection, not the finished corridor.

The SR 167 Completion Project is building six miles of new highway between SR 410 near Puyallup and SR 509 in Tacoma on Puyallup Tribe of Indians land. House Transportation Committee Chairman Jake Fey said the Gateway program would not be opening in 2026 without the Puyallup Tribe and 17 other jurisdictions, which together put in about $140 million in cash, land, and local grants. Puyallup Tribe Chairman Bill Sterud credited WSDOT with restoring more than 165 acres of wetlands as part of the same work. Port of Tacoma Commission President Dick Marzano framed the segment as a more reliable freight path for a port complex that, with Northwest Seaport Alliance cargo operations in Tacoma, supports more than 41,000 jobs and more than $100 million in state tax revenue on the figures in the release.

This stage’s structures include a new bridge over I-5 with what WSDOT calls the world’s second-longest precast concrete girders, two new I-5 bridges so Hylebos Creek can flow under the interstate, 17 additional bridges and structures, and a new intersection at SR 509 and Alexander Avenue East. Wetland and creek work rebuilt channels for Hylebos Creek and the Surprise Lake tributary and planted more than 300,000 native shrubs and trees, returning floodplain function that WSDOT says reduces chronic I-5 flood risk in heavy storms.

Tolling starts in December. Drivers with a Good To Go! pass will pay $1 each direction on the section west of I-5; vehicles with three or more axles pay more. The Washington State Transportation Commission adopted that rate on 17 June 2025. Remaining work widens existing SR 167 between SR 410 and North Meridian Avenue, builds another four miles of new highway from North Meridian to I-5 to meet the segment now open, and finishes the spuyaləpabš Trail. Those remaining four miles are scheduled to open in June 2029. The companion SR 509 Completion Project in south King County is the other half of the Gateway program.

Puget Sound Gateway Program Administrator Ricky Bhalla, in the same WSDOT release, called completing SR 167 an investment in people who live and work in the corridor — reliable access to jobs and connected communities. The desk keeps that as attribution, not as a traffic forecast: the measurable change on 13 September is that the Fife–port stub exists and is open to all vehicles.

What comes next is ordinary and checkable: trucks and cars using the Fife–port stub now; toll gantries live in December; four more miles aimed at mid-2029.

Floor: First 2 miles open as of 13 Sep; tolling framed for December; remaining 4 miles targeted June 2029.