Washougal's 32nd Street Overpass Just Sped Up, and Here's What Changes This Fall

Ask most people what happens when a three-year infrastructure project scraps its original design halfway through and starts over. They will tell you the same thing: it slows down. Permits get redone. Engineers start from scratch. The timeline slides another year, maybe two.

That is not what happened on 32nd Street.

In March 2026, the City of Washougal reversed course on its long-planned rail crossing fix, dropping a tunnel design in favor of a bridge. By the city's own account, that pivot did not stall the project. It accelerated it. If you drive 32nd Street to reach SR-14, or if you have simply gotten used to timing your errands around freight trains, that reversal is the reason your commute is about to change shape this fall, and it is worth understanding why the switch made things faster instead of slower.

The crossing everyone already knows, by the numbers

If you live in Washougal, you know the 32nd Street crossing even if you have never thought about it by name. It is the stretch where trains stop traffic dead, sometimes for minutes at a stretch, on one of the busiest at-grade rail crossings in the state. The city's own figures put it at an average of 32 trains and 5,728 vehicles crossing those BNSF tracks every day. That is not a quiet rural crossing. It is the connector between Washougal and SR-14, meaning a blocked crossing does not just cost you a few minutes, it can reroute your whole trip.

The fix has been years in the making. Federal officials toured the site back in 2023, when then-Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez visited the Port of Camas-Washougal to look over plans for what was, at the time, an underpass design: a tunnel that would route cars beneath the tracks. The city landed a $40 million federal Railroad Crossing Elimination grant that year, one of the largest such awards in the country, to help make it happen.

Why the underpass became an overpass, and why that was the faster path

Here is the part that surprised even people who had been tracking the project closely. After months of subsurface investigation, drilling, soil sampling, and geophysical testing around the crossing, the city found that tunneling under the tracks carried more risk than building over them. Working beneath an active BNSF line meant unpredictable costs and potential delays that could have derailed the whole project.

So in March, the city switched to an overcrossing design: a bridge carrying traffic over the tracks instead of under them. The cost comparison made the decision straightforward.

That is up to $18 million in potential savings, plus a shorter, more predictable construction schedule and improved pedestrian access south of the tracks. Jason VanAalsburg, the city's senior management analyst on the project, put it plainly to the Camas-Washougal Post-Record: "I think this change has really caused the project to pick up some good momentum and reenergized the project team. We now have a clear direction on which way we're going." He added that much of the investigative work already done for the tunnel design carried over directly to the bridge, which is part of why the switch did not cost the project time it could not afford to lose.

The project cleared its next hurdle in April, when it received initial environmental approval from the Federal Railroad Administration under NEPA review. In June, the city held a public open house at the Washougal Community Center to walk residents through the bridge design and answer questions directly.

What already happened, and what "utility relocation" actually means for you

If you were out and about the first weekend of August, you may have already gotten a small preview. The city closed the 32nd Street railroad crossing entirely from 5 a.m. Sunday, August 2 through 4 a.m. Monday, August 3, work tied to preparing the corridor for what comes next. That single weekend closure is a useful reference point, because the project's next phase, arriving this fall, will not look like a construction site yet. It will look like utility work: crews relocating the pipes, lines, and cables that currently run beneath 32nd Street so they are out of the way when the bridge foundation work begins in 2027.

The city has been direct that this utility relocation phase will bring traffic impacts sometime this fall, though a firm calendar of closures has not been published yet. If the August weekend closure is any indication, expect similar short, scheduled closures rather than a months-long detour. The city's project newsletter is the fastest way to get exact dates as they are confirmed, and it is worth signing up for if 32nd Street is part of your regular route.

Right-of-way acquisition, meaning the city buying the specific parcels of land needed to build the bridge approach, is also underway this summer, running alongside the utility work. Full construction on the bridge itself is not expected to start until the first half of 2027.

The other project on the same stretch of road, and why it is not the same one

Here is where it is easy to get two separate projects tangled together, because they are happening blocks apart on the same corridor and both involve 32nd Street.

While the rail crossing project is still in its planning and utility phase, the Washington State Department of Transportation has been actively building something else nearby: new roundabouts on SR-14 at Washougal River Road/15th Street and at 32nd Street, intended to improve safety and access to the highway. This project is further along and closer to done. Crews have been running nighttime single-lane closures on SR-14 near 32nd Street, alternating traffic through flaggers from 6 p.m. to 7 a.m., with final paving work scheduled around September 30 and October 1. Expect delays of up to 20 minutes during those overnight windows if you use SR-14 near Washougal in the coming weeks, though side street access stays open throughout.

So the honest way to hold both of these in your head at once: the SR-14 roundabout work is a project that is finishing this fall. The 32nd Street rail crossing bridge is a project that is just beginning to be felt this fall, with the visible construction still more than a year out.

Why the city is calling this three projects, not one

The rail crossing bridge is officially framed by the city as one piece of a larger plan for the 32nd Street corridor, alongside the SR-14 roundabout work and at least one more improvement still in the pipeline. That framing matters if you are trying to gauge how disruptive the next 18 months will actually be. This is not a single isolated dig. It is a corridor-wide reshaping that will touch different stretches of the same road at different times between now and full bridge construction in 2027.

The project is also not yet fully funded. The city has secured more than $58 million in federal, state, and regional support, with another $19.8 million pending and a remaining gap of $21.8 million to $33.7 million still being pursued through additional grant applications. That gap is worth watching if you care about whether the 2027 construction start holds. Projects at this scale can slip when funding lags, though the momentum VanAalsburg described, plus the amount already secured, suggests the city is not starting this phase from behind.

What to actually do about it this fall

If 32nd Street is part of your regular drive to SR-14, the practical move is simple: sign up for the city's project newsletter through the official rail crossing project page, and keep an eye on the city's traffic alerts page for specific closure windows as utility relocation ramps up. The August 2-3 closure came with advance notice, and there is no reason to expect the fall closures will be different. Knowing a closure is scheduled two weeks out beats finding out when you hit a barricade.

Washougal has spent three years watching this project move through federal grants, design pivots, and public meetings. This fall is the first season where residents will feel it in their actual drive time, not just read about it in a city press release. That is worth knowing before it shows up on your route.

Debbie Penton-Clark and the team at DPC Homes keep a close eye on the projects reshaping daily life across Washougal and Camas, not just the ones that show up in a listing description. If you are curious how corridor changes like this one factor into home values or timing a move in the area, request a free home valuation and staging consultation and we will walk through it together.