History
SR-525 was once two separate numbered highways prior to the 1964 Highway Renumbering. On Whidbey Island the route was known as SSH (Secondary State Highway) 1-D, and it extended north to Anacortes. On the mainland, the route was a portion of SSH 1-I along the Mukilteo Speedway to the ferry, SSH 1-I continued to Everett over Mukilteo Blvd./41st St. After the renumbering, the section of SSR 1I from Mukilteo to Everett became State Route 526. The entire route from SR-99 to Anacortes (at SR-536) lasted only a few years until the North Cascades Highway was completed in 1973, State Route 20 replaced SR 525 from Anacortes to Keystone and then was carried over the Keystone-Port Townsend ferry route to the Olympic Peninsula.
In the 1970s many sections of SR-525 were realigned or replaced to create a safer, more direct route on Whidbey Island. The former routing exists as local roads, and as a bike path parallel to some of the route. However, many sections of SR-525 (and other roads realigned during the same period) were completely closed and are now impassible.
Prior to the completion of Interstate 5 and Interstate 405 SSH-1I had its eastern terminus at U.S. Route 99 (aka PSH-1, now SR-99). After I-5 was completed, SR-525 was extended to the freeway via 35th Ave. W and 164th St. S, until 1985, when a freeway route from the terminus of I-405 to SR-99, paralleling 36th Ave. W and 35th Ave. W (which are physically the same road) was completed, however the entrance to this freeway was offset from the terminus of SR-525 by approximately 1/4 mile. The original proposal for the freeway had called for a direct connection over SR-99, however, the traffic volumes on the Mukilteo side of SR-99 were not high enough to warrant the construction. By the mid-1990s however, traffic weaving between these segments of the route on SR-99 reached levels that prompted the WSDOT to reexamine the direct connection. In early 2000 the current overpass and interchange facility was constructed, this also gave impetus for an expansion of SR-525 from I-5 to SR-99, which had been a 2-lane, undivided freeway to a 4-lane, divided freeway, and for expansions from SR-99 to Paine Field Boulevard (SR-525 Spur), replacing the former two lane roadway with a 4 lane facility with travel directions separated by a barrier median.
Read more about this topic: Washington State Route 525
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