State Route 225 (SR 225) is an long two-lane

state highway A state highway, state road, or state route (and the equivalent provincial highway, provincial road, or provincial route) is usually a road that is either ''numbered'' or ''maintained'' by a sub-national state or province. A road numbered by a ...

located entirely in Benton County,

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered on ...

, United States. The highway travels over the

Benton City – Kiona Bridge The Benton City – Kiona Bridge is a steel box girder and cable-stayed bridge carrying two lanes of Washington State Route 225 over the Yakima River in Benton City, Benton County, Washington. The current span was opened to traffic on J ...

, which is listed on the Washington Heritage Register and

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

, over the

Yakima River The Yakima River is a tributary of the Columbia River in south central and eastern Washington state, named for the indigenous Yakama people. Lewis and Clark mention in their journals that the Chin-nâm pam (or the Lower Snake River Chamnapam Nat ...

. After turning through Benton City, the highway parallels the river for the remainder of the route. Several different proposals have been introduced to alleviate traffic flow issues at the SR 224 / SR 225 interchange, which was ultimately replaced with a

roundabout A roundabout is a type of circular intersection or junction in which road traffic is permitted to flow in one direction around a central island, and priority is typically given to traffic already in the junction.''The New Shorter Oxford En ...

in 2016.

Route description

SR 225 starts at a roundabout with SR 224 just north of the

Interstate 82 Interstate 82 (I-82) is an Interstate Highway in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States that travels through parts of Washington and Oregon. It runs from its northwestern terminus at I-90 in Ellensburg, Washington, to its southeaste ...

U.S. Route 12 U.S. Route 12 (US 12) is an east–west United States Numbered Highways, United States highway, running from Aberdeen, Washington, to Detroit, Detroit, Michigan, for almost . The highway has mostly been superseded by Interstate 90 (I-90) an ...

interchange in south Benton City. The highway passes over the

on the

, which is listed on the

Washington Heritage Register The Washington Heritage Register is an official list of sites and properties found throughout Washington state, United States. The Washington Heritage Register is administered by the Washington State Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservat ...

and the

. After a brief turn to the west, the highway resumes northerly into Benton City, serving as the main street through town. The Yakima River continues to parallel the highway as it exits town, passing between a hill on the west side and the river, followed by Horn Rapids County Park on the east until the highways terminus at SR 240. Every year the

Washington State Department of Transportation The Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT or WashDOT, both ) is a governmental agency that constructs, maintains, and regulates the use of transportation infrastructure in the U.S. state of Washington (state), Washington. Establi ...

(WSDOT) conducts a series of surveys on its highways in the state to measure traffic volume. This is expressed in terms of

average annual daily traffic Annual average daily traffic, abbreviated AADT, is a measure used primarily in transportation planning, transportation engineering and retail location selection. Traditionally, it is the total volume of vehicle traffic of a highway or road for a y ...

(AADT), which is a measure of traffic volume for any average day of the year. In 2009, WSDOT calculated that as few as 1,000 cars used the highway at the terminus at SR 240, and as many as 7,800 cars at the interchange with SR 224.

History

SR 225 was added to the highway logs during the 1991 legislative session, and since then the only major changes to the highway have been the replacement of the bridge over a drainage canal about from the western terminus of the highway. In 2010, WSDOT began studying several different designs for the SR 224 / SR 225 interchange to improve traffic flow, including signalizing the intersection, moving the off ramp from I-84 and making a 5-way stop, and multiple different

solutions. The highway's southern terminus was converted into a roundabout in June 2016, at a cost of $4.5 million.

Major intersections

References

External links

Highways of Washington State
{{State highways in Washington related to SR 22

225 __NOTOC__ Year 225 ( CCXXV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Fuscus and Domitius (or, less frequently, year 978 ''Ab ...

Transportation in Benton County, Washington