West Valley Highway

Sal is a voice that rides along as you drive Washington's roads: the road ahead, the pass, the stories of the places you pass.

County engineers chose the west side of the White River Valley for a road in 1909, and construction on the West Valley Highway followed in the early 1910s [1]. The state highway running north along the Green River from Kent to an interchange with Interstate 405 in Tukwila carries the number 181 and a length of 6.05 miles [1]. The 1964 renumbering assembled a longer route, reaching from Auburn through Kent and Tukwila to Seattle, and the state cut it back to SR 599 in 1971, moved the northern end to the Tukwila interchange in 1979, and pulled the southern end up to Kent in 1991 [1]. Since 1991 the shape has held, and the highway no longer ties in to its old parent, SR 18 [1]. Along its run it travels beside the Green River, with a pedestrian and bicycle trail on one side and the Interurban Trail on the other [1].