The overpass, which carries SR 99, will officially close at 12:01 a.m. Friday morning. The closure is a safety measure as Seattle's favorite boring machine/headache, Bertha, tunnels beneath the Viaduct.

According to KOMO, 90,000 vehicles will have to find alternative routes into and out of the city.

However, traffic on the Viaduct has actually been decreasing. "The Viaduct carries 20,000 fewer cars per day than it did five years ago in 2011," Seattle Met reports.

Asked about the decline in car traffic, [Washington State Department of Transportation] spokeswoman Laura Newborn told me: “We know that more people are using public transportation [and] the road is also configured differently—which may have had an impact.” Indeed, in 2011, the southern portion of the Viaduct was taken down and replaced with a scaled back two-lane configuration. Meanwhile, Metro has also upped its bus game in the last several years there with Rapid Ride service.

And that's great news. Over the next two weeks, WSDOT officials are encouraging people to find transportation alternatives such as walking, biking, carpooling, or taking public transportation into the city. Hopefully the habit sticks.

To cope with commuting times, some downtown businesses are extending their operating hours while others are allowing employees to work from home, KOMO reports. Pemco Insurance is try to take that de-stressing a step further by offering its employees yoga classes.

Pemco yoga-goers: Please for the love of all that is holy, even if you're thinking about the possibility of a sinkhole opening up beneath the Viaduct, do not chant "Bertha ... Bertha ... Bertha" before heading into savasana.