SEATTLE -- After two weeks of slow morning commutes, drivers leaving early for work, and packed buses and trains, the big Interstate 5 construction project is coming to a close.

The contactor hired to replace expansion joints and repave the road surface is on track to have the work finished early Saturday morning, five days ahead of the original schedule.

Crews will continue paving the last stretch of road until Friday afternoon and then lane markers will be painted through the night. The Department of Transportation expects to have all lanes of northbound I-5 open at 5 a.m. Saturday.

Officials had warned before the project that if not enough drivers stayed off I-5 backups could stretch for 20 miles or more. Commuters took the warning seriously and changed their morning habits.

Backups on I-5 were never more than about 2 to 3 miles. Traffic on alternate routes such as Highway 99 saw heavier than normal traffic volumes. Interstate 405 was a crawl from the south end most mornings but, as many drivers pointed out, that's par for the course on I-405.

King County Metro Transit said they saw a huge increase of passengers on buses and vanpools during the project.

"Over the past two weeks, ridership on all of the services Metro provides increased by about 1,000 passengers each morning," King County Executive Ron Sims said in a statement. "We're glad people turned to public transportation, and hope our new passengers will continue to use transit as one of their commute options in the future."

West Seattle commuters also made heavy use of the Elliot Bay Water Taxi.

Passenger totals on the Sounder train service were much higher than normal, but dwindled steadily over the two-week construction closure, from a high of almost 12,000 passengers on August 13 to 9,199 on August 22. In May the average passenger load was about 6,800 people each day.

Now transportation officials are wondering whether those commuters who took advantage of alternate methods of transportation will stick to it or get right back on the roads come Monday.