SR 162 begins at a diamond interchange with the SR 410 freeway in Sumner and travels south as a continuation of Valley Avenue, crossing the Puyallup River. The highway continues south through rural Pierce County, following a Ballard Terminal Railroad line and the Puyallup River. It serves the community of Alderton and joins the Pierce County Foothills Trail, traveling southeast from Puyallup. SR 162 crosses the Puyallup River on the McMillin Bridge, listed on the National Register of Historical Places, west of its confluence with the Carbon River. It becomes Washington Avenue as it travels southeast through Orting, serving Orting High School. The highway turns southwest onto Bridge Street and crosses the Foothills Trail before turning back southeast onto Harman Way, later Pioneer Way outside of Orting, towards South Prairie. SR 162 continues northeast, crossing the Foothills Trail and the Carbon River before passing through South Prairie. The highway travels east, crossing South Prairie Creek and passing White River High School, before ending at an intersection with SR 165 southwest of Buckley. Every year, the Washington State Department of Transportation 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, which is a measure of traffic volume for any average day of the year. In 2011, WSDOT calculated that between 4,100 and 21,000 vehicles per day used the highway, mostly between Sumner and Orting.
History
SR 162 was codified as SSH 5E during the creation of the primary and secondary state highways in 1937, beginning at Primary State Highway 5 and U.S. Route 410 in Puyallup, traveling through Orting and South Prairie to end at an intersection with a branch of PSH 5 southwest of Buckley. SSH 5E had a branch that traveled south from Orting to Electron that was removed from the state highway system in 1955. The highway traveled across the Puyallup River into Orting on the McMillin Bridge, which opened in 1934 as a concrete half-throughtruss bridge to save the Department of Highways a total of $826. SR 165 was established during the 1964 highway renumbering and was codified in 1970 as the replacement to SSH 5E. The western terminus, now at SR 410, was moved east to an interchange in Sumner after the completion of the Sumner Freeway in 1972. The McMillin Bridge was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982 as an example of a half-through truss bridge built with concrete instead of steel. The route of the highway has not seen a major revision since 1972; however, WSDOT repaved the roadway and added guardrails between Orting and Buckley in 2008. The deteriorating McMillin Bridge is being replaced by WSDOT with a newer, wider span over the Puyallup River scheduled to begin construction in 2014.
