(County rendering of what the South Park end of the SP Bridge will look like, right after 6/30 shutdown)
By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor
“This is challenging.”
That declaration repeated a few times Tuesday night by King County Transportation Director Harold Taniguchi summed up not only the logistics of closing the South Park Bridge forever and getting people around after the June 30th closure, but also the logistics of trying to round up money to replace it.
He spoke at the Machinists’ Union Hall in South Park, during the final public meeting on the official closure plan, now considered final – what’s happening before, during and after the closure of the deteriorating bridge, scheduled for 7 pm June 30th.
For the first time in the most recent series of public meetings about the impending bridge closure, elected officials appeared and spoke – first King County Executive Dow Constantine, who represented this area as a county councilmember before moving up to the top job last year, second State Sen. Joe McDermott, who doesn’t represent South Park in the Legislature, but is seeking to represent the area as its next county councilmember. Here’s our video of Constantine’s entire 8-minute speech:
And Sen. McDermott, whose remarks were much shorter, but drew a pointed challenge fairly quickly:
Aside from Constantine’s extensive recap of how we got to this point – past funding attempts, the defeat of the bridge-money-containing Roads and Transit ballot measure, etc. – their appearances, and much of the first two-thirds of the meeting, looked to the future: Will there really be money at some point for a new South Park Bridge (which is at least 3 years away, even if money were found today, those on hand were warned repeatedly)?
The most telling chart appeared at one point behind Taniguchi – a list of governmental entities that they hope will chip in to the $130 million cost of the bridge. The only two lines that were filled in, were the top line – the county hopes to chip in up to $40 million, if the County Council passes a forthcoming proposal to finance that sum through bonding – and the bottom line – up to $40 million that the county hopes to get by trying again for a federal grant, similar to the type of grant it failed to get last year (they’re seeking less money this time, but the feds also have a smaller pot from which to hand out grants).
Constantine was asked as his portion of the program wrapped up, “What can we do to help (make sure the money is found for a new bridge)?” The question came from Dagmar Cronn, president of the South Park Neighborhood Association.
His reply: More awareness-raising of the bridge closure isn’t needed – rather, he urged community members, “It’s a matter of telling (your) stories of hardship (living) without the bridge.” Target elected officials at all levels of government, he elaborated.
The suggestion to not be shy about “stories of hardship” echoed what those community members themselves had said at previous meetings – none attended by anyone so high-ranking, at least in the past three months as the inevitability of the bridge closure became widely known.
Four weeks ago, at the meeting about the draft version of the closure plan – which did change in spots before Tuesday night’s meeting – rage at “how did you let this happen?” predominated (WSB coverage here). At the coordinating agencies’ meeting two weeks ago, there was discussion (WSB coverage here) of how to avoid having this meeting go down that same road. The focus on future funding was discussed as one tactic for attempting that – and the relatively calm nature of this meeting suggests it worked.
There were moments of anger and frustration, such as a man who waved photos of exterior bridge deterioration and asked when it had last been maintained. That’s cosmetic damage, Taniguchi noted, countering that his staff has virtually “lived (at the bridge)” to keep its working parts together.
Support for Taniguchi’s declaration came from South Park activist Bill Pease, who spoke up: “It can’t be glued together, can’t be wired together … anyone who’s gone to the guts of the bridge knows it’s (falling apart). It’s not a maintenance problem; it was built poorly in the beginning. It’s not Dow’s fault, it’s not Harold’s fault, it’s not OUR fault. There’s nothing we can do about that – we need to start finding out whether we can get a new bridge.”
With that, Taniguchi launched into the explanation of where the $130 million for the new bridge might come from. The word “might” won’t work in that sentence for long, he warned – “Everyone wants to help … but when you get down to a tight economy, pledging money gets down to a lot of discussions and details … In order for this to work we need this chart filled out very confidently” before paperwork goes to the feds starting in July. In other words: They need cold, hard cash commitments.
“Where’s Boeing in all this?” asked an audience member. Taniguchi mentioned “property” contributions and “discussions” regarding “other means of support.” In response to another question, he said that planning tolls for a new South Park Bridge, and/or the current 1st Avenue South Bridge, wouldn’t help – “We need to solidify a grant package and say the money is there” – that was considered one of the biggest reasons the earlier $90+ million request to the feds failed, not enough support from other “partners.”
“This is a wonderfully challenging thing to pull together,” he said with a bit of a smile.
“What if we don’t get (the federal grant)?” came another question. “Then we have to regroup and figure out what we do from there,” was Taniguchi’s answer.
“So there’s no other plan?” the woman asked, with a more worried tone. (Short answer: No.)
Finally, it was time to move on to the closure plan itself, which you can see in its entirety here.
King County’s Paulette Norman briefly ran through details such as the outreach plan – which is in the closure plan, detailed day by day (jump to page 10, for example, to see what’s supposed to be happening today).
She and Jack Lattemann from Metro had the same theme regarding road and bus changes: Traffic patterns will be watched closely in the initial days and weeks after the June 30th bridge shutdown – and then, they may be tweaked.
They’ve already been tweaked since the May 11th meeting we covered, during which some changes in turn had been made to the preceding “draft closure plan” public meeting in late April. For example, we reported discussion during that meeting of a “roundabout” at the bridge end of 14th Avenue South, in hopes that (among other vehicles) buses could go to that side of 14th and then turn around – but that’s not happening; for the final reroutes of the three affected bus routes (60, 131, 134 – go to page 20 in the closure plan to read the specifics of the reroutes).
Lattemann said the reroutes will take effect 5 am on June 30th instead of holding off till the bridge actually goes out of service at 7 pm. And he mentioned that a pre-planned change to Route 60 is still in the works for October 2nd – running the bus to White Center on weekends as well as weekdays. Even sooner, Route 60 will stop at the Myers Way Park and Ride east of White Center on weekends as of the June “service change.”
How closely will county crews really monitor the traffic? one attendee wondered, suggesting, “I want them to go through the commute with us every few days, because they need to know what we go through.”
And what about roads that are already in bad condition, according to those who drive them each day? Sorry, no plans to repave 5th, 8th, Holden and Kenyon – which were specifically mentioned – said Norman, at least for now. However, she said the county is talking to the city about possibilities.
How about, it was suggested, having the city of Seattle take down the red-light camera at 14th/Cloverdale (map), originally intended mostly for bridge-bound light-runners? “It’s like a smack in the face,” one man suggested. He didn’t get an official answer.
The next piece of the puzzle: Keeping the closure of a key access route from leading to closure of South Park businesses. Kris Effertz from the city Office of Economic Development said that more than 20 businesses have been contacted so far, and that the message is: “Can we connect you with business consulting, other technical assistance … We’ve got access to large and small loans, can we work with you and business consultants that we have, to try to keep your business alive during this time?”
She also mentioned there’s “some money for promoting South Park (and) promoting events in the business district of South Park,” as well as talking about potential green space at the end of 14th when the bridge closes: “We want this to be a community space.”
That drew rueful chuckles from one corner of the crowd, and someone retorted, “Community space for the homeless,”
Then came another plug for the 6:30-8:30 pm June 9th meeting at South Park Community Center. And as he retook the mike, Taniguchi mentioned that Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn has convened department directors “on a weekly basis, to see what could be done about this … I’ve sat in on every one of those meetings.”
With a few words of hope, again regarding securing bridge-replacement funding – “it feels like the stars are aligned … this is the window of time to make this happen” — he wrapped up the meeting.
But a few minutes earlier, one longtime South Park advocate noted, “This is a historic occasion – we are closing a bridge that is the heart and soul of the community – we want to throw a wake. We want the city and county to pay for it – that won’t cost much. We have 30 days to do it. Can we?”
“We’ll look into it,” promised Taniguchi.
WHAT’S NEXT: As noted above, the closure plan has a detailed timeline. The city of Seattle’s meeting for businesses on June 9th is the next scheduled public meeting, aside from regularly scheduled South Park meetings (the SP Neighborhood Association, for example, usually meets on the second Tuesday, which would be June 8th). Before then, an unofficial meeting – promoted by these two, who were sign-waving and handing out flyers outside the union hall:
Their flyers, headed “SAVE SOUTH PARK!”, promote a meeting planned tonight (Wednesday) at 7, South Park Neighborhood Center, 8201 10th Avenue South, “organizing … to inform the community about the South Park Bridge issue and begin making demands to the Seattle government. These demands will focus on immediate funding to replace the bridge and emergency measures to protect against the consequences of the bridge closure.” Whether they muster a crowd, depends on whether residents liked what they heard at the official meeting Tuesday night – with the bridge closure now exactly five weeks away.
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