Interim Fire Station 29’s sudden switch: Community meeting Saturday; utility work today; response-time difference explained

(WSB photo taken this morning)
One week after neighbors of the 44th/Ferry/Hill triangle in North Admiral learned it was about to become the suddenly switched site of Interim Fire Station 29, work on the parcel is already under way: A Seattle Public Utilities crew is working on the water-quality-testing installation that has to be moved.

Also: A community meeting is officially set for this Saturday morning. Councilmember Tom Rasmussen told neighbors at an informal gathering last Saturday (WSB coverage here) that he would try to set one up, at least to get answers to their questions, and SFD has announced the meeting will be held this Saturday (January 17th), 9 am, at Station 29 (2139 Ferry Avenue SW, a block from the new interim site), with the other two involved departments – Finance and Administrative Services and Transportation – also officially sponsoring it.

SFD also has sent information elaborating on the response-time concerns that it says led to the scrapping of the long-announced plan to put interim Station 29 at the same Harbor Avenue site that had housed interim Station 36 until its upgrades were finished last summer:

The Seattle Fire Department is concerned about emergency response times to the community served by Fire Station 29. The National Fire Protection Association or NFPA establishes national goals for fire emergency responses. The national standard is to have the first arriving engine at a fire or medical emergency to be within 4 minutes, 90% of the time.
The reason for the national standard is time matters in emergency responses. When it comes to fires or cardiac events, every second counts. Fires grow exponentially. Also, with patients who have life-threatening medical emergencies such as heart attacks, the quality of care that they receive in the first six minutes can mean the difference between life and death.

While searching for a temporary location of Fire Station 29, the Seattle Fire Department looked at response times from the 2500 Harbor Avenue site and from the SDOT triangle located on Ferry Avenue SW. The Department ran district-wide response models from both locations. The data revealed that the response time for a first arriving engine unit from Harbor Avenue would average 5 minutes and 35 seconds. A response time from the temporary location would average 4 minutes.

The maps (above) show the difference in responses from both locations. The dark green represents when the first arriving unit meets the national standard of 90%. The dark red indicates when the first arriving unit would meet the national standard less than 50% of the time. As the data map indicates, the Harbor Avenue location would have much slower responses to the community served by Fire Station 29. For this reason, the Seattle Fire Department wanted to keep Station 29 in the neighborhood it serves to ensure a consistent level of fire and medical protection for the citizens of West Seattle.

When determining the location of the temporary fire station, the City did look at a few other sites in the neighborhood, including the Charlestown Café and Life Care Center sites. Neither were viable options, the former due to it being in the permitting process for a residential project that is due to break ground this spring, and the latter because it would have required a zoning change, and having the fire engine pull out onto Admiral Way, then backing into the site from Admiral Way, is not ideal.

Not mentioned is an alternative city-owned site that has been mentioned in the discussion that’s erupted since last Wednesday’s announcement of the change in sites, SPU property in front of the current Station 29. We’re still checking on why that apparently was ruled out or not considered.

Previous WSB coverage:
1/11/15: Followup – Neighbors mobilize after site switch
1/7/15: New interim FS 29 location: Triangle by church
March 2014: Report mentioning Harbor Ave. site designated for interim FS 29

John Noonan January 14, 2015 (3:12 pm)

This is a really in-depth argument against something we’re not proposing. It was the City that originally chose the other (apparently unworkable site). We’re not telling the City where they need to go, we’re just concerned about the dangerous safety issues with the site they chose. Please see details here:
http://goo.gl/tB4mcy

s January 14, 2015 (3:54 pm)

Ok so slap in some stop signs so that cars don’t speed through the blind intersections, then are we ok?

Neighbor January 14, 2015 (4:17 pm)

I live a block away from this site on 44th and am 100% in favor of this action by the city. I also agree with ‘s’ above, let’s slap some stop signs down and call it a day.

John Noonan January 14, 2015 (4:19 pm)

@s The buildings are so close to the curb, it’s where the stop signs would go!

dsa January 14, 2015 (4:28 pm)

The councilman is wasting resources. The traffic engineers can take care of the safety issue with a couple of signs.

Neighbor January 14, 2015 (5:03 pm)

Ok, let’s hang the stop signs from the building, even easier.

Supporter January 14, 2015 (5:30 pm)

I will not be attending the meeting but have spoken directly with Tom Rasmussen and expressed my support to keep the firefighters in the neighborhood. We need them. A couple of years ago our family had a life-threatening emergency and they responded in less than 3 minutes.
And yes, let the traffic engineers work the safety details. That is what we pay them for.

Safety Conscious January 14, 2015 (5:40 pm)

How do we objectively look at this situation when the biggest advocate lives directly in front of this speck of grass? I want the firefighters closest to our 9-11 calls. This location isn’t a safety issue; it is an issue of inconvenience…to one. I’ve lived in West Seattle for 23 years and have walked past that strip of grass throughout. It isn’t used and it isn’t kept up. The sidewalk isn’t even finished. They have offered to finish that when they are done.
Quit wasting the West Seattleites time with your personal agenda. The firefighters should stay in our block and in one year, this will all be forgotten.

homesweethome January 14, 2015 (6:22 pm)

I also live a block from this site – please keep the firefighters in our neighborhood. This patch of grass has been so hotly debated over the years I’m glad to see it going to a good use as a temporary fire station.

John Noonan January 14, 2015 (6:31 pm)

Nobody is arguing that the firefighters of #29 should not be in the neighborhood. NOBODY. We want the city to consider the safety of our neighborhood. Is that too much to ask?

John Noonan January 14, 2015 (7:09 pm)

A note on the multiple mentions of getting a traffic engineer to fix the problem — that’s precisely what this meeting is for. A city traffic engineer will be present, and me and my neighbors are hoping to work through the safety issues with him/her, along with other stuff like how can we mitigate 7am firetruck tests, can we save a Gingko Biloba tree on the triangle, etc..
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The waste of city resources was holding a community review meeting in August that had nothing to do with the actual plan. Consider this the real review.

Neighbor January 14, 2015 (7:53 pm)

A Gingko Biloba tree? Are you being serious right now? I walk/drive by that triangle several times a week, there is nothing there worthy of making a fuss over. The area is awkward and serves no purpose. Walking across the thing is even awkward because of the lack of sidewalk and uneven grass. I drove past it the other night and couldn’t even tell where the street was and where the grass was because of the lack of a curb and the fact that it goes from concrete to dirt to grass without a hard transition in some areas. If the city actually fixes it up after they are done using it then it will probably end up better then it currently is. In fact, if they just smoothed and leveled the soil and dropped grass seed it would be an improvement. Hopefully your meeting satisfies peoples safety concerns, but I for one am glad that this weird little piece of land is going to get some use.

dsa January 14, 2015 (7:54 pm)

The clearest and safest solution to make a street closure would be to restrict that portion of 44th to local traffic only. Meaning: Street closed (both ways), then there is no problem where the signs go. The kids would have a place for kick ball then too.
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Forget your snail darter. Humans trump

John Noonan January 14, 2015 (8:38 pm)

@Neighbor :) As I understand it, years before we lived here, a bunch of the neighbors planted all the trees that run along 44th that are due to be cut down, and then hauled buckets of water across the street to water them for the first couple years, so they’re pretty attached. One of them has asked the city for permission to dig one up and save it.
I couldn’t agree more about the condition of the triangle, a few dollars of the $1.8M budget would go a very long way towards leaving it better than before. A curb on Ferry instead of a ratty gravel patch would be amazing.
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@dsa Totally makes sense to me, probably along with a stop sign for northbound traffic at Ferry & Hill.
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These things seem like they could have all been handled over email, but I was told by the city today that there was a diverse enough set of concerns / reactions from a wide enough swath of the neighborhood that they thought the meeting would be easier than responding to everything individually.

Jason January 14, 2015 (8:51 pm)

Let’s not forget that any “improvements” to the triangle after the temporary station is removed, will be directly taken from the funds allocated for the station improvements. They aren’t going to be “free” – we paid for them under the guise of improving our FIRE STATIONS, not SPU’s RIGHT OF WAYS.

And I’m still waiting to hear why the proposal to relocate directly in front of the station was such a horrible alternative. If they say “inconvenience” to neighbors because the street would be closed to traffic, I’m going to have to start using some hypocrite labels.

Support our WSFD January 15, 2015 (6:41 am)

We also support the Fire Station temporary location in the triangle. That parcel is vacant city property, not a park.

Chris January 15, 2015 (8:24 am)

Wow, much ado about nothing. Just keep the firefighters in the hood and be done with it. Trying to complicate something that is not complicated.

The MUCH bigger issue is why it has taken over a DECADE to finally see some improvements to Station 29 (and other stations). The levy to rebuild, replace, enhance Seattle’s fire stations was passed in freaking 2003! (“Fire Station 29 in Admiral has been slated for remodeling and seismic-safety upgrades since voters passed a citywide levy 11 years ago.”). Seattle government at its best!