West Seattle traffic alert: New ID rules may bring port-area delays

This just in from SDOT:

New Requirements for Worker Credentials in Port Areas May Impact Seattle Traffic

SEATTLE -Seattle drivers may encounter traffic backups on arterial
streets near entries to
several waterfront terminals at the beginning of the work week, on
March 2 and 3. Seattle
Department of Transportation (SDOT) traffic managers anticipate the
terminal sites with the
greatest potential for traffic impacts are:
● Terminal 5 (in West Seattle off of SW Spokane Street),
● Terminal 18 (Harbor Island off of SW Spokane Street), and
● Terminal 46 (off of Alaskan Way S at S Atlantic Street).

Starting Saturday, February 28, the U S Coast Guard will begin enforcing federal requirements for new identification credentials for all truck drivers and other workers entering secured port areas. While the TWIC (Transportation Worker Identification Credentials) card requirement has been widely publicized, it is difficult to estimate how many drivers might arrive on Monday without the card.

Agencies and terminal operators have been working together for several months to prepare for these new regulations. SDOT Commercial Vehicle enforcement officers,
Port of Seattle Police, and terminal managers will be partnering to minimize any traffic disruptions.

Eddie February 26, 2009 (10:56 am)

So they have been strip searching grandmas and infants at the airport for the last 7 years, but they’re just now getting around to enforcing regulations on identification credentials for people entering secured port areas?

$140 poorer February 26, 2009 (1:20 pm)

The TWIC card is a joke, and an example of the bloated Bush-era police apparatus. They cost $140 each, and do very little to protect our ports. The terminal operators have been scrambling to implement this, and at this point, the rush to issue cards at the last possible moment is so labor intensive I doubt highly that no corners are being cut to issue these cards, and I doubt that the scanners will be in place by 2/28, the deadline that everyone is to have these cards. Though a boon to the military contractor that administers the entire program (more pork for private corporations) it does nothing to increase the effectiveness of the people working on the terminals relating to security. If anything, these TWIC card are nothing more then a tool for the feds to track the movement of union longshore workers, not cargo, and is an additional tool for the Feds to undermine their working conditions by giving the government arbitrary power to lock them out of their jobs. See the lockout of 2004 for details.

The whole Port Security issue has been and continues to be a joke. The shippers and their customers (WalMart, etc) have FOUGHT the total screening of cargo, and because of automation, empty containers continue to enter the ports via land side without a physical inspection, because the employers have insisted upon eliminating these union jobs due to “technology”. That’s right–those stacks and stacks of empty containers? Who knows.

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