TRAFFIC/TRANSIT TODAY: September’s first Friday

(Live view from the east-facing WS Bridge camera; other cameras are on the WSB Traffic page)
6:03 AM: The downpour started before midnight – which means a potentially problematic morning commute. We’ll keep very close watch on this one. And an alert for tonight, assuming the weather doesn’t cancel the expansion-joint work – the ramp from northbound I-5 to the West Seattle Bridge is scheduled to close all weekend again, along with two adjacent ramps, 7 pm tonight until early Monday morning.

7:15 AM: WSDOT says that overall, the commute’s slow but “no massive backups” anywhere.

7:29 AM: If you’re bicycling this morning, the bike/truck Safety Fair is still on at Terminal 25 (East Marginal just north of Spokane) so far as we know, scheduled until 8:30 am.

(Photo by WSB co-publisher Patrick Sand, added 9:30 am)
8:02 AM: If you’ve watched TV news this morning, you’ve likely seen a big sinkhole mistakenly reported as being in the Burien area – it’s just south of South Park, vicinity of S. 96th/8th S. Not a major route, but affecting truck traffic, says KING 5, which reported that the sinkhole is in a spot that had been repaired months ago, and then was weakened by the overnight deluge.

9:30 AM: Went over to check out the road sinkhole. The county has no idea when it’ll be fixed, but S. 96th is blocked in that spot TFN.

12:03 PM: Just in case you’d heard about this closure on 99 north of downtown – we’re passing along word that SDOT says, never mind:

The Seattle Department of Transportation announces the cancellation of the Sept. 6-7 closure of northbound SR 99 and Mercer Street due to impacts from rainy weather and availability of materials. A full closure of northbound SR 99 and Mercer Street is tentatively rescheduled for mid-September. Further information including closure dates will be provided as the work is confirmed.

Bob H September 6, 2013 (9:22 am)

Overnight rainfall at 48th & Alaska (Ercholni Park) was 1.25″.

Diane September 6, 2013 (11:34 am)

thanks for correct location of sinkhole; just saw it on komo4 11am tv news; they said it’s in Burien (is it really so hard for tv news to get correct locations, especially since they’re usually standing on the spot?)

WSB September 6, 2013 (11:35 am)

Diane – I even tweeted (and the TV stations ALL follow us, so they have no excuse) that it is NOT in Burien. The city boundary maps are pretty easy to find. Lazy of them. Burien is quite some distance away. If the annexation had gone through a year ago, yeah, this WOULD have been in Burien, but it didn’t! – TR

miws September 6, 2013 (12:17 pm)

Q13 was saying “Burien” as well. :-/

Mike

WSB September 6, 2013 (12:25 pm)

Trust me, it’s not. Somebody somewhere in the early morning hours mistakenly called it Burien and everybody else followed suit. Even at KING, they started moving to the phrase “South Seattle” (not accurate either) but the onscreen graphic said “NEAR Burien.” The City of Burien website has some very clear maps. Sigh.

carole September 6, 2013 (12:26 pm)

Google also says Burien..may be based on the zip code.

metrognome September 6, 2013 (2:11 pm)

google lists the S. 96th/8th S. intersection as ‘Burien 98108’; the KC zip code map shows the southern boundary of 98108 as S. 100th St. in the middle of SP. 98168, the zip to the south, incl. east Burien. Not that I’m paranoid or a conspiracy theorist, but do you think this is related to the recent multi-jurisdiction drug raid??
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http://zipmap.net/Washington/King_County.htm (zoom in to show streets)

WSB September 6, 2013 (3:16 pm)

To that question, no.
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To the Google Map point, please believe me, Google is NOT all-knowing. It misspelled Elliott Bay for years and might still be doing so, I haven’t looked lately. It also mixed up WSB and West Seattle Bowl, to the point where our voicemail message to this day still says if you’re looking for the bowling alley, hang up. We used to get about a dozen calls a DAY. Please believe me as we have covered this area for years – White Center, West Seattle, and South Park. If you still don’t believe me, do what I did, and consult one of the many flavors of City of Burien OFFICIAL maps, which ARE all-knowing when it comes to their own city.
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http://www.burienwa.gov/index.aspx?NID=717

John September 6, 2013 (2:43 pm)

I work right at that intersection, pretty nasty hole. King County did a bunch of exploratory work this summer when they fixed the first problem and couldn’t find what was causing it. This time around it’s a broken storm drain pipe around 10′ deep.