West Seattle road work: Partial closures on SW Thistle next week

A major route between west and east West Seattle will be partly closed for road work four days next week, according to SDOT:

Seattle Department of Transportation crews will replace concrete panels on Southwest Thistle Street between 35th Avenue Southwest and 37th Avenue Southwest next week. The street will be closed to westbound traffic from Tuesday, Sept. 10 at 8 a.m. until Wednesday, Sept. 11 at 5 p.m. Then the street will be closed to eastbound traffic from 8 a.m. on Thursday, Sept. 12 until 5 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 13.

Chas Redmond September 6, 2013 (7:43 pm)

Thistle is a wide street. This says that SDOT is clueless as to how to maintain two-way traffic. About par for the department.

metrognome September 6, 2013 (8:13 pm)

no, what it says is that, due to the maneuvering room needed for the equipment, one lane is closed for safety reasons. The question is why they aren’t using flaggers to maintain two-way traffic. The announcement also doesn’t say where the alternate/detour route is; if it is nearby, like Holden, it doesn’t seem like that big of a deal for four whole days. The other arterial alternative is Morgan.

WSB September 6, 2013 (8:20 pm)

Good point about the detour. Living near there and taking that route multiple times a day every single day of the year for a variety of reasons – I believe you can turn onto 37th when they’re working on the eastbound side, but on 35th, however you get there, the nearest signalized intersection is Trenton to the south, and to the north, not until you get to Holden. Morgan is the only other street that sort of goes between California (almost) and 16th (almost), but it twists and turns and changes names a few times along the way, AND right now there’s work on its west end at 42nd/Morgan and its east end, Orchard between Sylvan and Delridge. This alert was sent by SDOT after 6 pm, so no chance for followups like that until Monday – TR

metrognome September 6, 2013 (8:32 pm)

I give up trying to edit my earlier response; I was trying to change the end of the first sentence to read ‘(presumably for safety reasons)’
.
I assumed the work started west of 35th, since closing it would be a *big* deal, so the detour would be California to Holden to 35th to regular route (or vice versa).

boy September 6, 2013 (10:00 pm)

When one thinks of panels one thinks of what you use for walls. Do they mean repaving the street?

WSB September 6, 2013 (10:11 pm)

Concrete panels are what comprise the road base in many places – some asphalt-covered, some not – and that’s the official terminology. Explained in our Fauntleroy repaving story four years ago: https://westseattleblog.com/2009/09/fauntleroy-way-work-concludes-2-tone-paving-explained-more

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