(Photo tweeted by @reeseryan at 7:39 am Wednesday)
By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor
Just hours before this morning’s “high bridge” mess – one immobile car blocking a lane for more than an hour and a half because a tow truck wasn’t quickly available – the West Seattle Transportation Coalition was talking about exactly that kind of scenario, and whether transportation authorities were ready for it.
WSTC is now pushing even harder for solutions, not just for that, but for the often-in-tandem situation of the “low bridge” shutting down to non-vessel traffic during commute hours – something Councilmember Tom Rasmussen confirms to WSB that he is now formally pursuing, for the third time.
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves:
Early on the agenda of Tuesday night’s WSTC meeting at Neighborhood House’s High Point Center, chair Joe Szilagyi presented responses he’d received after asking local agencies what they’re doing to fix the seemingly broken incident-response policies that have figured into long, traffic-snarling closures. From those responses:
SDOT is currently working to update their incident response protocols in coordination with WSDOT, the Seattle Police Department, King County Metro, the Seattle Fire Department, Seattle Public Utilities and Seattle City Light.
Those protocols already include some possible strategies:
Depending on the emergency, SDOT and WSDOT contact the United States Coast Guard and they may play a role within the emergency response protocol. For long-term planned closures or emergency situations that may require long-term closures of the Alaskan Way Viaduct or the West Seattle Bridge, SDOT and WSDOT request that the Coast Guard limit openings of the lower Spokane Street swing bridge.
But that’s for “long-term closures,” not “blocked lanes.” (More on the bridge situation, later in this report.) And while the low bridge did open for vessel traffic at one point during this morning’s bridge trouble, that wasn’t the big problem – the lack of tow-truck availability was. Asked last night (again, BEFORE this morning’s mess) whatever happened to former Mayor Greg Nickels‘ deployment of tow trucks near the West Seattle Bridge in case rapid response was needed, Councilmember Tom Rasmussen recapped that Nickels had determined the costs outweighed the benefits – but said it might be time to revisit whether that would still be the case. You can expect to hear more about this in the days/weeks ahead.
This next topic is the main reason Rasmussen was at last night’s WSTC meeting:
TRANSIT FUNDING PROP 1 – WHAT NOW? Councilmember Rasmussen and County Executive Dow Constantine‘s transportation adviser Chris Arkills were at the meeting to discuss the fee/tax measure passed by Seattle voters, originally intended to hold off Metro cuts, now framed as money to add (or restore) service.
Arkills called it “unfortunate” that Route 120 is not eligible because of the way the measure was written – more than 20 percent of its stops are outside the city, and that makes it ineligible (which co-chair Amanda Kay Helmick later called “obscene”).
Arkills recapped what was discussed at the post-Election Night briefing last week, including routes that ARE expected to get some of the money (WSB coverage here).
One question that came up: How is an “unreliable route” fixed? Generally, by adding buses, Arkills explained. He also brought up the RapidRide C Line Junction route-change that SDOT is proposing (most recently discussed, and more criticized than welcomed, at last week’s Southwest District Council meeting), saying that it’s not necessarily supported by Constantine.
Asked for a reminder of when Metro makes service changes, Arkills said that the annual February service change is being scrapped, leaving June and September (those are the periods when when the Prop 1-funded changes are to be phased in next year). He added, “The city probably won’t start getting money until late May and early June” from Prop 1. And he mentioned that the City and County Councils both have to pass the final plan (as noted here last weekend).
Rasmussen said neighborhood representation would be vital in the process of overseeing how this is implemented. Has Seattle yet reached out to Burien, for example, regarding regional cooperation (which could mean that routes like 120 could be included)? asked Helmick. Rasmussen said smaller communities’ tax bases would be an issue, but said there needs to be a way to work on this, because, for example, “West Seattleites’ lives don’t just end” at the city limits. What about the unincorporated area between here and Burien? asked Helmick. The county just doesn’t have money for that, Arkills said. But he said, for example, Seattle annexation could solve that problem. “This was not the ideal proposition,” Rasmussen said. “We wanted county participation .. but that didn’t pass.”
After both guests left, WSTC members launched into a spirited discussion of how best to advocate for the adjacent unincorporated area (White Center, etc.) so situations like the Route 120 omission could be addressed. Michael Taylor-Judd also suggested that West Seattle could use some more east-west bus service.
ABOUT THE ‘LOW BRIDGE’ AND RUSH-HOUR OPENINGS FOR TRAFFIC: Rasmussen also thinks it’s time to look at that again, he told WSB in an inquiry earlier this week. And when it came up at tonight’s meeting, he said it would be vital to get support from the port – the timing of equipment shipments. Marty Westerman pointed out that the bridge already had opened 180 times this year, with 4 major incidents on the high bridge. He said the Coast Guard had said the low bridge opened just a few times a week, while SDOT has much-higher numbers (Datapoint, just this past Tuesday, it opened 4 times during morning rush-hour, according to the @SDOTbridges Twitter account.) Maybe this can all work into the Freight Mobility Plan, it was suggested. And, Rasmussen noted, they would have to have “concurrence from the mayor’s office” as well.
FAUNTLEROY, DELRIDGE BOULEVARD PROJECTS: Asked by co-chair Amanda Kay Helmick for a recap, Rasmussen said a consultant and program manager are now in place for the Delridge Boulevard project, which will start before year’s end. The engagement will be “tied to DPD’s engagement efforts” (the North Delridge Action Plan), and a conceptual design is due by the third quarter next year, with the search for funding to follow.
As for the Fauntleroy project, he recapped obtaining design funding for it, but said construction money is still a question mark, and “will probably have to be in the next (ballot measure),” whatever is proposed similar to the past Bridging The Gap measure (though he also said that the mayor and council aren’t likely to craft that future measure to be too similar to BTG). Rasmussen observed that “we don’t do a good job of improving the infrastructure” as growth and redevelopment occurs, and this is an attempt to address that problem in “a holistic way.” He told WSTC that he’ll need their support – if the council doesn’t hear about support for projects like this, they won’t rise in priority.
NEW WSTC BOARD MEMBER: Tom Linde has joined the board. A few months back, he spoke at WSTC about an alternate idea for the port’s currently vacant Terminal 5. Why join? He said he’d long been interested, has more ideas, and is “here to get educated” about even more of what’s happening around the peninsula.
FAUNTLEROY TRAFFIC MEETING RECAP: We covered last Thursday’s meeting here; Deb Barker from Morgan Junction recapped it Tuesday night for WSTC attendees who weren’t there.
LOOKING AHEAD: WSTC meets the second Tuesday of the month for one more month, December; as of next January, it’s moving to fourth Thursdays, to avoid overlapping with the community groups that also meet on second Tuesdays. Track what’s up with WSTC at westseattletc.org – they started a conversation Tuesday night on where to go next and there’s still plenty of time for you to be part of it.
AND EVEN BEFORE THAT … spend an hour with WSTC at this Saturday’s Gathering of Neighbors. Details in this WSB story from earlier today.
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