Two updates on the upcoming SW Roxbury Safety Project, and one also involves the 35th SW project:

NEW START DATE FOR ROXBURY: The Westwood-Roxhill-Arbor Heights Community Council has learned from SDOT that the work will start next month instead of this month. WWRHAH transportation chair Chris Stripinis checked with project manager Jim Curtin, who says the new start date is September 14th, so SDOT can “mobilize for both Roxbury and 35th.” Curtin told WWRHAH that “a new kind of technology to remove the existing pavement markings that is less intrusive and much faster” will be used on both projects, hydro-blasting. He added, “We will also do most of the removal work at night and on the weekends to ensure that we do not disrupt classes at Roxhill and Holy Family.” This method is being used on Rainier Avenue right now. One more update from Curtin, forwarded by WWRHAH: “Also important to note is that the paving work between 17th and 18th on Roxbury will not occur before we restripe the roadway. We need to purchase some land from King County in order for us to construct ADA compliant ramps on the south side of Roxbury at 18th. We are in the process of obtaining the land now and this work will still move forward as soon as possible.”

DNS COMMENT TIME FOR ROXBURY AND 35TH: Getting ready to write about all that, we checked the SDOT project webpage for Roxbury, and discovered that a comment period is under way for part of the preparation process, a Determination of (Environmental) Non-Significance. This covers both the Roxbury and 35th SW projects. You can see the DNS document here; then go here (or scroll through the embedded version, above) to see the SDOT State Environmental Policy Act-mandated checklist used to generate it – that’s a very detailed document with some project information you might not have seen before. While the first document says comments will be taken through August 14th, the Roxbury webpage says August 21st is the deadline, and explains how to comment.