6 Replies to "On <i>White Center Now</i>: County planning 'enhanced shelter'"

• Joanne Brayden September 13, 2016 (11:43 am)

  I am truly tickled to hear this

• Rod Clark September 13, 2016 (10:59 pm)

  Since there isn’t much discussion of this proposal or its possible alternatives here on WSB, I’ll repost this from White Center Now:

  Liz,

  The first floor of the DSHS building houses the Sea-Mar clinic and an
  eye clinic, but other spaces in there have been vacant for many years.
  It would be a good place for more services.

  Metro could help this a lot, too. By moving about half of the local
  bus route endpoints back to the former Metro bus hub near the old
  Safeway, people who need services could be connected with them more
  effectively. The former bus hub has lots of space, ever since nearly all
  of the buses went to Westwood.

  The express buses that now park alongside Roxhill Park are the routes
  that should be moved back to the White Center bus hub. Those are the
  buses that offload the bulk of the people who need services, when those
  bus runs end at the park, coming directly from downtown. But no services
  are available there, and realistically the service providers can’t
  operate effectively in the park itself.

  The other smaller and more local bus routes, and the Sound Transit
  560 bus, that park along 25th (the street alongside the Staples store)
  seem to have much less of an effect on the park and could stay where
  they are.

  In addition to making it more feasible to help those who need it,
  people around Roxhill Elementary would thank you and Metro for helping
  to make Roxhill Park back into a safer environment for the
  neighborhood’s kids.

• Rod Clark September 14, 2016 (6:44 am)

  The southbound C Line buses could turn south on 35th at Barton (the same route that the northbound C Line buses use now), and stop eastbound on Roxbury at the Safeway (they now stop there westbound), but then continue on their way to 15th and Roxbury to end their route at the bus hub there.

  This would take the C Line off the residential street on 26th. The 120 could continue to run on 26th, for local people who need to  shuttle between the Safeway and Westwood Village, which most express riders to downtown probably don’t need to do. The C Line already connects with the 120 at the Safeway, for those commuters who need to get to Westwood Village. And it would connect with the 120 again at 15th and Roxbury.

  Maybe this would mean a few other minor routing changes for local bus lines that connect with the C Line, too, along its route or at the White Center bus hub. But overall this could be an improvement for the Westwood area.

• JoB September 14, 2016 (10:47 am)

  I agree wholeheartedly..
  the bus hub at westwood doesn’t work well

• Diane September 14, 2016 (12:46 pm)

  Rod Clark; thanks for posting more info; with my very slow internet, it can often take an extra 15+mins to click through to other links for the full info, so this was very helpful; TR, thanks for this story, since I rarely go to the WC site; great news about this new shelter

• Rod Clark September 14, 2016 (12:55 pm)

  Reposted from White Center Now, in response to a comment that this might just shift the same problem elsewhere:

  Liz,

  I know what you’re saying, and I’d be concerned about it too, if things would happen the way you fear they would.

  But back when all the Metro routes went to the bus hub at the old
  Safeway store, and many of the buses laid over near there, there were
  far fewer problems there of the kind that have cropped up at Roxhill
  Park.

  That was because it’s a business distict with the King County
  Sheriff’s office within a couple of blocks, well lighted streets, foot
  and car traffic at all hours – really not at all like the Park. The Park
  attracts people that the White Center bus hub did not attract and won’t
  attract, basically because the Park is a wildland, unlit, unwatched
  wooded area.

  The Park is highly attractive to people who want to hide in the trees
  and bushes, away from lighted areas, out of public view. The 15th and
  Roxbury bus hub doesn’t attract them now, and it won’t be any more
  attractive than it is now if some of the bus routes return to that
  location.

  The problem is the siren pull of the out-of-view, hidden, unpoliced
  woodland environment of Roxhill Park, coupled with the lack of Transit
  Police attention to it. Transit Police SUVs frequently guard the shiny
  new Burien Transit Center against a few ragged characters that turn up
  there, but they don’t give the same kind of attention to Roxhill Park.

  Part of what needs to happen, along with restoring Roxhill Park to
  being a civilized place again, is for the Transit Police to make sure
  that the 15th and Roxbury bus hub stays civilized, too. But that would
  be a lot easier than in Roxhill Park.

  Most of those who now hop off at the Park probably aren’t going to
  consider beautiful downtown White Center to be equivalently attractive.
  There are always a few homeless people around there, but it doesn’t
  provide a better substitute for Victor Steinbrueck Park or other such
  places downtown, which Roxhill Park does.

  There probably will be some more people coming to White Center, if
  there’s a shelter built there. The DSHS building would be a good place
  for it, better than some other possible nearby locations, if a shelter
  is going to be built in White Center somewhere.

  But I don’t expect a big deluge, if Roxhill Park is cleaned up and
  stops being an easy C-Line destination like it is now. The reroute that I
  suggested likely would lead to a return to the previous state of things
  at 15th and Roxbury, and that actually wasn’t so bad.

Sorry, comment time is over.