(SDOT photo, Tuesday afternoon)

Two lanes of Highland Park Way will remain closed until at least tomorrow, SDOT says, in the aftermath of two landslides (Friday and Tuesday). That’s a “safety precaution due to the risk of more landslides while it continues to rain,” according to spokesperson Ethan Bergerson. So what’s being done to address the ongoing risk? Bergerson says SDOT is working with Seattle Parks – which owns much of the slope alongside the uphill lanes – “to plan temporary erosion-control measures now, as well as to promote more vegetation in the spring.” Among those measures are “concrete blocks at the base of the hill to support and hold back the land” – those were installed before the road was partly reopened last night. In spring, when conditions are better for vegetation growth, the plan includes hydroseeding the slope “to protect the near surface soils.”

These slides came five years after a massive slide closed the same stretch for two days. Five months after that, the City Council was considering supplemental-budget funding for a $60,000 “rock buttress” along that same section of Highland Park Way; we’re still researching what eventually happened – Google Street View shows concrete blocks along part of the road, across from the SW Othello intersection – adjacent to where the new ones have been placed, as shown in the top photo, following Tuesday’s slide.