(Repaved section completed today, between Findlay and Juneau)

A full repaving of 35th Avenue SW has long been postponed – last major mention in our archives was five years and two SDOT directors ago, suggesting it wouldn’t happen any sooner than 2023. Not on the schedule through 2024 right now, but SDOT’s lately been repaving a block here and a block there. Most of it has been without wide advance announcement – aside from last weekend’s traffic alerts including the plan for repaving 35th between Holly and Morgan. After happening onto another stretch of work today between Juneau and Findlay, we asked SDOT for a list of what’s been done and what’s yet to come. Spokesperson Ethan Bergerson replied:

This is part of our Reconnect West Seattle work. We are working to repair rough spots in the pavement on roads like 35th Ave SW that saw a decrease in traffic when the West Seattle Bridge closed and will likely become more heavily used once the bridge reopens.

Over the last two weeks, we have paved several blocks on 35th Ave SW including:

SW Barton St to SW Trenton St (two blocks)
SW Kenyon St to SW Holden St
SW Myrtle St to SW Willow St
SW Holly St to SW Morgan St
SW Graham St to SW Raymond St
SW Juneau St to SW Findlay St (we are finishing work on this today).

In the near future, we also plan to pave one more block of 35th Ave SW from SW Edmunds St to SW Alaska St.

(WSB photo)

11:51 AM: We’re on Beacon Hill, where Mayor Bruce Harrell has just announced his choice for the new director of SDOT: Greg Spotts, the Executive Officer and Chief Sustainability Officer at the Los Angeles Bureau of Street Services. You can watch live on Seattle Channel. From the news release:

Spotts currently serves as the Executive Officer and Chief Sustainability Officer at the Los Angeles Bureau of Street Services, which oversees 1,500 staff positions, an annual budget of $230 million, and a capital program of more than $350 million. He has led the delivery of over $600 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act projects as well as efforts to make Los Angeles more walkable, bikeable, transit-friendly and sustainable.

Spotts will begin at the department in early September as acting director until Council confirmation. Later today, he will join SDOT crews to tour current bridge infrastructure and see maintenance efforts in action. As he settles in at SDOT, Spotts will tour Seattle’s vibrant neighborhoods by riding transit, cycling, and walking with neighbors and community groups.

The mayor says his choice “fits the bill,” saying Potts is the “transformational leader” he was looking for. He says Spotts has the ability to “consider the academic approach first,” with data and research. Spotts’ online profile quotes him: “I get a thrill from delivering innovative mobility and sustainability projects that revitalize the Los Angeles streetscape.”

12:01 PM: Spotts is now speaking. He says he’s used to working with neighborhoods – L.A., he says, has 99 of them. He says he’ll launch a “listening tour” in September. He says, among other things, he’s “thrilled” to be joining as the Sound Transit light-rail project revs up, and says he worked on light rail in L.A. He says his first day will be September 7th. After his remarks, the mayor goes into some backstory about the search process, which involved an advisory committee.

12:25 PM: The event is over. During Q&A, we asked Spotts what experience he has with bridges. While he’s not a civil engineer, he noted, in short, plenty. We’ll take a closer look at that when back at HQ. The event was held on the Roberto Maestas Festival Street near the Beacon Hill light-rail station to stress themes of equity and multimodality, noted the mayor. Also of note, the choice of someone from L.A. is a coastal change from the past two SDOT directors, both of whom came here by way of Washington, D.C.

1:39 PM: We’re back at HQ and uploading video from the event (update: added above). Here’s Spotts’s biography on the L.A. Bureau of Street Services website. Here’s the city news release; the position requires City Council confirmation, and according to the job listing posted through early July, pays up to a quarter-million dollars a year.

Just out of the inbox – Mayor Bruce Harrell has chosen a new SDOT director “after an extensive national search” and will make the announcement Wednesday. When previous director Sam Zimbabwe‘s departure was announced and chief of staff Kristen Simpson was appointed interim director, the mayor said she didn’t intend to apply for the permanent job. No finalists have been announced, just a search committee appointed in April. The new director will arrive not only as the West Seattle Bridge prepares to reopen, but also as SDOT works on a longterm prioritization plan, which in turn will shape the next funding package, successor to the Levy to Move Seattle. (During our conversation on Tuesday, West Seattle Bridge project director Heather Marx, a West Seattle resident, told us the funding project will be in her portfolio post-bridge.) Meantime, you can watch the announcement of the new SDOT director at 11:45 am Wednesday via Seattle Channel. The job pays up to $254,000, according to the online listing.

A reader asked us about an incident involving a RapidRide C Line bus around 6:40 this morning on northbound Highway 99 just south of the tunnel, saying they were in a nearby car when they saw the bus appear to “go out of control and slam into the far right barrier on the off-ramp and skid along hard enough to create sparks/fire and crack the doors/window.” The bus came to stop in a traffic lane on the Dearborn offramp, as shown in this camera image from an @SDOTTraffic tweet:

We contacted both Metro and SFD to ask about it. Metro spokesperson Al Sanders says their Traffic Control Center reported that “the northbound coach made contact with the Jersey Barrier at Colorado St. There was damage to the right side, with the right side mirror breaking off from the impact. Seven passengers were treated at the scene for minor injuries. Operator was relieved, and a new coach was dispatched to continue the service.” SFD said their crews only needed to treat one person, a 61-year-old woman. Metro’s report did not indicate a cause; SFD said it was initially reported to them as a collision involving the bus and another vehicle.

7:40 PM MONDAY: Three weeks after he answered questions at the District 1 Community Network’s meeting, Mayor Bruce Harrell is expected to do the same when the West Seattle Transportation Coalition meets online this Thursday night (June 23rd). While much of the attention during his first half-year has been on public safety and homelessness, transportation is a spotlight too, as the mayor has announced a public process for helping him hire a new SDOT director. And of course the West Seattle Bridge repairs have another three months to go. Also on the mayor’s transportation plate – as a Sound Transit Board member, he’ll be helping decide this summer which “preferred alternative” will be pursued for West Seattle light rail.Thursday night’s meeting is set to start at 6:30 pm; we expect to get the viewing/participation link in the next day or two, and it’ll be in the WSB West Seattle Event Calendar when we do.

11:12 AM MONDAY: The mayor’s staff has sent WSTC word this morning that “something … came up” for Thursday night, so he won’t be in attendance after all.

The UW Urban Freight Lab has some questions for you, if you can spare a few minutes for a survey. Here’s how they explained it in their note asking if we’d consider publishing the survey link:

In collaboration with the Seattle Department of Transportation, we are currently running a survey of consumer shopping behaviors in West Seattle. Our goal is to understand how people shop, travel to stores, and make online purchases in 2022 and relate this information back to the transportation system. The survey should take about 5 minutes to complete and participants can enter into a drawing for a $50 gift card.

We went through the survey before publishing this; the questions we saw included ones about shopping and dining as well as how/whether the bridge closure has changed your transportation habits. It’s an anonymous survey and starts here.

1:32 PM: Back in mid-April, we were first to report on a neighborhood campaign to save the chestnut tree shown above, on private property but in the path of a public project – a curb ramp to help people crossing SW Fontanelle on the east side of Fauntleroy Way, just north of Solstice Park. Its roots had grown under the sidewalk. In late April, as reported here, the city arborist came out for a look, and said they would determine within a few weeks whether the tree could be saved. Today, we have word from SDOT that they’ve found a way. From spokesperson Ethan Bergerson:

We are pleased to share that we have found a solution which will allow us to repair the sidewalk and build an accessible curb ramp at the corner of Fauntleroy Way SW and SW Fontanelle St without removing any trees.

We have heard from many community members who were concerned about the possibility that this tree might have to be removed as a part of our curb ramp project to improve accessibility in this neighborhood. While SDOT had never determined that it would be necessary to remove the tree, we are glad that we were able to find a solution which maintains the health of this tree and resolves the community’s concerns.

Our updated curb ramp design will allow us to build a new parallel/corner curb ramp with minimal tree root trimming that should not harm the tree. SDOT worked closely with Seattle Public Utilities, which will relocate the fire hydrant near the chestnut tree at the northeast corner of Fauntleroy Way SW and SW Fontanelle St. The new location for the fire hydrant will continue to provide the same level of fire protection for the neighborhood, and allow us to build a new curb bulb to make room for a curb ramp that meets ADA standards without harming the tree.

We anticipate completing this curb ramp work in the next two to three weeks, depending on weather conditions. Our contractor is scheduled to begin excavation work to decommission the existing fire hydrant and install a new fire hydrant as soon as Friday June 3.

Relocating the fire hydrant requires a temporary water outage, which is scheduled for 8 a.m. to noon on Monday, June 6. Impacted customers have been notified by SPU, and more information about the planned water outage can be found on SPU’s Water Outage Map.

We will continue with sidewalk demolition work followed by concrete pouring throughout next week. We will perform some minimal tree root trimming as we remove existing sidewalks to prepare for the concrete pour. We will have our urban forestry team on site to help monitor this work and ensure the health of the tree.

We’re checking with the resident who led the fight to save the tree and will add her comment when we have it.

1:59 PM: That resident, Sara Macko, says, “I am incredibly overjoyed that we could all come together and keep this corner of the world beautiful and sustainable for our environment!” She’s grateful to everyone who joined in the effort, and to the city reps who worked with her, and adds, “We taught a 9 year old girl, Piper, that if you believe in something, work hard at it, and bring your peers and neighbors together, you can make your dream a reality! I am beyond thrilled.” She hopes to host a celebration, soon, with her band playing, next door at Solstice Park, “an opportunity to bring our West Seattle community together to thank them all for their support, and to rejoice near our infamous tree.”

ADDED FRIDAY AFTERNOON: Regarding the cost, SDOT’s Bergerson says, “A preliminary rough estimate is that this may add as much as $35,000 – $45,000 to the project, including both SDOT’s and SPU’s costs.”

ORIGINAL WEDNESDAY REPORT: If you got a city-issued parking ticket between September 1, 2021 and April 5, 2022, the city is canceling it – and if you already paid it, you’l get a refund. According to an announcement from the mayor’s office late today, this is because a mistake was made when Parking Enforcement Officers were transferred to SDOT last year. Long story short, as explained in the announcements, once they were no longer in SPD, the PEOs were supposed to get “special commissions issued by the Chief of Police” so they could keep enforcing the law. That didn’t happen – until the new administration noticed it and fixed it. But that meant uncommissioned officers had issued tickets to about 200,000 people, and those are being voided. To check if you got a ticket that’s involved, go here. The city says if you’re entitled to a refund, that’ll happen automatically, starting next week. If you’ve gotten a city-issued parking ticket since April 5th, you’re out of luck – that’s valid. The city’s announcement says they estimate refunds are due to 100,000 ticket recipients who had already paid, while 100,000 others have not-yet-paid tickets that will simply be voided.

ADDED THURSDAY EVENING: We asked mayoral spokesperson Jamie Housen two followup questions: First, how much this will cost; second, what kind of investigation is under way into who was accountable for the mistake? First answer: Just over $5 million including the cost of a third-party administrator. Second, “The mayor has requested additional information from the involved departments about the transition of the PEOs and the issuance of special commissions and will use this information to determine next steps and how to improve coordination between departments.:

By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor

Though the “zero” in Vision Zero is not yet in sight, the program’s coordinator remains hopeful.

Her presentation led off this month’s meeting of the West Seattle Transportation Coalition, which also spotlighted a local bicycling group, and ended with some decisions about WSTC’s future.

VISION ZERO: Seven and a half years have passed since Vision Zero, envisioning an elimination of traffic deaths and serious injuries by 2030, was announced. The program’s coordinator for SDOT, Allison Schwartz, was the meeting’s first guest, accompanied by SDOT’s mobility manager Sara Zora. Schwartz noted that this presentation is similar to the update she gave to the Pedestrian Advisory Board two weeks earlier. Again here, she somberly noted the 10 people killed in traffic incidents – on foot (including two West Seattle deaths), on bikes, in cars – in Seattle so far this year.

But they’re undaunted in efforts to reverse the trend: “Vision Zero is more than a slogan … it requires a paradigm shift … prioritizing the movement of human beings” rather than prioritizing vehicles, she said. To do that would take “decades of undoing” what led to this point, she said. Here’s how the program hopes to get to a safer place:

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