Transportation 3711 results

Water Taxi questions, answered!

Our post about the start date for this year’s Elliott Bay Water Taxi season brought lots of questions — we took them to County Councilmember Dow Constantine’s office, which has graciously provided lots of answers. His staff’s entire, info-laden reply, after the click:
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Repaving, morning 5

March 23, 2007 9:18 am
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 |   Transportation

This seems to be moving pretty fast. All but one outside lane in each direction is now chewed up/dug up all the way to SW Spokane on the north edge; the southbound lane is extremely groovy, and not in the good sense of the word.

Coffee behind the cones

March 22, 2007 9:52 am
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 |   Transportation | WS beverages

Businesses in the repaving zone are hopeful we won’t all abandon them during this time of inconvenience. We’ve been to Hotwire, where a handwritten sign on the door says, THANKS FOR BRAVING THE CONSTRUCTION/YOU MAY PARK IN THE COURTYARD FOR 5 MINUTES. If you’ve got any artistic inclination, you’ve got a week and a half more to get in on their “First Annual Coffee Cup Design Contest.” Submit a design by 3/31; customers will vote on the entries in early April. (Entry form & guidelines here.)

Greg who?

This morning’s P-I dissection of Pointlessness at the Polls points out, pointedly, that despite WS being home to Hizzoner, our collective voting position was a 180 from his. (P.S. Don’t forget, the Lame-Duck-A-Duct is closed most of this weekend.)

Return of the Water Taxi

The date is set for its 2007 debut — April 29 — running thru late September.

Repaving, morning 3, plus two side (street) notes

Now most of Cali between Hinds and the post office is chewed up/grooved, so slower going. We tried side streets to the west as a detour; won’t do that again, those free-for-all intersections aren’t cut out for the overflow. Unrelated side street note: On 41st north of Admiral, heading north from Metro Market, the center stripe is green, leading all the way to a “shamrock” near the end of the street. Our e-mail tipster says the repainting is a St. Patrick’s Day holdover that apparently happens every year; first time we’ve seen/heard of it.

Never mind Cali – here’s an SDOT project with immediate impact

Just spotted this as we drove home from a produce trip to Tony’s: SDOT is putting up left-turn signals on 35th at Thistle. If you’ve never tried to make that turn (in either direction), you’ve never enjoyed the death-defying thrills of cars relentlessly racing toward you at what seems like freeway speed. This should save some lives, from reduced stress as well as reduced collision rate:

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Repaving, morning 2

March 20, 2007 9:10 am
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 |   Transportation

The cone zone stretches farther north this morning — all the way to Hinds. Pavement-chewing machine is currently busy on the west edge of the road.

Repaving, morning 1

Cones and crews are out on Cali from just north of Spokane, south to the post office. (Photo below is from the north edge of this morning’s work zone.) The truck that’s chewing up the old pavement is making fast work of the eastern edge of the road, for starters. Things were moving fairly well when we passed through; but if you just need to get between North WS and South WS, certainly you could try alternate routes such as Beach Drive or 35th.

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Paving the way

Reminder that the Cali Ave repaving is supposed to start back up today. We’ll check it out in a while to report back. Your updates (as comments or e-mail) welcome too.

Pointlessness at the Polls, the aftermath

-We’ve been watching the additional ballot counts roll in each day since voting ended on Tuesday. The tunnel option has held steady at 70% no, but replacement-a-duct has lost ground day by day … on election night, it was at 55% no; tonight, that’s up to 57% no.

-Speaking of the viaduct, we know a bit more about exactly when it will be shut down next weekend for the big inspection. At least it won’t be out of commission the entire weekend.

More parking news

March 15, 2007 9:21 am
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 |   Transportation | West Seattle religion

repaveparkingsign.jpg-City DOT crews are putting out the “no parking” signs on Cali right now, south of Charlestown, blocking off street parking as of Sunday, looking ahead to the restart of repaving work next Monday.

-Mars Hill has unveiled more of its parking plan. It includes buses as well as the Hughes School (currently temporary home to South Lake HS) parking lot as overflow and “midweek programming” parking.

How not to get into a deadly accident

This is mostly a message to the IDIOT who NEARLY KILLED US TODAY — but it’s a good reminder for all of us who drive: A FOUR-WAY STOP IS A FOUR-WAY STOP. NOT A FOUR-WAY “PRETEND YOU ARE STOPPING BUT THEN POWER THROUGH.” COME TO A COMPLETE STOP, LOOK IN ALL DIRECTIONS, THEN, ONLY WHEN YOU ARE SURE NOBODY ELSE IS CURRENTLY DRIVING THROUGH THE INTERSECTION, PROCEED. THE LIFE YOU SAVE MAY BE YOUR OWN (AND OURS). Thank you. Grrrr.

Admiral Safeway parking smackdown update

A WSB reader with kids @ Lafayette Elementary across from the store’s south lot forwarded us this e-mail bulletin from the school, complete with handy phone number if anyone wants to call the store’s manager to ask whassup with all this. Full e-mail text, plus a photo of something interesting we spotted in that same lot this morning, after the jump:Read More

Road closure alert

The block of 47th just south of Admiral is blocked off this morning because of road work (possibly related to the “pedestrian improvements“? hard to tell — but they’re digging up the 47th corner pavement just north of Alki Mail & Dispatch in a big way).

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Saturday miscellaneous

-Tough choice but decided to go to the Alki cat adopt-a-thon instead of the SW library grand opening (one-day-only event vs. many chances from now on to see the books’ beautiful new digs). Did not emerge with a new cat. Old cats greatly relieved.

-Looks like Casa Feliz is back from the dead after 2 months away. Tried calling to ask what happened, nobody answered. All info welcome.

-Eagle-eyed reader notes the cameras on light poles by the new Admiral/Olga traffic signal (photo below). Will they be traffic webcams, or “run the light and you’re busted” cams? We’ll see if we can find out.

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Admiral aggravation: Safeway’s parking smackdown

First we saw a warning posted on one Admiral Junction store’s door this morning; then we got e-mail from another shop … so this is new and could get ugly. safewaysign.jpgSee the sign at left? At least a dozen are now planted all around the parking lots on three sides of Admiral Safeway. And the fine print, “monitored by employees of Diamond Parking 24 hours a day,” is no idle threat. As neighboring businesses are warning their customers, those DP employees are writing tickets. The photo below shows one in action on the south side of Safeway (bad news for families from Lafayette Elementary across the street). The parking situation in Admiral has been tough for a while; right or wrong, this won’t make it any easier.

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Get ready for Cali Ave Paving, Part 2

More than three months after the paving project in The Junction wrapped up, bet you forgot the city promised more work on Cali, all the way north to Admiral (plus a stretch of Admiral itself). Well, at least WE forgot till we just got an e-mail alert from a city list we’d also forgotten we signed up for. Says work will resume March 19, starting between Genesee and Spokane. Click ahead for the complete text of the city alert:Read More

A plea for Delridge drivers

If you use Delridge to get onto the WS Bridge, one of your neighbors has a request for you … they say it much better than we could (especially since that’s not our route), so here’s the whole e-mail, after the “jump”:Read More

Deputy mayor in WS tonight

March 1, 2007 6:52 am
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 |   Fauntleroy | Transportation | West Seattle politics

Reminder — Deputy Mayor Tim Ceis talks transportation at the Fauntleroy Community Association’s community meeting at The Hall tonight. (He’s filling in for Hizzoner, who is in DC this morning to talk to Congress about global warming.)

Pointlessness at the Polls, T minus 2 weeks

February 27, 2007 6:25 am
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 |   Transportation | Viaduct vote | West Seattle politics

-Want to hear the experts discuss the viaduct situation, present and future? Tonight’s the big forum at West Seattle HS (6:30-8 pm) with panelists including City Council member Jan Drago and Seattle Department of Transportation boss Grace Crunican.

-Just two nights till you can get the mayor’s office perspective from Deputy Mayor Tim Ceis, courtesy of the Fauntleroy Community Association.

-Ex-govs Gary Locke and Dan Evans declare themselves anti-viaduct (though not necessarily pro-tunnel) in today’s Times.

MIDMORNING ADD: The No Tunnel Alliance says it will “rally” 4:30 pm-6:30 pm today at 35th & Fauntleroy.

Plug in to a free movie tonight

February 22, 2007 7:05 am
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 |   Environment | Transportation | WS culture/arts

On the heels of yesterday’s biodiesel-mania, this seems to fit into a bit of a theme. Tonight at Camp Long, you can check out a free screening (donations welcome) of “Who Killed the Electric Car?”, with guests on hand from FlexCar, GreenCar, and the Seattle EV Association.