Some of the signal phases to cross Rainier in central CC between Edmunds and Dawson can feel incredibly long during rush hour (although not as bad during other hours), and crosswalks are blocked by cars trying to sneak thru on yellow. I'm sure that encourages some pedestrians to just go for it.
100% agree, this block needs some sort of mid-block crossing, particularly as the CC commercial corridor expands. Not sure how to do it safely given the 5 lanes and the very high speeds of some drivers passing illegally in the bus lanes. But yeah, people (incl me) run across here all the time.
Changing the runway orientation is... unlikely, but there are policy choices we could influence, e.g. the required use of the FAA's Greener Skies narrowed flight paths. This 2012 program, plus the larger # of daily flights, led to concentrated noise impacts over a very narrow pathway in the city.
BMW with no plates parked on the street in Columbia City.
Absolutely wild to me that you can leave a car with no license plates on the street in Seattle for almost 6 months straight, and the city won't send anyone to do anything about it. This is 50 yards from an RPZ that's patrolled every day, not off in the boonies.
It's hard to wrap my head around the idea that Graham St Station could cost $175M to build. I know construction is expensive, but the current in-the-MLK-median stations don't seem particularly complex. The tracks are already there. Most of the land around there is surface parking and strip malls.
Let's agree to disagree here. I appreciate what Morales did with this proviso, but I also think you're overstating its impact. The D2 projects that were already in the pipeline -- Beacon/15th and MLK -- were what moved us forward 5+ years.
I'm no Harrell fan, but this doesn't seem quite fair to me. It was $1M, and it wasn't to add concrete protection to every lane mile in D2 -- it took money already in the PBL program and used it to replace plastic bollards with concrete in D2. Beacon/15th and MLK would have gotten concrete anyway.
For the past two years, we paid ~$1600/month for in-home care in Beacon Hill, M-F 8:30am-5pm. There were a number of options around that same price range when we recently looked, with smaller groups of 8-12 kids depending on the age range.
I appreciate the nuanced approach. Thanks for your advocacy.
I'm still sore about SDOT taking away our Healthy Street in front of Aki Kurose in D2. It wasn't a full School Street but it was better than nothing. It hurts a bit to see other schools getting new treatments while ours disappeared.
Really glad to hear that this project has some momentum.
That said, I'm wary of a world where School Streets projects get funded out of, and have to compete for, limited council district transpo levy funds. Can we just fund these projects equitably across the city?
What makes this process (seemingly) so slow? Is it the signature verification step, requiring some level of human judgement for each ballot? Better accurate than fast, but it's somewhat frustrating to have this uncertainty lingering for days - not just this time, but as a semi-regular thing.
That FIFI category never worked anyway, so it was the right call to remove it. The only way I've had any success in getting illegally parked/stolen/abandoned cars in D2 addressed is to email Councilmember Solomon. That feels wrong, but SPD won't do anything without a little pressure.
I'm partial to No Excess Is Absurd but both albums are just so great. Never got to see them live, but seeing both Major Stars and B.O.R.B. was a pretty good consolation prize.
The 30th anniversary deluxe reissue window is rapidly closing!
Not to make perfect the enemy of the good, but is there an administrative reason this proposed amendment couldn't be more forceful? Instead of "evaluating" and "considering" adding trees in parking areas (which sounds like years of process), could the amendment just say, here's money to go do it?
The downside is that it took this team the entire summer to build one stairway project, because the team that builds stairways is also tasked with spraying cooling water on bridges on hot days. There has to be a better way to manage staffing and avoid paying for lengthy, unused equipment rentals.
Small potatoes, but we did just get a new levy-funded public stairway on S Brandon St at 39th Ave S, connecting up the steep hill to Hitt's Hill Park. It replaced a casual path and half-stairway built by some local folks, and is already getting a lot of use. Not sure how this project was selected.
I think the insane driving behavior at the Costco parking lot on 4th Ave S, or the Greenway crossing at Rainier and S King St, or... is proof that no matter how big and wide SDOT builds these median islands and turn restrictions, some drivers will find unsafe ways to go around or over them.
They may not be participating in bike buses but they're still biking or scootering to school. Bike buses may be predominantly white and affluent, but anything that gets kids to bike/scoot/walk to school is a plus. I have a hard time seeing them as "more harm than good" - just one more way to bike.
We live in the same south Seattle neighborhood, and honestly most of the kids I see on bikes are not white and (likely) not affluent. They're generally riding Lime bikes, which are basically free to use for lower income households. Yes, they're too young to ride per Lime rules, but they still do it.
The really rough section is a constant mess of potholes and ice in the winter. I think there's a buried stream or something that perpetually leaks water onto the roadway and sidewalk from the south side of the street at 30th Ave S. SDOT is out there ~2-3x a week during ice season, patching holes.
I guess this may only have been a "resurfacing" and not a full repaving; I am not confident in the terminology. It extends from Beacon Ave east down the hill to ~30th Ave S. The really rough section that needs a total rebuild is just east of there, towards MLK. No idea if/when that is scheduled.
I generally agree, but do we have the bike shop ecosystem for the maintenance demands a program like this would entail? Free e-bikes aren't free to maintain, and it can take weeks to get a service appointment. I just spent >$500 on a tuneup, and that shop, like many, won't even touch cheap e-bikes.
Given the absolutely massive number of costumed kids (and parents) on the crowded sidewalks of Rainier in Columbia City on Halloween, I really wish SDOT could find a way to close the street to cars for that evening to provide more space for kids. I know it's a bus route, so it's complicated.
Whether you multiply by 3, 3.5 or some other reasonable number in that range, you end up with ~20k more vehicles in 2024 than in 2023.
I'm using ACS 1-year estimates. If I multiply by exactly 3.0 for simplicity, I get a total of 450,582 in 2023, and 471,376 in 2024, for a difference of almost 21k.
There are a number of awkwardly shaped, vacant parcels along MLK that were byproducts of the light rail routing, many of which were or are owned by Sound Transit. Thankfully, after years of sitting empty, we're finally getting some housing on those lots. This one, though, seems to be city-owned.
map of MLK and Dawson showing the triangular plot of land
looking northwest along MLK towards Dawson, showing the 106 bus stop on the corner and the triangular plot.
looking west towards MLK at the triangular plot. Mattresses and other large trash objects are a frequent problem here, as shown in the photo -- at least once a week, someone dumps something big here.
another view of the triangular plot of land, looking north along 35th ave s
I'm curious if anyone has ideas for what the city could do with this small triangle of land at MLK and Dawson in Columbia City. It's a tough spot -- not great as green space because it's right next to MLK, and a frequent dumping ground for trash, old furniture and mattresses. What could it become?
Cooper's hawk on a bird fountain.
We get a lot of different birds in our backyard fountain near Hitt's Hill, but this is the first time I've seen a hawk there. Look at this beautiful Cooper's hawk! It just perched there for a good five minutes while we watched from behind the window.
Oof, and that particular intersection is a nightmare. I stopped sitting outside at Hill City tap house (on the corner of that intersection) because I couldn't get over the fear of a crash or speeding car demolishing the patio and taking me with it. Not trying to add to your worry, just agreeing.
Unfortunately, the just-released 2024 ACS data estimates that we have added over 20,000 vehicles in Seattle compared to the 2023 numbers. Balk's reporting was based on the 2023 dataset.
A line plot of the percent of occupied housing units with different numbers of cars, from 2013 to 2024.
Yes, I think you're right. I was looking at the Census data from the ACS and it shows an increase in both 1-car and no-car occupied housing units, and a decrease in 2-car and 3-or-more-car units. (The car-free estimate is back under 20% for 2024.). I made a quick visualization to summarize.