White Center Now: The blog about White Center

At last report, buses and other traffic are still being rerouted at 1st/112th because of a multicar crash this morning – here’s a KIRO report on what happened. AFTERNOON UPDATE: We checked with King County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. John Urquhart who could confirm only that one person had potentially life-threatening injuries. (Those were apparently TV choppers over the scene at noontime, by the way; here’s KING’s latest report.)

Big project announced by WSDOT – and if you’re heading back from points south, this might affect you tomorrow night (and in another round of work a week later) – here’s the state’s announcement:

Don’t let the cold weather and holiday lights fool you, WSDOT crews are still hard at work in December. For the next two Saturday nights crews will close six miles of northbound Interstate 5 through south Seattle to install 15 overhead sign bridges.

The new sign bridges will hold overhead electronic signs alerting drivers to reduce their speed or change lanes when there are collisions or backups on the road. The new signs are the latest smarter highway technology aimed at increasing safety and reducing collisions. The $23.8 million project is funded by the Alaskan Way Viaduct program to help keep traffic moving during viaduct demolition and construction.

“Getting these sign bridges up is the first major milestone in making northbound I-5 a safer and smarter highway,” said Craig Stone, WSDOT Toll Division Director. “We’ll spend the rest of the winter and spring installing the high-tech signs before activating them next summer.”

Crews will close all lanes of northbound I-5 from 11:30 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 5, to 8 a.m. Sunday, Dec. 6, between Boeing Access Road and Spokane Street. I-5 on-ramps in the area will start closing as early as 9 p.m. Crews will again close all lanes of northbound I-5 from 11:30 p.m. Dec. 12 to 8 a.m. Dec. 13 between Boeing Access Road and I-90.

The following ramps will be closed from 9 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 5, to 8 a.m. Sunday, Dec. 6:

o Boeing Access Road and Martin Luther King Jr. Way S. to northbound I-5
o Swift Avenue S./S. Graham Street to northbound I-5
o Corson Avenue/S. Michigan Street to northbound I-5

A signed detour will direct drivers to exit at Martin Luther King Way (exit 157) to Airport Way and back onto I-5 via Edgar Martinez Way/SR 519. Drivers should consider taking alternate routes like I-405 or SR 99 to avoid long delays and backups.

For those who missed it, KUOW today broadcast an interview with, King County Executive, Susan Hutchison.  You can find the interview at KUOW Weekday.  In a prior post I had made the following observation which sparked a fair amount of discussion:

Ms. Hutchison has never held public office.  She has never had to struggle with the political realities of governing a complex political entity whose ambits include not only roads and sewers but social services, neighborhoods and law enforcement.  It is difficult to see how her experience on the board of the Seattle Symphony prepared her, in the slightest way, for such a weighty role.

If anyone had any doubt about Ms. Hutchison’s lack of specificity on issues, policies or even advisors, it is worth a listen (available on podcast).  Pressed by the moderator to name a single advisor who she consults, or who she would bring to her administration, she flatly resisted naming anyone, except to say bus drivers.  Her conclusion was “trust me” they will be great people.  I have nothing against bus drivers, but maybe she could have named a couple of the guys that she intends to bring to the Hutchison administration that will “bring people together.”  I’m sorry but calling Hutchison a “lightweight” does not begin to describe the chasm that is her lack of qualification to hold such an important post.  Listen for yourself.

It appears that Seattle Mayoral Candidate, Mike McGinn has staked his campaign on one issue, gutting the viaduct tunnel plan carefully negotiated by all the relevant players.  If he wins, he has stated, he will view his victory as a mandate to undo the viaduct replacement plan.  In its stead, McGinn has promised more busses, sidewalks and bike paths.  As someone who regularly commutes on the viaduct it’s hard for me to see how more sidewalks and bikepaths is going to make my commute any easier.  Oh, yeah, and McGinn says he wants to use light rail to replace the viaduct.  Geez, I didn’t know that Sound Transit was planning a light rail leg for West Seattle and White Center.  Wait, there is no light rail leg for West Seattle.  So if McGinn is elected we can expect protracted delays on replacing the viaduct, procuring boatloads of money and the decade’s long process of what:  extending the light rail line to West Seattle.  No problema.  I’ll take the tunnel.  It’s clear that McGinn does not live in West Seattle nor does he use the viaduct to commute.

What is particularly disingenuous, is McGinn’s claim that the tunnel option was voted down by Seattle voters.  This is simply not true.  A tunnel option which would have meant tearing down the viaduct and digging up a tunnel was rejected.  The deep bore tunnel that is currently planned would leave the viaduct in place while the tunnel gets built, saving West Seattleites years of aggravating surface detours.  This option was negotiated because it provides the most mobility and least interference while it is getting built.  What McGinn is proposing would set us back a decade and have us revisit the viaduct replacement options once again.  Recall how all this useless process killed the monorail (we had to vote on it three times).  And in the meantime, we have to hope that a seismic event doesn’t make the whole thing hollow by bringing down the decrepit structure.  Busses, bikes and sidewalks, Oh My!

McGinn’s ill-defined plans for the viaduct are enough to nix the guy in my book.  Add to that, the fact that he has never held electoral office, that most of his policy positions lack any specificity and you have a feel-good kind of guy that you might pick for your soccer team, but not a mayor for a major city.  Seattle needs better.  I’m not crazy about Joe Mallahan, but he at least seems considerably more grounded on policies.  We have already had a couple of amateurs embarrass the City.  It’s time to let the grown ups proceed with real policies grounded in reality.

7 am-7 pm Saturday, the South Park Bridge is closing for repairs, so if you use that route to get between northern White Center and South Park/other areas, you’ll need to plan an alternative. Here are full details on the county’s website.

MargL noticed signs for a major closure coming up on Ambaum – so we checked with King County DOT for the details, and here’s what Linda Thielke sent:

* Ambaum Boulevard Southwest at Southwest 120th Street
* Scheduled closure is from 7 a.m. Monday, June 15 through 5 p.m. Friday, June 26
* During the closure, crews will be replacing a drainage pipe underneath Ambaum
* Motorists can detour via 12th Avenue SW to SW 116th Street and back to Ambaum
* This is a joint project between the City of Burien and King County

Delridge is blocked from Thistle to Holden because of a fire in the 8100 block.

One of our cafe patrons was driving to the cafe when he saw an approaching car hit a child who was sumersaulted by the blow.  As the child was crawling away, her head bleeding, the driver, a young man kept repeating, “it’s ok” to his companion.  They got into the car and were about to drive away when our patron pulled his car in front of theirs and told them, “you aren’t going anywhere.”  A restaurant next to the scene emptied out and people surrounded the car while somebody called the police.  Aid units and police arrived.  No word on the condition of the child.

The Seattle Times is reporting that the road clearing during December’s snow storms was driven by political decisions rather than the clearing of critical arterials.

In previous storms, plow drivers had discretion over how best to clear their assigned routes, said plow driver Chris Stuker. City drivers would traverse main routes in tandem, allowing main roads to be cleared and plows to clear feeder streets as they were able to, Stuker and three other drivers said.

But that system was replaced by top-down decision-making that resulted in trucks being pulled from major streets for special assignments and to help less-experienced drivers, most of them working in the south end of the city, according to two drivers who asked to remain anonymous out of a concern for their jobs.

From the Seattle Department of Transportation:

SDOT’s contractor plans to lay a new asphalt surface on the southbound lanes of 14th Avenue South in the South Park neighborhood from Monday, March 9 to Friday, March 27, depending on weather conditions. During this work, the southbound lanes of 14th Avenue South between South Cloverdale Street and South Director Street will be closed with traffic detoured 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Detour signs will be posted prior to the start of construction. One lane will remain open for northbound traffic. The project is scheduled for completion this spring.