Wednesday morning, the City Council transportation committee received an update from SDOT on the first year of its scooter-share pilot program. With the department’s relentless effort to tell a positive story, it should be no surprise that one of the four scooter vendors in the program is named “Spin.”
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Council advances new street parking plan for Seattle Center large events
This morning, the Council’s Transportation and Utilities Committee voted to move forward a bill to allow SDOT to dramatically increase street parking rates around the Seattle Center during large events, in preparation for the opening of Climate Pledge Arena in October.
Continue readingMayor Durkan decides on repairing West Seattle Bridge instead of immediate replacement
This morning Mayor Durkan announced that the city will move forward with repairing the cracked main span of the West Seattle Bridge, with the expectation that it will reopen by mid-2022, restore the bridge to its original expected lifetime, and push out building a replacement for up to 40 years. However, she also said that SDOT will start studying an eventual replacement strategy now, and it will approach Sound Transit about jointly building a third span to West Seattle that could incorporate light rail, bicycles and pedestrians.
Continue readingAudit on SDOT’s bridge maintenance finds program vastly underfunded, lack of strategic plan
Two weeks ago the City Auditor released a report on vehicle bridge maintenance in Seattle. The report, which was commissioned by Council member Alex Pedersen following the closure of the West Seattle Bridge earlier this year, highlights a point SCC insight reported earlier this year: that SDOT’s bridge maintenance budget is only a fraction of the recommended amount. However, the Auditor cautions that before the Mayor and City Council try to increase the budget, SDOT needs to get its house in order to make sure that the money is well-spent and the work is done well.
Continue readingCity prepares to launch scooter-share “pilot” program
Last week the City Council advanced out of committee two bills that would set up SDOT to launch a much-anticipated scooter-share pilot program in Seattle.
Continue readingPedersen requests audit of SDOT bridge conditions and maintenance (updated)
Last Friday, Council member Alex Pedersen sent a letter to the City Auditor, requesting that he complete an audit report “to assess the physical conditions and maintenance investments for the major bridges owned by the Seattle Department of Transportation.” (UPDATE 4/29: at end of story)
Continue readingMore on the West Seattle Bridge
This morning SDOT briefed the City Council on the situation with the West Seattle Bridge (see the article I posted over the weekend for an explanation of what closed the bridge). Here is some additional information from that briefing, as communicated by SDOT staff.
Continue readingWhat happened to the West Seattle Bridge?
Earlier this week, SDOT made an emergency announcement that it was closing the high West Seattle Bridge due to an increase in cracking of the concrete in the bridge that, in their estimation, made the bridge unsafe to carry vehicles. They are now working on a deeper analysis and a repair plan. Let’s take a deeper dive into what has happened to the bridge.
Continue readingA trio of COVID-19 response announcements from the city (UPDATED 3/18)
Today the City of Seattle made three separate announcements of actions it is taking as part of its response to the COVID-19 outbreak. (UPDATE 3/18 — see below on encampment cleanups)
Continue readingNew report presents clearer picture on e-scooter safety issues
Last May, I wrote an article discussing the safety of e-scooters, as Seattle was beginning to discuss a scooter-share program modeled after its existing bike-share program, and as other cities aggressively rolled out scooter share. My conclusion was that there simply was not enough data to draw a definitive answer on e-scooter safety, though the early results presented reasons to be concerned. Now, as Seattle is well on its way to rolling out scooter-share later this spring, a new report on scooter injuries nationwide in 2018 brings us a bigger data set — and fresh reasons to be concerned.
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