Results tagged “cityofseattle”

So we were excited to see that the city is trying out a solution for sidewalk-ruining roots, at least. They're using something called Silva Cells as they plant some red oak trees in front of the Escala downtown. We asked Shane DeWald, landscape architect for SDOT how it works.

How many City of Seattle dollars will it take to screw in 40,000 light bulbs--LED, to be exact? Only about $6 million. The city will use some of its federal stimulus money to begin replacing the city's incandescent streetlights for the long-lasting, cost-saving, and eco-friendly LED streetlights. Folks in Capitol Hill have already begun seeing street life post-LED lights, and from the sounds of it, life is good. However, not every neighborhood will be as lucky as Capitol Hill. The City of Seattle estimates the full switch-a-roo will take four to six years. Guess that's one way to keep the stimulus money lasting longer.

The bored tunnel option just got a big wet kiss from the Senate, though its House reception will not be so warm. Still, the clock's ticking and WSDOT, King County, and the City of Seattle are inviting you on a free short walking tour of the viaduct on Saturday, March 21, while the structure is closed to traffic for an inspection.

During that vaguely hellish snowstorm right before Christmas, the City of Seattle may or may not have missed garbage pickup a few times at your house. You will recall a certain stench. If they missed your house two times or more during those weeks, the city has announced they will be sending you a check for $5 to make up for it! Man, $5. That's a whole two meals at Dick's, Seattle. Of course, $5 can also buy you a neighborhood kid willing to clean out the insides of your putrid, slimy garbage can. It's your call what you'll do with this unexpected bounty.

• Looks like the Rainier Valley Post has classifieds, now. We love seeing all the ways neighborhood blogs are connecting people to those around them, and introducing classifieds as a way of communicating about local resources is kind of brilliant in a year when jobs promise to be scarce and money scarcer.
• Seattlest MvB and CHSer JSeattle collaborated last night to bring you breaking (hah!) news about a fallen branch on a 15th Avenue power line. Photo included, for which we hear MvB sold the rights at $3, down from an initial bargaining price of $10,000.Capitol Hill wasn't the only neighborhood having problems with power. West Seattle Blog reports an overnight storm-related power outage about seven hours long at their HQ. Good thing they had stockpiled MacBook batteries!
• Irate commenters will be glad to hear that the City of Seattle jumped to use salt on the city's streets during the snowstorm last night. Seattle 911 has the details.

Sounds like the city is listening, after all. At a press conference this afternoon, Nickels announced changes to the official no-salt policy: in some, limited circumstances, salt will be used on the streets of Seattle to make life easier in the snow. We thought this day would never come. In addition, the city is looking into giving rebates to residents whose trash pick-up was skipped two weeks in a row. When more information is available, we'll post it!

Snow-crusted trash bins are overflowing all over Seattle, thanks to missed garbage collections last week. Garbage pick-up should resume today; if you're unwilling to wait your turn or for some reason the trucks skip your house over the next five days, the City of Seattle would like you to know that you can drop off trash yourself for free at the nearest Recycling and Disposal station until January 1st. The two stations located in Seattle proper are in Wallingford, on North 34th Street and in SoDo, on 5th Avenue South.

Try explaining to your intellectually savvy, but economically challenged 6-year-old that Santa, who lives at the presumably snowier-than-here North Pole, might not make it to your house until Saturday or Sunday at the earliest due to a few inches of new snow.

Editor Emeritus Seth Kolloen demanded the mic to make a few statements following the snowbomb-throwing anarchy of Jeremy, Ronald, and Brad this morning. We're sick of putting up snow photos, so we said sure. That's how easy it is to guest editorialize on Seattlest. Try it some time.

The 1, which normally goes up the gentle slope of 10th West, isn't going up the hill at all. Forget about the 3 and 4, which take the eastern flank, up Taylor. And don't even think about the 2 and 13, which take the Counterbalance. Queen Anne, if you live there, is a tight little island. Nice, but not all the people who own QA bars and restaurants and cafés live on the hill; they can't afford it. Even if they can, their staff can't. So you might be able to get a beer at Paragon or a coffee at Starbucks, but don't count on lasagna at Sorrentino's. Thanks for nothing, Metro.

On the first Wednesday of every month at high noon, our home is rattled by a screaming bullhorn miles away telling us that if Mount Rainier should ever blow, these same disembodied voices will totally have us covered. It is part of the County's elaborate "Lahar Warning System." In addition to a network of louder-than-Metallica audiotronics, the County also has page after page online addressing the symptoms, effects and remedies to all things lahar. For a lahar. A once-in-10,000-year event.

We've said it before and we'll say it again: the mayor's proposal to ban guns on public property is an ill-founded idea. Attorney General McKenna has said Nickels doesn't have the legal authority to follow through on this plan, but so far all the opposition seems to have barely registered with the man and the ban is barrelling full steam ahead. That is, unless enough people make it clear that there are better ways to combat gun violence. Tonight is your chance to speak up in public on how you feel about the gun ban, as City Hall is hosting an official City of Seattle hearing on the subject at 6:30 p.m. No word on whether Mayor Nickels will be there to sign autographs (sorry!).

West Seattle Blog is tweeting from the King County Courthouse, bringing the latest on the viaduct situation from a City of Seattle press conference. According to her, the two options now presented are a surface/transit hybrid and an elevated bypass hybrid.

The styrofoam ban date is approaching rapidly (Jan. 1), and it looks like it's really going to happen. Yesterday, the City of Seattle held an open house to help educate the restaurant industry about recyclable and compostable alternatives. Some of the options: "wheat-based clamshells" and "corn-based plastic cups." We noticed last week that Taco Del Mar has switched to recyclable plastic bags for take-out. The bags are translucent, with green ink and a large "recycle" symbol. Have you seen any other restaurants changing their materials yet?

City of Seattle Proposition 1: Seattle Prop. 1 would enact a six-year levy to raise money to do some much-needed safety maintenance on the Pike Place Market. Pretty much everyone in town supports the levy. With uncharacteristically weird grammar, the Times says, "It's not fun or fancy improvements, but you have to do it."

Judge Marsha Pechman will preside over the City of Seattle v. Sonics trial, scheduled to begin Monday. Since the fate of our beloved pro basketball team rests in her hands, Seattlest wanted to take a closer look at the person standing at center court.

Back on March 19th, Seattle declared war on potholes. (Exactly one week after we submitted a little policy paper on the topic, so draw your own conclusions.)

As mentioned on Slog yesterday, Seattle Public Utilities (SPU) has recommended that the City of Seattle remove the self-cleaning public toilets located in and around downtown Seattle.

We became a pothole snitch this morning. We turned in the huge holes alongside Cal Anderson, in front of Vivace, thanks to "encouragement" from a commenter on an earlier pothole post:

instead of complaining about the potholes in a blog posting maybe you should fill out the online form and report them so they get fixed. but that might be too easy and would give you nothing to whine about.

The failing state of the roads on Capitol Hill (and maybe all over Seattle, we just happen to spend most of our time cursing Capitol Hill potholes) has been getting to us the last few days. Biking around, we're spending as much time avoiding potholes that will swallow our front tire as sleep-deprived drivers on cell phones. We wanted to get a photo to illustrate what we're talking about, and the only issue was, which huge pothole would it be?