A couple of upstanding West Seattle residents were honored with awards this week! Also discussed: housefires, elections and skinny-dipping. more ›

Here's a tip: one of the quickest way to incite an angry diatribe from nearly any motorist in Seattle is to ask them about parking around here. more ›

Fans of the South Lake Union Trolley and/or Seattle being more like San Francisco can start crossing their fingers now. A recent proposal by SDOT suggests additional street trolleys might be a good investment for future transit options. more ›

If you were one of the many concerned about how construction of WSDOT's latest SR-520 project's impact to the Washington Park Arboretum, take note. The City Council approved a measure today to execute measures to the park to make it suck less to be around during construction -- and some of them are being implemented by the end of the summer. more ›

Pete Holmes raises the ire of another police organization, Seattle's traffic woes continue, and a Bellevue woman get hosed by New Jersey courts. Today's headlines await, under the jump. more ›

As posted yesterday, the Seattle Department Transportation has revised their proposed parking hikes -- and while some neighborhoods are spared any increases, and most neighborhood parking prices are actually decreasing, the downtown commercial core and First Hill are remaining at $4 an hour. Spared from the hike is struggling Pioneer Square, hurt by the economy and a bad reputation, whose revised rate went down from $4 to $3.50. more ›

One of the most contentious decisions of last year was Mayor Mike McGinn's proposal to increase parking in downtown areas to a whopping $4 an hour, with a 50-cent increase in certain other areas. more ›

The Seattle Department of Transportation is urging commuters to leave work early to avoid the snow that's supposedly still coming our way this evening. And since SDOT reports to the mayor, this is basically a direct order from Mayor McGinn to stop working and go home. Right now. At least that's how we see things. more ›

KING 5's headline says it all: "Business owner wanted snow plows, got umbrellas." In a nice gesture, badly timed right in the wake of this year's snowpocalypse, city lack of preparedness and the inevitable citizen wrath, Seattle Department of Transportation has begun handing out umbrellas to local businesses as part of their Holiday Pedestrian Safety Campaign. The cost? Around $5,000 for the umbrella arm of the campaign, and $47,000 for the whole shebang. The justification for these brightly-colored umbrellas, which read, cutely, "See You in the Crosswalk," are distributed from local retail outlets and returned, theoretically, on the honor system. The goal is to increase pedestrian safety during the winter months' darkness and inclement weather. From KING: more ›

In response to Seattle's 2008 snowpocalypse (which had everyone in the Midwest laughing at us -- three to five inches!), Metro has released its new snow plan, which, in the event of a dangerous level of snow, will reduce service to the "Emergency Service Network"--70 routes that follow main arterials that are the top priority for snowplows, Publicola reported last week. more ›

Mayor Nickels took heavy fire for the City's handling of the storm. It certainly cost him some goodwill, and whoever our next mayor is, he'd better be equipped to respond to winter storms effectively and quickly if he expects his constituents to stay happy. more ›

The City’s undertaking a program to upgrade street signs from aluminum fiberglass (they’re shinier and last longer), and so the Department of Transportation is selling the old street signs for $5-15, depending on condition. SDOT’s put up a list of available signs (pdf here), or you can check the signs out in person at the City’s Surplus Warehouse at 3807 Second Ave. S. More info is available on the Surplus Warehouse website. The program is funded by the Bridging the Gap repair levy, which was approved a few years ago. By 2016, every neighborhood will have had their signs replaced--so if you want a particular sign, just wait. more ›

• Out of the gate from the 12 post position, Assessment (6-1) won Sunday's 74th running of the Longacres Mile at Emerald Downs. The top race brought in $796,268 worth of wagers, a single-race record.
• Finally, the Woodland Park Zoo's male snow leopard has a name: Gobi. Regardless of what 35,000 people wanted, we still think a Thundercats-inspired name would have been so much cooler.

The Seattle Department of Transportation failed to properly oversee almost $200,000 in roadwork, the reports, all of which will now be replaced at the city's cost. In the midst of the ongoing budget crisis at City Hall, this does nothing to help Greg Nickels' re-election campaign, who some pollsters show losing in head-to-head races with virtually all his potential opponents. more ›

SDOT has just sent us a freaking packed list of weekend events that will result in traffic jams, parking space jams, and closed-street jams. Capitol Hill is basically closed to cars starting tonight, and that's not counting the Greenwood Car Show, Rock 'n' Roll Marathon, Children's Ride, or the Sounders game. more ›

• Add this to the traffic sucks--again--column. Eastlakers were fortunate enough to find out this morning that construction crews began work on the Boylston Avenue E street and sidewalk improvements. Work will continue daily (except weekends) till Friday, June 26.
• The Montlake home of Daphne Tomchak has been left in shambles--$18,000 worth of damages--after funding ran out mid-shoot for the Hollywood movie types who used and abused her home for the film.

You won't be able to gaze wistfully seaward from the Fremont Bridge this Wednesday, Thursday, and half of Friday. The Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) is closing the west sidewalk of the Fremont Bridge (from Nickerson Street to N 34th Street) beginning at 9 a.m. Wednesday, June 10, and reopening it at 2:30 p.m. on Friday, June 12. They're replacing concrete panels in the bridge sidewalk. You will be able to cross on the eastern sidewalk, and we encourage you to bring a camera for photos of spandex-clad cyclists colliding at high speed because that would warm our little peach pit of a heart. Freaking maniacs. It's a sidewalk. Slow down. more ›

In a grim, darkly hilarious special report, the Times has confirmed that the guys in charge of dealing with Snowmageddon in December didn't know what they were doing--as in, they had no experience dealing with a major snowstorm and they made "questionable calls" right and left. From the report:

"Mr. Jackson had no idea of what was going on," said Sione Kongaika, a plow driver who recently retired after 31 years with the Seattle Department of Transportation. Two or three days into the first major snowfall, "all he was doing is yelling, 'We have to get more plows downtown. The mayor can't get to the office.' "

We're a bit surprised to find out the city's Urban Forestry people want to "spruce up" (get it?) Third Avenue, when other streets in Belltown, like parts of First, could certainly use the attention. But what makes a good urban tree, anyway? More to the point, what makes a bad one? Partly, we suppose, it's got to do with the kind of tree but frankly, they all look kind of scraggly. ("Woodman, spare that tree!" you say? No, not this one, that one.) At any rate, "hybrid elms" are on the way, a cross between the American and the Siberian varieties, fast-growing, long-lasting and disease-resistant. If you're not a hybrid elm, you're coming down within the week. more ›

Pounding the pavement like a cop on the beat, waving at shopkeepers, petting a dog, helping an old lady, munching a donut, strolling the sidewalk, protecting the neighborhood...in some Hollywood Shangri-La, maybe, but not in 21st-century urban America, where the cops rarely leave the security of their patrol cars. Kids may play hopscotch on the sidewalks of Madrona or Wedgewood, but not in Belltown, where the sidewalks, for better or worse, have become a full-scale laboratory for transportation engineers and urban planners. Art projects, bus shelters, sidewalk cafés, bike racks, garbage cans, newspaper vending machines, and trees of various ages and diverse species populate the right-of-way, buckling the four-inch concrete and turning the simple business of walking down the block into a hazardous obstacle course. more ›

If I was a bear and a big bear too, I wouldn't care much if it froze or snew. But we're not Pooh-bears, we're Seattleites (and Seattlests), and the fact is, our city failed us, failed miserably last month. Ace-of-Grace Crunican, nominally in charge of Seattle streets, actually left town during the height of the storm. Spacey Kevin Desmond, nominally in charge of Metro, went ten days without phoning back to ask SDOT whazzup wid da snowplowz, guys? Clowns, all of them. Most of us came to Seattle because it's a decent place to live, drawbacks of climate aside. We put up with crappy weather half the year and year-round provincialism in exchange for clean air, clean water, clean government. We don't expect betrayal at the hands of incompetent bureaucrats. more ›

The Fremont Bridge, gateway to the Center of the Universe, could be your future art studio. Some lucky Seattle-area creative type is going to get a workshop in one of the bridge towers, in which to create a diverse, in-depth exploration of what it means to be the city’s busiest bridge 'n' stuff. All that and a $20,000 grant from SDOT. Apply by Jan. 5. Or don’t--we don’t need the competition! more ›

• White Center Now reports that King County Executive Ron Sims has proposed two staggered fare increases for Metro buses on his blog. In other news--Ron Sims writes a blog?!
• Yesterday's late afternoon thunder and lightning struck a little too close to home for a West Seattle Blog reader. A cedar tree in their neighbor's back yard was split in two by a lightning strike, sending cedar chips flying everywhere.
• PhinneyWood wants to let you know that, if you've had trouble with getting a green building permit, there's a meeting scheduled just for you this Wednesday at the Phinney Neighborhood Association.

The other day we asked if there was anything special you could do to set off the arrow for turn-only lanes if you're on a bike. And yes, there is. (See also comment #9 by eldan.) more ›