Results tagged “traffic”

WSDOT tells us that from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. this Saturday, they're closing the onramp from Yale Avenue to southbound I-5 and one lane of southbound I-5 between Yale and Union Street.

Smoke from a brush fire that started at about 1:15 today has got traffic backed up for miles on I-5. Q13 has raw video. The fire blocked all southbound I-5 lanes and four northbound, but WSDOT Twitter tells us that now 3 lanes are open each direction. Somewhere in all that traffic are people who were trying to head to Southcenter Mall just for the air conditioning, and got stuck on a sweltering, smoky I-5 instead. We feel for them. But this is exactly why we never leave Capitol Hill--wait, what's this about a brush fire on Broadway near Harborview? Folks, the end is officially near.

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.

SDOT has issued a traffic advisory that lasts from noon to 6 p.m. and also announced that Montlake Boulevard will be closed from 1:30 to 5:30 p.m., so getting from say eight-tenths of the city to the University Village to buy flip flops and $8,000 patio ensembles will basically end for the day. That’s okay. Those attending the graduation will take up all the Village parking spaces anyway.

• Last night a group of pedestrians were robbed at knifepoint forkpoint in the area of 1st NE and NE 107th. Police have arrested the three suspects and recovered the weapon, a dinner fork.
• The street signs in Downtown say you can park till 6 p.m., but the tow trucks on First Ave. don't agree. Come 3:00 p.m., commute hours kick in, cars get towed, and tourists go crazy searching for their car.

We've been hammering rather bluntly at city services, so we thought to relate recent instances where they've gotten it right, for fairness' sake. Add yours in the comments, should you feel so inspired.

• Orphan Road has another interesting idea about how to make Seattle greener--this time involving unpaving parking lots.
• The Ballard High School flag was at half-staff today, and My Ballard tells you why.
• Magnolia Voice announces that plans to alter traffic flow on Nickerson Street have been put on hold until the viaduct replacement project is more solidified.

We're mentioning this mainly so you don't try driving hurriedly around McCaw Hall this morningas many: the city says "as 7,600 people are expected" to show up for the Starbucks 2009 Annual Shareholders Meeting, which starts in half an hour, at 10 a.m. It lets out at noon, so you might want to give Seattle Center a miss over lunchtime, too.

There are some up-sides to unemployment. For starters, you can sleep in a little bit and take as long as you want in the shower (at least until the hot water runs out). You can make your ramen noodles at any time of day, and you have a lot more time to psychically deal with the stresses of commenting on vicious message boards (or the Daily Weekly, which extends an official invite to now-homeless Sound Off commenters). You also don't have to fight traffic, and as the Times helpfully points out, all the laid-off people not fighting traffic makes the commutes of those still employed just that much easier. How nice for the still-employeds, you're thinking! It's especially kind of the article to highlight the venti cinnamon dolce latte one of the interviewed still-employed, still-commuting people purchases daily, an extra that costs just about as much as two week's worth of ramen. Ouch.

If you've ever suffered through traffic on Seattle's major freeways, then you've already thought about it. Why not just buy a big doll, set it up in the passenger's seat, and use the HOV lane? It would be perfect! You wouldn't have to actually deal with another person (read: listen to whatever radio station you want), but your commute would be cut by at least ten minutes just as if you had offered to drive your neighbor into town. Every once in awhile, someone implements this genius strategy and inevitably gets caught, like this smart guy did on I-405 yesterday. We absolutely do not blame him for trying.

Construction alert! We've got it all right here.

Sign, signs, everywhere a sign. Unemployment leads to fewer traffic jams. Glad we could help you out with that. Over in Perugia, Italy, investigators on the stand today said Amanda Knox turned cartwheels at the police station. And down in the deep blue sea there's a groovy new species of fish that a UW scientist named psychedelia. We'll smoke up to that.

The news over the wire (i.e., Twitter) is that the commute has not been pretty this morning, though it's improving except for 405 southbound, which is red and black on the map. For those of you still wondering where your bus is, take a look at Metro Tracker and the adverse weather/reroutes page. Savvy bus users tell us they swear by One Bus Away. They even have a blog for you to read while you're waiting for your bus. The One Bus Away Twitter feed has the absolutely latest bus news.

Everyone says the Post-Intelligencer is going "all electronic," but that's manifestly untrue. If there were a secret plan to turn the venerable Hearst paper into a digital flagship, don't you think, maybe, they'd be printing banner headlines every goddamn day saying "It's in the P-I...and it's still going to be in the P-I, online"? They've got 30-odd days to convert their 200,000 or so remaining print readers into online readers, and every day they don't scream "Read it online" is a day lost. No, the only conclusion is that Hearst just don't know what they're doing. Seattlepi.com serves about 4 million unique visitors and 45 million page views each month. But those are electrons, not dead trees. Don Smith, who carries the bizarre title "Interactivity Director," must be tearing his hair out. Doomed.

Rainier Valley Post has a few reasons why it's wrong to close the African American Academy. (Sable Verity wholeheartedly disagrees.) West Seattle Blog was on the ball this afternoon and has an updated post about the school board's proposed amendments to what were supposedly the final recommendations for school closures. The board votes on the recommended list tomorrow. Not everyone was thinking about school, though. MyBallard, for instance, was contemplating cottage-style housing developments. And Central District News learned from SDOT that 23rd Avenue is in such bad shape, it will take more than the usual time and effort to repair it.

5:15 p.m.: The Fremont Bridge is closed at this moment due to someone climbing over the concrete railing by the northwest tower. At latest, he was seen sitting on the pier near the edge and tossing bits of paper into the water below. Seattle PD and the Fire Department are on the scene with about 20 vehicles. Some firefighters were tying off, possibly in an attempt to pluck the guy off the bridge. Needless to say the whole bridge is closed to anything but foot/bike traffic on the eastern sidewalk. Southbound Metro route 28 and 31 buses were seen turning down 34th street, presumably to use the Ballard Bridge. [Update] 5:53 p.m.: The bridge is open. Traffic is flowing.

WSDOT has announced they will be re-opening I-5 this afternoon after flooding and debris forced the state to close the highway by Chehalis on Wednesday. The road crews are hard at work making sure the stretch is safe, and will be letting trucks and then regular traffic through at some point later today. That's great news for commerce in general, commuters, and all the weekend shows who were looking at cancellation. Won't it be nice when spring is here and the weather stops wreaking havoc on our city?

• The Rainier Valley Post has photos of the landslide that shut down the 9700 block of Rainier Avenue for most of the yesterday's business hours. Around 5 p.m. yesterday, the block re-opened to cars--this time with concrete barriers in place, just in case more earth thought it would be fun to interrupt traffic flow.
• King County jails are shaking things up in light of the budget crisis sweeping the state. The Daily Weekly reports that inmates will have to start wearing their orange jumpsuits all the time, now, to save on laundry costs.
• There's a new local music and arts site in town--ReignCity has arrived! We've been super-psyched for launch. What's online now is exactly what the urban arts needs in Seattle: a sortable, easy-on-the-eyes calendar, a music news blog, and event spotlights.

For all those who feel they must leave their cozy beds this morning and brave the Metro wilds, the latest updates on snow-impacted bus routes can be found on the Ice & Snow page of Metro's website. Routes 1, 5, 7, 17, 18, 26, 27, 28, 42, 48, 73, 148, 175, 255 and 355 are currently affected. [Ed. note: We walked past the Metro 10 bus on its Broadway reroute this morning at 9 a.m., but can't find it listed now on the Metro adverse weather page Katelyn mentioned--so maybe it's back to running down 15th. Maybe not.]

We had just noted that the temperature was 27 degrees this evening, and the roads were shiny, when we saw two luxury cars kissing bumpers on Roy Street. It was just a little surprising to see that one was a Hummer, and all the 4WD in the world hadn't helped. Now that's slippery.

It's always hard to come back to work after a holiday weekend; furthermore, even though it's Wednesday, last week Wednesday was Friday (so to speak). Today it's merely a run-of-the-mill Wednesday, which could be considered depressing. Maybe that's why this guy jumped into traffic on I-5 by NE 50th St. this morning. He wasn't hit, but other than that no one seems to know exactly how he's doing or what possibly made him think that was a healthy and life-affirming hump-day activity.

Yes, Virginia, there really is a viaduct decision. "After years of debates, arguments and advisory votes the replacement for the Alaskan Way Viaduct will finally be chosen next month," says the P-I. The viaduct is all over both dailies, with the Seattle Times pointing out that the state's projected $4.6 billion deficit isn't likely to affect transportation decisions as much as you'd think: "Transportation has a separate budget with its own source of revenue — primarily the gasoline tax, which is more stable than the sales tax." The surface street option still pencils out as the least expensive, fastest-to-buid choice, but at $800-$900 million and five years of construction, would still take quite a toll on the north-south commute.

• The Central District News is hoping the CD and ID get a streetcar out of the passage of Proposition 1. We share their hope.
• If you're heading west this weekend, West Seattle Blog reminds you there will be lane closures on the West Seattle Bridge.
• Just in time for Thanksgiving, it's the last Capitol Hill Farmer's Market of 2008 this Sunday. We'll definitely be heading to the market, rain or shine, for some local ingredients for the upcoming feast.

Thirty-seven Washington State troopers on motorcycles will be scrutinizing the behavior of drivers on I-5 today and tomorrow in what the P-I reports is a two-day push against dangerous freeway speed and aggression. That means if you're on I-5 in the next couple of days, 84% of the state's motorcycle troopers will be dedicating their full resources towards disciplining bad behavior on the road. It's all too easy to cruise way over 60mph during non-peak traffic hours, so be careful out there or you might find yourself with a ticket. (Put down those cell phones, too....)

Seattle pedestrians and bikers are fed up with it too. Over 70 Seattle sidewalks are closed due to private construction. A recently completed audit on sidewalk closures and pedestrian access concluded that the city wasn't doing enough to help pedestrians navigate the ever-changing sidewalk closures. In hopes of changing that, the audit proposes that construction projects be coordinated to avoid conflicting closures and that the city begin enforcing rules about pedestrian violations of sidewalk closures. Since the rising cost of gas makes walking more of a necessity for some of us than a leisure activity, we hope the sidewalk situation gets sorted out soon.

There are fewer worse feelings in the world than missing a flight thanks to a traffic jam on the way to the airport. Believe us, we've been there...on Thanksgiving weekend. Missing a flight due to a traffic jam you could avoid or plan for? We simply won't allow that for our dear readers. So if any of you are heading to Sea-Tac, prepare for an even larger traffic clusterfuck than usual. Due to light rail construction, there will be only one lane to the arrivals area, the northern entrance to the parking garage will be closed, and there is a detour from the cell phone waiting lot. So basically, whether you are coming, going, or just picking someone up, schedule a little extra time for your trip to Sea-Tac.

As for Journey, the enthusiastic and cover-band-ish Not-Steve (aka Arnel Pineda) stole the show with his unflagging energy. No, he's not Steve Perry. But Steve Perry couldn't be leaping around on the stage like that, and Pineda sounds eerily like his predecessor. With the exception of the end of "Don't Stop Believing," Pineda's voice was strong; we got concerned during those few questionable minutes, but Not-Steve fully recovered by the first bars of "Faithfully"--a song which was quite possibly the highlight of Journey's set. The other song we loved was "Lights," during which everyone did the obligatory cell-phone/lighter wave. Journey's new material was not inspired or even interesting, but we weren't there for the new material. We were there for "Ask The Lonely!"

Is it really Talk Like a Pirate Day AND Park(ing) Day today? Don't tell us it's also a Friday, lest we swoon.

• Rainier Valley Post warns: beware the Microsofties on I-90 today! The Microsoft annual meeting will be 11 a.m.-2 p.m. at Safeco Field today, and I-90 is sure to be a clusterfuck.
• Flu season is just around the corner and the B-Town Blog has a comprehensive list of south Sound sites for flu shots.
• Lights & Sirens reports on the oldest homicide suspect they've ever reported on.