Transit Alert – Rts 12 & 60 traveling on Madison are experiencing delays more than 60 min. late this morning, due to heavy traffic.
— King County Metro 🚏 (@KingCountyMetro) January 21, 2016
If you’re wondering why traffic on Madison was a nightmare Thursday, blame a Department of Homeland Security-led training exercise involving Seattle Police near 6th and Madison.
SPD confirmed the training Thursday morning but referred CHS to the federal agency for more information. We’ve asked DHS for more on the nature of the training and the planned duration. The federal agency offers local law enforcement agencies a wide variety of “training opportunities,” according to its website.
Thursday morning, traffic backed-up to Boren and beyond as vehicles were re-routed around the training area for access to I-5. There were no local announcements of the training session.
You can check out the latest conditions on the CHS Traffic Cameras page.
@jseattle Police training at 6th & Madison. Traffic onto I-5 rerouted so all of Madison is at a standstill.
— Feiya Wang (@RoughDreamer) January 21, 2016
https://twitter.com/kcmetrobus/status/690226239
Why would they do this during rush hour? Just… why.
Terrorists don’t schedule their explosions for off-hours.
Wow. Rush hour training with no advance notice to the people affected? That’s some TSA class thinking right there. Did they promote someone from that org to their LEO training partnerships?
I guess that explains why the 545 was such a mess today.
I mean in real life situations there will be no advance notice, people will be inconvenienced, it might happen in the busiest intersection or the slowest. I think it’s a more authentic training experience to do it this way.
But in real life, there would be announcements/news soon after something happened. They would likely encourage people to avoid the affected area, not continue on with their daily commute obliviously.
This has to be one of the silliest things they have done in a while. Due to this I was 30 minutes late to work this morning on my commute from Capitol Hill to Beacon Hill for work. I can understand training exercises are needed but at the same time if it is a planned training they should have at least alerted metro.
On a number of occasions I have seen DHS Tahoes racing through the downtown with their lights and sirens on. Not once did I hear later on the news how there was some big federal emergency that day… A cynic may conclude that a culture of superiority may exist within the department. Not by me of course.