Tag Archives: streets

Nice: Seattle boosts typical parking ticket to $69 starting January 1

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Screenshot

Seattle is jacking up its fine for parking tickets in 2025 for the first time in 14 years.

Currently, most parking fines range from $29 to $53, depending on the type of violation, the city says. The new fines will range from $43 to $78.

The most common fines of $47 will soon cost you $69.

CHS reported here on City Hall’s latest adjustments to on-street parking rates across Capitol Hill where the most coveted nighttime spots have now reached $6.50 an hour.

On-street parking also continues to shrink across the city as new programs and protected parking zones have been created to better utilize the public space. Continue reading →

Seattle needs a new transportation leader

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Spotts and the mayor hop off the bus at the RapidRide G ribbon cutting ceremony earlier this year

The final acts of Greg Spotts leading the Seattle Department of Transportation have had some mixed results. The $1.45 billion transportation levy he helped shepherd cruised to victory with voters in November. The $144 million RapidRide G his department was in charge of building for King County Metro launched with construction mistakes, inadequate bus shelters, and traffic signal hiccups.

Spotts announced this week he is stepping down from the post, citing a desire to work closer to family.

CHS reported here in 2023 as the former chief sustainability officer at the Los Angeles Bureau of Street Services and “15-minute city advocate” made the move from Southern California to the Pacific Northwest with a “Vision Zero” agenda and a philosophy around “self-enforcing” roads.

Under Mayor Bruce Harrell’s administration, Spotts barely got started in what will ultimately be a short tenure in the role. The $1.45 billion transportation levy will be one measure of his work. The city’s continued challenges around traffic safety will be another. Continue reading →

Sunday: Seattle Marathon 2024 winds way through Interlaken Park

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The pedestrian and bicycling-only curves of E Interlaken Blvd will be filled with thousands of runners, rollers, joggers, and don’t give up you can do it walkers as the Seattle Marathon passes across the north slope of Capitol Hill Sunday morning.

The Seattle Department of Transportation says there will be trail and street closures across the route including SR-99, the Burke-Gilman, and I-5 Express lanes. Streets should reopen by 2:30 PM. Be prepared for delays along 24th Ave E where the route crosses the artery.

The full marathon’s official start time is 7 AM. Many participants won’t arrive in Interlaken until noon.

Around 15,000 participants are expected across the day’s events including the half and full marathon. In 2023, there were more than 1.700 runners and walkers who finished. Times ranged up to 18 minutes per mile for the slowest having the most fun-est runners.

In 2019, marathon organizers re-routed the course away from Interlaken as part of moves needed to avoid light rail construction on the I-90 bridge and flatten the course. After the pandemic forced the cancellation of the 2020 race, organizers finally restored the Interlaken portion of the run for the race’s 2022 edition.

Crowds gather on the northern fringes of Capitol Hill to mark mile 22.5 of the race with an annual final boost of cheering and enthusiasm.

More information on the race is at seattlemarathon.org.

 

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Pedestrian hit by driver on Broadway suffers serious injuries — UPDATE

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A pedestrian struck by a driver Thursday night on Broadway was taken to the hospital in serious condition.

Seattle Fire says it responded to the collision at Broadway and Harrison just before 6 PM. According to SFD and emergency radio updates, the man was struck by a driver in a black Honda Fit in a “high impact” collision that left the victim down and unresponsive in the northbound lane.

The patient was treated at the scene and transported to Harborview in serious condition, SFD reports.

Police at the scene reported taking one person into custody but we don’t have additional information on the arrest at this time.

Broadway was closed to traffic during the response.

UPDATE: Records indicate SPD was investigating the incident as a DUI crash.

 

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Subscribe to CHS to help us hire writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. To stay that way, we need you.

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Good vibrations? WSDOT says construction underway for seven-year 520 Portage Bay Bridge and Roanoke Lid project

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Design concept for a new bridge over Portage Bay

Just as the Montlake Lid project is laying down its final layers of landscaping bark, the Washington Department of Transportation says construction began this week for SR-520’s Roanoke Lid and Portage Bay Bridge project:

Beginning the week of Nov. 4, crews will start piledriving in Portage Bay to build the temporary work trestle and future westbound Portage Bay bridge. A work trestle is essentially a temporary platform that crews need to build so they can construct the permanent bridge. This will be the first of six piledriving “seasons” allowed on this project. Each season lasts from September through April. This first season – from November 2024 through April 2025 – will be the most significant season of impact piledriving work. The following seasons will have less piledriving – and some seasons may not drive piles at all.

The bridge work is a long process. The state says crews will use two methods to install or “drive” the piles. The first method uses a vibratory hammer to “vibrate” the piles into the bottom of the bay. The second method uses an impact hammer to strike the piles like a hammer into the base of the bay: Continue reading →

City says annual repainting of Capitol Hill Black Lives Matter street mural to take place this month — if weather cooperates

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(Image: CHS)

The City of Seattle and the group of artists that shepherd the creation are hoping for a run of dry October weather for the annual repainting of the Capitol Hill Black Lives Matter street mural.

The Seattle Department of Transportation says the collaboration with the Vivid Matter Collective to care for the mural remains intact along with help from the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture to gather every year to clean up and repaint portions of the street-tall E Pine mural.

SDOT crews were spotted at work on the the clean-up around the mural in September but a planned repainting event never took place due to rain, the collective said.

The city says the repainting “to restore the mural’s colors and vibrancy” requires good weather and is hoped to take place the weekend of October 19th or October 26th depending on the forecast. Current forecasts call for stretches of drizzle that could further delay the effort.

Vivid Matter Collective has yet to announce a new date for its 2024 effort

The Vivid Matter Collective shepherds the long-term responsibility of maintaining the Black Lives Matter mural created by artists and activists in 2020 in the first days of the protests in Seattle. Continue reading →

City’s latest rate adjustments show nightlife crowds apparently willing to pay anything to park in Pike/Pine

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If you were to treat the Seattle Department of Transportation’s seasonal adjustments of its on-street parking rates like the stock market, you should be buying shares in the afternoon and evening sector on 12th Ave, go long all around the clock on 15th Ave E, hold a few shares of Broadway north of John, and be ready to jump off the momentum that keeps Pike/Pine nighttime rates soaring to match the highest total in the city.

Meanwhile, you can short Broadway between Pine and Capitol Hill Station in the afternoons and evenings — for now.

The city is out with the new payment schedule for Capitol Hill’s five main on-street parking zones as makes its “regular seasonal adjustments” to rates across the city. The new rates take effect starting today. More than half of the rates are staying the same. but the city is ticking up rates by $0.50 an hour for about 1 in 4 of its street parking spots. About 14% are getting a $0.50 discount in the latest update, the city says.

Here is how that shakes out this fall on Capitol Hill: Continue reading →

Seattle planning 19 new school safety zone cameras to nail speeders in 2025

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The Seattle Department of Transportation says speeding trends and equity prioritization of new enforcement locations using the city’s Composite Racial and Social Equity Index back a plan to add 19 new school safety zone cameras across the city.

No Capitol Hill area public or private schools made the city’s list for implementing new camera zones. The area is categorized at the lowest priority in the city’s equity rankings.

The list comes as the Seattle City Council is shaping the city’s 2025 budget. Mayor Bruce Harrell included funding for expanding the city’s school zone camera program in his 2025 budget proposal.

SDOT says the funding would double the number of cameras in the city including existing speed cameras near Montlake Elementary and Garfield High School. CHS reported here in 2022 as the new camera system was put in place along 23rd near Garfield. Continue reading →

Repairs underway as city screwed up wheelchair access on platforms and every bus shelter on new RapidRide G line — UPDATE

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RapidRide G will continue to operate on Madison through the work but it turns out that more than signal timing and the line’s new “kiss the curb” coaches are in need of fine tuning.

The Seattle Times reported Monday morning that all 25 bus shelters and three station platforms along the newly launched $144 million line need to be repaired because of errors restricting wheelchair access.

Riders and CHS readers noted large orange steel panels placed at platforms at the route when the line began its first service last month. It turns out, the Seattle Department of Transportation placed the segments to raise buses the less than an inch required for the RapidRide wheelchair ramps to properly operate.

King County Metro says it is looking into solutions that could include making adjustments to the buses or lowering the cement platforms at eastbound stop 104 at Terry, eastbound stop 105 at Summit, and westbound 124 at the three-way intersection of Madison, Union, and 12th Ave. Continue reading →

Pedestrian hit by driver at E Olive Way intersection where SDOT has been promising ‘Rectangular Rapid Flashing Beacons’ crosswalk for months

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“Rectangular Rapid Flashing Beacons” pedestrian crossing system

A pedestrian crossing E Olive Way at Harvard Ave was injured and taken to the hospital after being hit by a driver Friday night.

The crossing is notoriously dangerous and the Seattle Department of Transportation has said it is planning a crosswalk and safety improvements at the intersection.

Friday, Seattle Police and Seattle Fire were called to the area just before 11:30 PM to reports that a pedestrian was down at the crossing.

Seattle Fire tells CHS the patient was reported as a 33-year-old man who was transported to the hospital in stable condition.

There were conflicting reports about whether the driver and the vehicle involved in the crash remained at the scene but police had a description and license plate number of the black Alfa Romeo seen striking the man. Continue reading →