To address the economic downturn, city employees will be taking unpaid furlough days to help with the city’s budget.  The Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) will participate by splitting the furloughing of its staff between two days in each furlough period.

Please expect to see reduced staffing at SDOT on the following days:

Please be patient with our staff as there will be fewer employees to assist you on these days.  While we may need to adjust our business practices due to the reduced staffing, SDOT remains committed to providing first rate service to our customers.

If you have any questions about the city’s furlough policy or SDOT’s service adjustments, please contact the department by calling 684-ROAD.

Thank you for your understanding.

The good news on 4th?  We’re ahead of schedule!  Want more? The most significant construction phase of work along 4^th Avenue downtown, near City Hall, is about halfway done – we’re over the hump!  If you can just keep that patience, and focus on the long-term benefits, for a month or so longer, we’re out of the woods (or concrete as it were).  This is the worst part of it because, as project manager Jessica Murphy notes, 4^th Avenue between James and Seneca has to be completely reconstructed – digging down to original dirt.  In the next phase traffic will still be reduced to two lanes but only a small percentage of panels will need replacement, so the work will go much faster.

Rebuilding city streets while thousands of cars and people travel along them is never easy but it has to be done.  Try to keep your sense of humor through the next phase as well – March to May – as only two through lanes between Seneca and Olive allow traffic along a very busy shopping area, and remember, crews are working on weekends too to get this needed work done as quickly as possible!

Photo by Dvorscak

Do you have really unique ideas about greener mobility and forms of transportation that are also safe? If so, there is an opportunity for you to share your ideas and perhaps win funding to develop them. 4Culture is holding a call for ideas on “low impact vehicle” designs that move people safely and more sustainably. The grant program is called “a Low Impact Vehicle exploration”, or aLIVe and is open to a variety of community members residing in Washington, Oregon, California, and British Columbia. Share your ideas on innovative transportation solutions by visiting the program site here. Move quickly though, as applications are due by Monday, January 25, 2010.

To learn more about ways SDOT supports decreasing your carbon footprint click here. And if you are interested in finding ways to “green” the way you get around the city, click here to learn about our Way to Go program.

Vicki Scuri, "DNA Wave Wall," Galer Street Overpass

This week, we’ll take a quick look at another way to add life and color to standard infrastructure in the right-of-way: surface treatments.  This technique has been used successfully in many corners of the city since the Art Plan was developed.  See the photos below for examples on both vertical surfaces and sidewalks. 

Sidewalk treatment: Stacey Levy, "Cornerstones"

Like the bike racks in other cities surveyed last week, visual treatments on standard surfaces provide a way to introduce art into the public right of way with creativity and at an incremental cost.

Stay tuned next week for the last installment of “Art Meets the Street”!

Sidewalk treatment with metal inlays

Fire Cruxent Studios, I-5 Bridge Painting at Jackson Street

Last week we updated you on the construction progress of the South Spokane Street Viaduct Fourth Avenue S ramp. Now we have a few more pictures of the work in progress, with a pretty good view of the structure. This is just a portion of a project that is part of SDOT’s efforts to improve access, reduce traffic delays, enhance freight mobility, and improve safety in the area. Things are going successfully and according to schedule. The ramp is expected to be opened this fall.

You can learn more about the South Spokane Street Project here. Information on upcoming closures and detours is available there as well.

Crews pouring concrete for the new 4th Ave S off ramp

Crews working on post tensioning

If you live in one of Seattle’s restricted parking zones (RPZs), read on for more information on RPZ program improvements.  Changes are occurring this year that will make it easier for you to find out if your address is included in an RPZ and to apply for permits online.  Also, newly designed decals will be linked to the registered car by displaying license plate number to improve enforcement of the zones. There are other changes you will notice this year, including number of permits allowed per address, vehicle registration requirements, availability of single-day guest permits and more.  Click here for useful information on the 2010 RPZ program changes.

Getting you the information you need on projects, events, and policies is important to us. So now you can access useful information in several new ways. Besides the SDOT Blog and Twitter, we also post project information on Facebook. Perhaps, you want to follow a parking project in your neighborhood or learn how SDOT is responding to winter weather. Well now you can catch up on all of this and more in between updating your status, tagging photos, and writing on your friends’ walls.

Click here to learn more about SDOT Facebook pages and get involved.

Crews recently placed 772 cubic yards of concrete to create the new S. Spokane Street Viaduct Fourth Avenue ramp structure.  The work by SDOT and Mid Mountain is lovingly (and professionally) referred to as a “deck pour.”  The deck pour took 10 hours and was a great success! 

For those of you interested in the technical details, post tensioning strands were fed through the interior vertical walls and last week crews pulled the strands from the ends to elongate the structure.  This process, even though the structure is concrete, will raise the upper roadway up approximately 1” and 5/8”.  Once elongated crews will fill any remaining spaces with grout and then begin removal of the shoring towers.  At the end of the day this means that the majority of the new ramp/bridge structure will be free standing. What a sight!

Sustainable Green Lake, Greenwood Aurora Involved Neighbors (GAIN) and the Seattle Department of Transportation are teaming up to bring a splash of color to Aurora Avenue North.  Local artists will create two murals for installation in Aurora storefronts or the side of buildings in an effort to promote sustainability, traffic safety, and community.

Join us on Monday, January 11th from 7:30 to 8:30 PM at The Greenwood Collective (8537 Greenwood Ave N, Suite 1) to meet with the artists and share your vision for a vibrant Aurora.  Click on the flyer below for all the details.

Clicker for larger version

This project is funded through a community grant from the Department of Neighborhoods and Greenwood Aurora Involved Neighbors (GAIN).  The Washington Traffic Safety Commission also contributed funding as part of the Aurora Traffic Safety Project.

For the past several weeks we’ve been profiling the implementation of the SDOT Art Plan, jointly developed in 2005 with the Seattle Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs and written by Daniel Mihalyo.  To mix it up this week we wanted to share a couple photos of bike racks from outside Seattle. Both are outstanding examples of everyday street objects that, with a small investment, go from nearly invisible to eye-catching (and smile-invoking). 

Stay tuned for news on bringing similar bike rack concepts to Seattle!

New York

Portland