Along with thousands of commuters who head downtown every day, freight delivery drivers are trying to drop off goods and keep customers happy.

Sometimes, the journey from warehouse to downtown building happens on public streets, but we want to make sure that last leg from the load zone to the lobby – the final 50 feet – is as seamless as possible.

To make it easier to deliver goods in Seattle, we entered into a 3-year partnership with the University of Washington and private businesses known as the Urban Freight Lab.

The Final 50 Feet Program looks at improving delivery at the end of the supply chain: loading areas, traffic control, and street design. This will help us understand and maintain safer, more efficient deliveries throughout the city and the Puget Sound region.

The first step is to gather data on how people and goods are interacting right now. Downtown, from the waterfront to I-5, and from Denny Way to S Dearborn Street, grad students are collecting data on loading bay locations, load zones, alleyway access and any other means of delivering goods to downtown destinations.

Next, we’ll identify changes that could help reduce congestion and collisions. Teaming up with the Urban Freight Lab, we’ll pilot test solutions in a real-world environment.

We’ve received requests from many other cities, including Washington, DC, to share results and lessons learned during the Freight Master Plan development process and early actions coming out of this 3-year program. Check out a few articles that have made local and national news:

• Logisticians Join Academics and Local Government to Tackle Seattle Urban Cargo and e-commerce Issues
• Costco, Nordstrom, UPS join researchers to tackle last mile delivery
• UW research lab hopes to solve delivery problems in downtown Seattle

Seattle is committed to being a leader in urban goods policy and problem-solving and keeping our economy thriving.

To learn more, please visit The Final 50 Feet Program webpage or contact Christopher Eaves at Christopher.Eaves@Seattle.gov.

Seattle is deciding the future of how trucks will get around our city, and the Freight Master Plan provides us with an opportunity to help move goods efficiently and safely through the city. Local residents, businesses, freight companies, manufacturers, and community councils have weighed in – now we want to hear from you!

Forty percent of jobs in Washington are tied to freight related activity, and that includes more than just next day deliveries from online shopping. The medicine for hospitals, the groceries for stores, the gas for cars, even the beer at your favorite bar all depend on Seattle’s network of planes, trains, ships, and trucks.

How your fish and chips travels by freight

As Seattle continues to grow, the amount of goods moving on our streets is expected to increase over 60 percent over the next 20 years. To support this growth, and keep traffic flowing, we’ve drafted a Freight Master Plan designed to:

• Grow our economy
• Improve safety for everyone on the road
• Connect industrial areas, business districts, and transportation hubs
• Maintain and improve our roads
• Protect communities who live near freight corridors
• Cut down on harmful pollution

To reach these goals, we’ve proposed a number of ideas, ranging from redesigning intersections and restricting idling to improving loading zone enforcement and implementing new emissions reduction technologies. In addition to city funds, these efforts will be supported by the Levy to Move Seattle, the Port of Seattle, the State of Washington, and federal grants.

First Avenue and Pike Street, looking east up Pike Street. Source: Seattle Municipal Archives Photograph Collection

Our city has come a long way since the above photo from First and Pike a century ago, and we need a freight plan that makes sense with modern demands. We want to hear your ideas of how we can keep goods moving, keep streets safe, and keep Seattle green today and in the future.

Read the full proposal here, and be sure to send your comments to FreightMasterPlan@seattle.gov by July 8, 2016.

South Holden Street is the gateway to the extensive industrial area in the South Park neighborhood. This busy street carries a constant flow of heavy trucks, Metro buses and connects highways SR 509 and SR 99 to South Park’s industrial businesses. Years of wear and tear had naturally taken their toll and filling potholes was no longer effective, so this month SDOT repaved the busiest three blocks of S Holden St.

SDOT crews worked all day on a Saturday to get the job done without impacting the businesses that rely on this street every weekday – with remarkable results.

Before and after the repairs on S Holden Street show a major improvement.

This project was funded by SDOT’s Arterial Major Maintenance (AMM) program, which maintains our busiest streets through strategic small scale pavement repairs to key locations in greatest need of repair.

SDOT and Seattle Public Utilities (SPU) are planning a much larger project on these same blocks of S Holden St in the next few years which will include drainage infrastructure and permanent street repairs.  SDOT determined that this key freight street should not wait years before being repaired, so this month’s repaving job provided a strategic, relatively low cost interim repair which vastly improved the street condition before the extensive SDOT/SPU project happens in a few years.

See more information on our Street Maintenance Program.