Last time we wrote about the Capitol Hill light rail station project, we noted Sound Transit’s plan for demolition to begin this month. If you walk by the buildings on Broadway between John and Denny today, you won’t see much activity. Are we already behind schedule on the 8-year project? Sound Transit says, demolition, even if you can’t see it, has begun. Here’s an e-mail from ST’s community outreach guy, Jeff Munnoch:
The contractor took possession of the work site last week. However, the first few activities are not very visible: pest control, inspections, etc. The contractor has some paper work to finish before demolition can occur. I would expect that the first work visible to the public would start in February.
More later this week on the latest around retail and housing development being planned around the station. In the meantime, if you’re really into this whole light rail thing, ST is offering a bus tour this Friday of the initial light rail segments running from the airport to SODO.
I’m in Washington, DC today, and a Federal Transit Administration bureaucrat just told me face to face that the Full Funding Grant Agreement for University Link (the light rail subway to Husky Stadium passing under Capitol Hill) will be signed very soon. A 60 day waiting period for Congressional review had to complete, timed to get done in the next few days, shortly before the Obama inauguration on January 20.
This funding agreement is a promise that Federal grant money will flow from Uncle Sam to Sound Transit, totaling $813 million. This new money raises the contribution from the Bush Administration to Seattle light rail to $1.3 billion. We local tax payers are on tap for billions more.
One of my big concerns about the demolition is pedestrian traffic on olive and denny with all the dump trucks going up and down. There is quite a bit of jaywalking that goes on in that area, and the olive way-bellevue intersection is sort of..complicated.
I’m told the feds will be in town on thursday to hand over the (very large) check
I’ve been sending emails to the Bike and Pedestrian arm of SDOT for a year or so about getting crosswalks and signage on Denny and Olive between Broadway and the freeway.
This safety issue came into the neighborhood consciousness before the Cap Hill Light Rail Station was a twinkle in a city planner’s eye – it’s actually named as an issue to be addressed in the Capitol Hill Neighborhood Plan from 1998. And no wonder – there’s a lot of pedestrian traffic on those streets, there’s a strong slope with a turn that can cause visibility issues, and there aren’t any crosswalks/signs for several blocks. Not really the recipe for safety, and it’s not going to get better with the addition of giant trucks motoring up Olive and Denny for several years.
This is the last thing I heard from SDOT’s Bicycle and Pedestrian program. The email was from December 1st:
“Thanks for checking in. I am still in the process of gathering information for the corridor. This will then allow us to evaluate the corridor for possible crossing treatments. I’ll certainly be in touch as I move forward with this.
Best,
Gina
Virginia Coffman
Seattle Dept. of Transportation
Bicycle and Pedestrian Program”
I’ll check in again soon…maybe some other neighborhood types should as well. I don’t want to harass anyone, but T-minus giant trucks is coming soon, and I don’t want anyone getting run over because the City was too slow to put a sign up.