Made brief mention yesterday of this — but it’s worth noting again. Sound Transit has awarded the demolition contract for the light rail station construction area so that means a tear-down schedule is near. That means trucks hauling stuff to and fro will soon be rumbling up and down your streets.
That means it’s time for you to pay attention and help Sound Transit make sure life on Capitol Hill doesn’t turn into a big fat drag.
You can find out about this and more Wednesday night at the Sound Transit 90% Design open house at Seattle Central Community College. The 90% thing refers to one of the last milestones being reached as the Hill light rail station plan is finalized. The open house part refers to you and all the good questions you’re going to ask.
And now, a few things to inspire you.
Here’s Sound Transit’s overview of their project schedule:
Next phase is the demolition and I-5 ramp work late in 2009 that will close the Olive Way exit for nine months.
You’ll also want to memorize this little mantra:
Down Olive
Up Denny
Those are the routes the trucks removing dirt will take during the digging phases — basically from 2009 to 20013. Down Olive. Up Denny. Down Olive. Up Denny. You get the idea.
Finally, for those of you who are wondering, yes, the Chinese Scholar tree in the northwest corner of the park will be retained. At leat, that’s the plan. But, you know, you could ask about it Wednesday night just to be sure.

Since that area will be a disaster area anyway, it would be nice if the city made sidewalk improvements on broadway at the same time, like they did on the ave a few years back.
@jrrrl, yeah, the nice little mosaic work REALLY needs to be refurbished. Which brings me to my next question, what exactly is the Branding going to do? You mentioned yesterday that it’s money to help promote Broadway through this process but how do you do that without making improvements to the area? Are they just going to put ads in the Stranger and put nicer little flags up? I don’t get it. I hope this comes in tandem with actual, physical improvements.
On another note: Does anyone else absolutely hate the gas station at Roy and 10th? Oh man I wish we could get rid of that ugly thing. I mean, that is essentially the Portal to Capitol Hill from the North, we need a better entrance than that. sheesh.
That seems like a narrow, bendy little road for a bunch of dump trucks to come up, even if they’re empty. Excitin’ times ahead.
Not only is it a narrow bendy little road, but it’s already sketchy to cross it as a pedestrian, even without a legion of dumptrucks.