Find Your Valentine
Slog
News & ArtsFriday, May 1, 2009
City The City's Gutless Enforcement Against Developers
Posted by Dominic Holden on Fri, May 1, 2009 at 2:21 PM
The Seattle Department of Transportation says it’s stepping up enforcement against developers who block sidewalks, thereby pushing pedestrians into traffic, but the crackdown appears nonexistent.
I posted a photo yesterday of a construction project on East Union Street that put a “sidewalk closed” sign in front of a Honey Bucket, halfway up the block. “We see that as a violation,” says SDoT spokesman Rick Sheridan, who called me after he saw the post. In recent months, he says, street-use inspectors have been focusing on pedestrian access around developments. (They also have a complaint line if a construction site is breaking the rules: (206) 684-5253.) But SDoT should know that its enforcement standards—even when it actually enforces them—are toothless.
Brian de Place, who manages SDoT’s street-use permitting, says the developer on East Union Street should be placing "sidewalk closed" signs at each end of the block so pedestrians cross the street at the intersection. He then clarified the exact location of the site.
So what's the increased enforcement look like? Today the intersection looks the same:
Sheridan says he doesn't have data to show more enforcement since last August, when the city auditor reported that more must be done to protect walkers, cyclists, and disabled people around construction sites.
In response to the audit, Sheridan says SDoT is drafting a proposal to increase pedestrian mobility, due by June. The proposal will identify high-priority downtown streets and would require developers to maintain walkways at all block-long construction sites. But people are already supposed to cross the street to avoid any construction project, so all construction projects are, in effect, block-long closures to pedestrians. Realistically, the goal should be getting pedestrians around construction projects without crossing the street.
SDoT is being willfully naïve about human behavior. People don’t cross the street to avoid construction projects. They walk in the street, as we have documented here and here, and SDoT knows it. When speaking to Sheridan and de Place, I asked if our city, like several other cities, could require most developers to barricade pedestrian lanes in the parking lane. “I don’t know if in all instances that pedestrian flow needs to be facilitated on [the same] side of the street,” says Sheridan. Agreed, not in all instances, but in the overwhelming majority of cases there’s no reason not to. For example, at a site on East Pike Street today, there's plenty of room in the parking lane for a barricaded pedestrian pathway:
“We need to balance the needs of the all users. Can we take away the parking lane? I can’t speak to this site,” said de Place.
If it hadn't been for that meddling reporter guy.
Granted, it's not the top issue on everybody's minds, but it's one of those obnoxious things that CAN be made better with even a little attention.
The only SDOT employees who actually go places and do stuff are the guys who supervise the cutting of channels for cable and other utilities across freshly-repaved streets, rendering the repaving useless. Your picture is probably going to accomplish nothing except get some guy in trouble for authorizing street work without making sure it would ruin a year's worth of just-completed street work.
seriously, go to the top of Jackson by Hidmo and ride your bike down toward the ID, no brakes. Then post about that.
Saving you the life-threatening experience, what you're gonna find is bike lanes that no longer exist, huge steel plates, and gaps b/w those huge steel plates that could fit a tire in them. only a matter of time before somebody cracks open their head on that one.
“He doesn’t do a lot of work around here. He shows zero initiative. He’s not a team player. He never wants to go that extra mile. Tom is exactly what I’m looking for in a government employee.”
How does that work for someone who's in a wheelchair? Or are they at fault for allowing themselves to get sick or be involved in an accident?
Developers and truck drivers know this, so no one ever follows the rules. And none of them ever will.
I cross the street, or look before I walk around - glad to see somebody working and some money flowing.
Small life people like to whine. And it really doesn't matter what the topic is about.
So whine on and on and on ... I am on my way for ice cream and late afternoon sex.
And here is hoping with the good weather, there will be some construction boy skin showing soon ... Domenic can worry about the side walk easement.
If you want the city to care, you'd better make at least a reasonable effort to show them you actually use those bike lanes they put in. The fact that so many bike hobbyists still ride on the sidewalk is pretty much cementing the glacial pace of SDOT and the city in making more bike lanes and better amenities specially tailored for the bike hobbyist community.
Realize that there may be circumstances you don't perceive in the world around you and other people may be reacting to those circumstances more intelligently then you are.
In New York, that strategy would be disasterous for two reasons. 1) New Yorkers are not passive lemmings who obey any sign no matter who put it there. 2) There simply ISN'T ROOM for double the people on the other sidewalk. Having a closed sidewalk at rush-hour in Midtown Manhattan and doing nothing about it would result in losing a full car lane to lawless pedestrians.
So until a negative consequence (beyond whiney letters) results from construction co-opting a sidewalk, SDOT has no pressure to do anything about it, period.
Clearly the answer here is, don't cross the street. Walk right in the street, using as much of the traffic lane as possible, and get hit by a car. After three or four of us get hit, they'll change their policy.
So come on, Seattle, take one for the team.
Anyway, walking Mercer became such a hassle that I've switched to a less convenient bus to avoid it altogether.
I get so tired of walking halfway down a block to find the rest closed construction, so I have to walk often out of my way, or walk in the street. Pedestrians have enough to deal with as it is. We should not have to detour at the benefit of developers who could easilt afford taking some measures to keep the sidewalks open during thier construction.
Advertisement
Most Commented on Slog
-
SL Letter of the Day: Pill The Homos! by Dan Savage
-
Dear Huffington Post... by Dan Savage
-
Because Guns Make Us More Safer by Goldy
-
The Rick Santorum Rally in Tacoma Probably Could Have Gone Better by Paul Constant
-
Slog Bible Study: Deuteronomy 21:10-14 by Goldy
-
The AP Is Reporting That Whitney Houston Is Dead by Paul Constant
-
SL Letter of the Day: Daddy Loves Who? by Dan Savage
-
Because Guns Make Us Safer by Goldy
-
Gay Kids Are Still Killing Themselves by Dan Savage
-
Gregoire: "This is signed!" by Eli Sanders
RSS
Facebook
Twitter
Comments (24) RSS