SDOT is closing the Jose Rizal bridge for a little while tomorrow:
12th Ave S Bridge (Jose Rizal)
Thursday, April 16SDOT will close the northbound, right-hand lane on the 12th Ave S (Jose Rizal) Bridge from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Thursday April 16th. Trolley busses will be able to get through.
The closure is required for maintenance work on the bridge.
Via Steve Louie from Marybeth Turner at SDOT
(Edited 4/16 to correct photo credit.)
The meeting will be at 6:30 pm in Council chambers on the 10th floor of the King County Courthouse, at Third and James Street downtown.
As posted in the Council’s press release on Tuesday:
The council is scheduled to vote within the next six weeks on proposed Metro bus service changes for the southeast Seattle area and southwest King County that could occur next September or February.
Metro is proposing to change bus service once Sound Transit’s Link light rail service begins. The purpose of these changes is to connect neighborhoods to Link stations, avoid duplication of transit services, and make bus service more efficient.
These changes could affect Metro routes: 7, 7 Express, 8, 9 Express, 14, 32, 34 Express, 36, 38, 39, 42, 42 Express, 48, 60, 106, 107, 126, 128, 140, 154, 170, 174, 179, 180, 191, and 194.
Though the official version of the service changes will be posted on Friday, rumor has it the changes will include:
The public may comment before the council vote by testifying at the April 28 public hearing. You can also e-mail comments to janice.mansfield@kingcounty.gov, call (206) 296-1683 (TTY Relay 711), or mail a letter to: King County Council Physical Environment Committee, King County Courthouse, 516 Third Avenue, Room 1200, Seattle, WA 98104.
The April 28 meeting will be carried live on King County TV on Comcast and Broadstripe cable Channel 22.
In more cheerful news, Laurie Dunlap at Seattle Parks and Recreation sent us some information on the recent change of name from Taejon Park to Daejon Park.
“A sister-city delegation was recently here to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their connection with Seattle, and they brought to our attention that their city is now officially known as Daejeon.
If you look around on the internet, you see the city referred to most places as Daejeon, some places as ‘Daejeon (Taejon),’ ‘Taejon or Daejeon,’ and some places (the online Encyclopedia Britannica) still give Taejon as the primary spelling, saying ‘also spelled Daejeon.’
…In both cases, correct pronunciation of the first syllable is a long “I”, so DIE-john.”
Apparently the Korean government adopted a new romanization style a few years ago: the Revised Romanization of Korean. In this change, Pusan became Busan, Taejon became Daejeon, and Taegu is now Daegu. The new romanization style is intended to represent the sounds of Korean more accurately. So the new sign at Daejeon Park represents the current spelling of the Korean name; the park name hasn’t changed, just its spelling in Roman characters.
Judith Edwards sends the following request:
Many of you were unable to attend the March 28th North Beacon Hill workshop on Neighborhood Planning held at El Centro de la Raza. We are one of three SE Seattle locations which will have updates to our neighborhood plans, due to our proximity to light rail stations. (This) link takes you to a simple survey that is being used to gather input from the residents of the community. It asks what you want Beacon Hill to be like in the future, what appeals to you about the Hill, etc. Please take the time to fill it out – it only takes about five minutes.
At the workshop, copies of our Neighborhood Plan were made available to each table group. Neighborhood facilitators helped groups to identify those improvements to the Hill that are part of the Neighborhood Plan. We also looked at those aspects of the plan which have yet to realize completion, for example Jefferson Park, a boulevard on Beacon Ave. that extends south to Jefferson Park, and other improvements. Please look at the plan on your next visit to the Library. An ad hoc committee of the North Beacon Hill Council is now meeting to define those elements of the Neighborhood Plan which have high priority. If you would like to join this committee, contact Freddie Merrill at frmerrill@seattleschools.org or Robert Hinrix at robphin@yahoo.com.
Your input to the future of Beacon Hill is important. Thanks for taking five minutes to fill out the survey.
Until now. A new business recently set up shop in the site, and the activity has picked up. That’s the good news. The bad news? The new business, a hand car wash, is a pretty blatant zoning violation. The site in question, right on the junction of Beacon and 15th, is zoned NC2P-40. (Here is the basic zoning information for the site.) NC2P-40 means Neighborhood Commercial 2, Pedestrian-Designated Zone, 40-foot height limit. (Here is a city document that describes the various commercial zones.) Continue reading New car wash on Beacon Avenue a zoning violation?
David Gackenbach forwards this appeal from Glenn Herlihy:
Dear Friends of the Playground,
This is a crucial moment for funding the Beacon Mountain Playground.
As you might have heard the levy money is now (this week) being allocated to different parks projects and Jefferson Park will receive a portion but where it will go is still up in the air. There is a good chance we might be able to fund the entire new Playground design if we can convince Parks Department Head Timothy Gallagher, and Parks Committee Chair Tom Rasmussen to allocate the levy funds to build Beacon Mountain Playground.
If we get them to fund and build the entire new design we will have a magnificent playground completed by next year. If they don’t allocate the funds toward the the new design it would be phased construction for the next few years.
It been a long road to get our design approved by parks and ready to build so with one last push maybe we could see this dream through to completion. Those of us on the Beacon Mountain Playground Team believe play infrastructure is a healthy and sustainable investment for the future of our community.
Please take a moment and write a letter stating you wish to see levy funding to build the entire Beacon Mountain Playground at Jefferson Park. Include your name and address. Thanks
timothy.gallagher@seattle.gov
tom.rasmussen@seattle.govLong live play
Glenn Herlihy
18th Ave S
You can read more about the Beacon Mountain Playground here.
Peg Neilsen at SDOT shares a couple of traffic items that could affect getting around Beacon Hill on Saturday:
March Against Violence – 12 noon
600 participants expectedMarch starts at Rainier Beach High School, Rainier Avenue S and S Henderson Street and heads north on Rainier to S Graham Street, west on Graham to the Aki Kurose Middle School at 42nd Avenue S.
and:
Seattle Sounders versus Kansas City Wizards – 7:30 p.m.
34,000 + spectatorsMatch is at Qwest Field. Occidental Avenue S will be closed north and south bound from S King Street to S Royal Brougham Way. Due to construction in the area, motorists need to allow extra time and check for the latest update on the SR 519 project at www.wsdot.wa.gov/projects/sr519
For traffic on major city streets, check SDOT’s real-time traffic Traveler Information Map at www.web5.seattle.gov
Thanks, Peg!
Joel Lee writes:
“Great progress is being made every day on Jefferson Park and I know these photos don’t look like much, but they are significant because today they started taking down the looming former earthen dam that paralleled Spokane St. For those of us that live near by it feels a little like the Berlin Wall is coming down!”
First the blue wall, now this — feels like things are starting to happen, doesn’t it?
