SDOT’s Marybeth Turner wrote to let us all know:
SDOT crews will repair roadway pavement in the 5300 block of Beacon Avenue South on Saturday, March 14, from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. Southbound vehicles and bikes on Beacon Avenue South will be detoured at South Bennett Street to Columbia Drive South, returning to Beacon Avenue at S Brandon Street. Northbound traffic will not be affected.
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Thanks Marybeth!
At 12:22 this morning there was a reported fire in a single-family residence on the 3300 block of Beacon Avenue South. Many units responded, and Beacon Avenue South was closed between Hanford and Spokane streets. Metro has rerouted Beacon Avenue buses onto 15th Avenue South between McClellan and Spokane street until Beacon reopens. The fire does not appear to be major.
Update: Beacon Avenue South has been reopened in both directions.
Jacqueline just wrote to the mailing list about a major gas leak reported at 16th & Lander (presumably at the light rail station) “in case you were wondering about the smell and commotion.” Nineteen units are responding.
Update from Tri Nguyen via Twitter: “Beacon Ave S northbound blocked.” Gabe confirms: “Just drove past. Beacon Ave is all closed down.”
Update from KING5Seattle: “2-inch natural gas line break at Beacon Hill light rail station. People in area advised to keep windows shut and stay inside.” Story here.
Check the comments for more updates.
Another update from KING5Seattle: “Gas has been shut off and final repairs are underway.”
Reader mootkat has posted a video showing the wide area that was closed off:
They started taking down the big blue wall around the light rail construction site today! They removed a few segments at 17th and Lander — right where Lander St. used to go through.
The end of the seemingly endless Beacon Hill Station construction project is in sight!
Marybeth Turner with SDOT wrote to let us know:
SDOT will close a lane on the Jose Rizal Bridge (12th Avenue South, connecting Beacon Hill to downtown Seattle) on Thursday, March 5. The southbound, right-hand lane will be closed from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. to allow crews to inspect expansion joints.
The sign replacement program is now planned to run through 2016, and the old signs are being sold to the public. You can see more of the old street signs here — and, of course, there’s one in the header graphic of this page.
The Rainier Valley Post reports on a semi-truck stuck on the Spokane Street hill coming up from Columbian Way. Might be gone by now, but the police officer in the report expected effects lasting ’til noon.
If you thought the latest batch of bus route changes were a done deal, you might want to think again. The proposed changes include elimination of the 39 (which serves the Veterans Hospital here on the Hill) and removal of part of the 14 route in Mount Baker, both of which are controversial.
Folks in Mount Baker are definitely not happy, and at least one reader of the Rainier Valley Post is campaigning to have the 38 route removed completely, to save the electric loop of the 14.
Another commenter has pointed out that the 38 serves a useful purpose for people who live on the unusually steep east slope of the Hill near McClellan, particularly the elderly and disabled, even if the 38 does follow the same route as the light rail from McClellan up to the Beacon Hill station.
The question is, then, should Metro nuke the 38 in favor of the 14 loop, thus requiring people who need to get from Rainier to the top of the hill to walk to the Mount Baker rail station near Rainier Avenue? Or should Metro stick with the current plan? (If you feel strongly either way, you might want to email your comments to metro-feedback-se@kingcounty.gov or call Metro’s message line at 206-684-1146 now. Comments are due today.)
However, there is no indication yet that Zipcar will be serving Beacon Hill again, so it’s unclear where Beaconians would actually be using the driving credit. Seems like a good opportunity to tell them what you think about the abandonment of the Hill, while eating their free food. Score!
Edited to add: The partnership with the City of Seattle is apparently free Zipcar for city employees.
As Seattle begins to build new streetcar lines, it saddens me to think of all the streetcar lines we once had that were later ripped out in favor of buses. In the 1934 picture here, we see streetcar track work on Beacon Avenue, just south of Stevens. The site is still clearly recognizable today; particularly noticeable in both pictures are the brick apartment/retail building on the left (now home to Yoga on Beacon), the sign marking then Texaco/now Valero, and the white house just beyond the gas station.
The trolley wires overhead in the new photograph mark the last remaining vestige of our streetcar: the electric trolley buses that replaced it.