Category Archives: Getting Around

Getting Around

Zipcar abandons Beacon Hill; suggests we walk to Judkins Park instead

5 Comments
Zipcar is zipping away from Beacon Hill. Photo by Andrew Currie.
Zipcar is zipping away from Beacon Hill. Photo by Andrew Currie.
Some months ago, Erica C. Barnett of The Stranger noted concerns that Zipcar, the company that consumed the much-loved Flexcar, would slash service in Seattle as they have already done in LA and San Diego.

There was reason to be concerned. Beacon Hill is about to lose its only Zipcar site on top of the hill, as well as the nearby site at 29th and Columbian Way. Zipcar members recently received this email:

“The Zipcar location at Beacon Ave S/Lander St is being closed December 31, 2008, but have no fear — there’s a Zipcar located just down the street at S Charles St/Hiawatha Place.”

Just down the street? That’s a long walk for Beaconians, roughly 1.4 miles. See the map below, in which doomed Zipcar sites are marked in red, and the remaining site at Charles and Hiawatha is marked in green:


View Larger Map

Zipcar’s website currently does not mention that these sites are going away, so some folks might have planned Zipcar memberships as Christmas gifts, only to find that their local Zipcar will be gone after New Year’s Eve.

This change seems extremely short-sighted, given the forthcoming opening of the Beacon Hill light rail station across the street from the Beacon/Lander Zipcar (which is currently in the Red Apple parking lot), and the Columbia City light rail station a block or two away from the Columbian/29th Zipcar. The locations would seem to be ideal for use in conjunction with transit.

You can tell Zipcar what you think by writing their Seattle General Manager, Carla Archambault, at Zipcar, 380 Union Street, Seattle, WA 98101; phoning 206-323-3539, or faxing 206-682-1657. The email address they give is company-wide (not just Seattle) so it may not be useful, but it is info@zipcar.com.

Getting Around, Urban Planning

Parking changes coming soon to light rail station area

Signs like the one at the bottom might become familiar soon on North Beacon Hill. Photo by Joe Goldberg.
Signs like the one at the bottom might become familiar soon on North Beacon Hill. Photo by Joe Goldberg.
The Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) has released a preliminary proposal for neighborhood parking around the Beacon Hill light rail station. You should receive a mailer about the proposed plan soon. Note that the current proposal will be for a restricted parking zone, or RPZ, in the roughly 1/4 mile area around the light rail station, with some exceptions in front of businesses and around the library and Stevens Place (Triangle) Park that will have a time limit instead.

The parking changes will be installed on a rolling basis this Spring, and should be complete by the time the light rail begins service in July. To park in the RPZ without penalty at that point will require an RPZ pass, which will cost $45/two years, with a discount available for low-income households.

We note something interesting in the FAQ about these changes: “Enforcement will also increase to help those new regulations function properly. Increasing enforcement will affect all types of parking violations, including vehicles parked too close to driveways or blocking fire-hydrants. Please obey the law.” The new RPZ may have some unexpected consequences for some people in the area who have become accustomed to relatively lax parking enforcement in this neighborhood.

If you have an opinion about the changes, there are several ways to tell SDOT what you think. An open house is scheduled for Saturday, January 10, 11:00 am – 1:00 pm at El Centro de la Raza, 2524 16th Avenue South. Other open houses are scheduled to be held at New Holly and at the Starbucks building in Sodo.

You can take an online questionnaire about the parking plan. Read the mailer, then fill out this questionnaire.

Additionally, you can email your comments and questions to lightrailparking@seattle.gov, or comment by phone at 206-684-8186. You may call Sound Transit’s language lab hotline at 1-800-823-9230 for translation if you need to speak in a language other than English.

Getting Around

Snowboarding Holgate

2 Comments
Get the Flash Player to see this player.
Snow surfing across the freeway on the slopes of Beacon Hill
You may have seen some photos at the Rainier Valley Post of snowboarding down Holgate. Now, thanks to our Beacon Hill neighbor Olav, here’s some video!

Getting Around, Weather

Snow day Thursday updates

Please drive carefully if you must drive today!
Please drive carefully if you must drive today!

As of 10:20ish this morning:

  • Trash pickup for Thursday and Friday postponed
  • Golf courses closed for golf, but open for sledding!
  • Columbian Way exit of I-5/east end of West Seattle Bridge is closed now open after accidents have been cleared (updated 12:30pm)
  • Police are only responding to injury crashes — file property damage reports or hit-and-runs via internet

As of 11:20ish:

  • Beacon Avenue South appears to have been sanded, but only the southbound lane.
  • The Beacon Hill Library branch has a sign posted that they’re opening at noon today
  • Bank of America at the north end of Beacon Ave. is not yet open and no indication of when they might open
  • Metro‘s adverse weather route information
  • SDOT‘s snow routes map (pdf) — SDOT crews working 12-hour shifts until the weather improves

Between about 12:20 and 1:20:

  • Beacon Pub and Victrola/Galaxie open — Victrola is packed with toddlers!
  • Positive sighting of a northbound route 36 bus — also observed a “SPECIAL SHUTTLE” northbound on Beacon Ave., too (anyone know what that is?)
  • Sanding truck seen re-sanding southbound, northbound may have been sanded a while ago

2:00ish:

  • Road blocked eastbound by semi-truck impact with pole 32nd  & Myrtle
  • Honda struck utility pole at Beacon & Stevens
  • Animal control is only responding to life-threatening issues currently

Metro has cancelled or severely reduced service this afternoon and evening.

If you have additional news and updates on, please add them in the comments.

Thanks to West Seattle Blog’s Twitter reports for much of the first batch!

Getting Around

Light rail station on schedule; blue wall coming down soon

9 Comments

As we mentioned earlier, there was an information meeting scheduled last night about Sound Transit’s request to extend the technical noise variance for construction of the Beacon Hill station and light rail tunnels.

I attended the meeting. I was the only person to attend, other than the Sound Transit representatives. Though the weather was probably a factor in the low attendance, it seems that there isn’t a big fuss about this variance extension.

The friendly Sound Transit folks answered a few questions for me. There will be no additional noise beyond what is happening currently (if you do have a noise complaint, however, the 24-hour construction hotline number is 888-298-2395). The station is currently still on schedule to open in July 2009, but they don’t yet have an exact date. And the blue wall around the construction site is expected to come down in February or March, so we should start seeing more of the station site soon. It has been a very long time that we’ve lived with that blue wall around a big chunk of our “downtown.”

Getting Around, Health and Safety, Weather

Snow-day news roundup

1 Comment

Weather and travel hints, tips, and news for Sunday:

  • South Orcas Street is now closed at MLK
  • Private towing company calls are taking 5+ hours to respond to calls
  • SDOT has run out of street closure signs — West Seattle Blog via Twitter
  • Streets on top of the hill are icy — drive carefully! — Brook Ellingwood via Twitter
  • Graham Street off of the Albro exit is closed, detour via Othello — Joe Sunga via Twitter
  • Holgate is closed at 7th Ave

Got some street closures or other weather news relevant to Beacon Hill? Please add it to the comments here, to the weather thread in the forum, or email us!

Getting Around

Sound Transit wants to extend noise variance at Beacon Hill Station

Construction on the Beacon Hill Station site in mid-November. Photo by Jason.
Construction on the Beacon Hill Station site in mid-November. Photo by Jason.
Sound Transit is applying for an extension to the technical noise variance for construction of the Beacon Hill station and light rail tunnels. The current variance, which has been in place since March 2003, expires on December 31. It establishes overnight noise limits for the construction process, and allows the construction to continue around the clock, seven days a week. Sound Transit would like to extend it until June 30, without any other modifications.

An information meeting about the variance extension is on Tuesday, December 16, 6:00 – 8:00 pm at the Beacon Hill Library, 2821 Beacon Avenue South.

Getting Around

Street repair work to be done this Saturday

The city will tear up your street, and hopefully fix it back up again. Image courtesy of the Seattle Municipal Archives.
The city will tear up your street, and hopefully fix it back up again. We know we've used this picture before, but we like it. Image courtesy of the Seattle Municipal Archives.
Saturday, December 6, at 9:00 am, Seattle Department of Transportation crews will repair sections of 15th Avenue South, Rainier Avenue South, and Beacon Avenue South where the pavement was excavated for work on underground utilities. There will be flaggers to direct traffic. Lanes are scheduled to reopen by 3:30 pm.

Areas affected will be:

  • the 3000 block of 15th Avenue South (between Stevens and Winthrop*)
  • the 5100 block of Rainier Avenue South (at 39th Avenue South)
  • Rainier Avenue South at Medley Court south of South Austin Street
  • the 3000 and 3400 blocks of Beacon Avenue South (between Stevens and Hanford, and between Hinds and Spokane)

Need more information? Contact Eric Stewart at 206-255-2349.

*The city press release said the 3200 block, but the block bounded by Stevens and Winthrop is the 3000 block.

Here’s a map of the Beacon Hill locations affected:

View Larger Map

Getting Around

What can Beacon Hill tell Capitol Hill about the light rail construction experience?

11 Comments
The site of the future Capitol Hill light rail station is decorated with various artworks, including this face, while they wait to tear the old buildings down. Photo by Helen Cook -- thanks!
The site of the future Capitol Hill light rail station is decorated with various artworks, including this face, while they wait to tear the old buildings down. Photo by Helen Cook -- thanks!
While our light rail station is scheduled to open next summer, folks up on Capitol Hill are just embarking on their own period of light rail construction, and they want to know what to expect. Browsing the Southeast Seattle neighborhood blogs, they don’t see a lot of complaints at the moment. Of course, this could be because we are near the end of the process, and a lot of us weren’t blogging in the early days of Central Link planning and construction.

So, Beaconians, what should Capitol Hillers expect in the next few years as a large section of Broadway becomes a big hole in the ground? We’ve lived through it and ought to have some useful insights for our neighbors to the north.