Results tagged “transportation” from Belltowner

Construction work to upgrade the north end of Seattle's Alaskan Way Viaduct, including major renovations to the Battery Street Tunnel will be discussed at an open house scheduled for 5:30 p.m. tonight (Thursday Oct. 16) at the Mountaineers Building, 300 Third Ave. W., Seattle. The tunnel work begins this fall and will result in closures on weekday evenings and up to two weekends each month. When completed, the short on- and off-ramps at south end of the tunnel will be closed to general traffic and converted to emergency access ramps.

This evening's meeting will touch on what this means for Belltown as well as information on the "Mercer mess" which no one is quite agreed on yet.

Click here for more info.

Europe is full of community bike share programs, from Barcelona's Bicing to Lyon's Vélo. The environmentally friendly free bike transportation is a fantastic idea. The idea has caught on in only a few cities in the U.S. including Washington D.C. Chapel Hill/Carrboro, North Carolina, and Ft. Collins, Colorado. Is Seattle ready for something like this? We consider ourselves one of the greenest cities. We're constantly complaining about the crappy public transportation, s maybe a bike sharing program is just what we need.

An landscape architecture student contacted us at Belltowner and asked what we thought about the idea. Would Belltowners catch on? How green are we really?

Hello Erica,

Zach Pleiss

So, would you be interested in a bike share program?

The City Council is delaying the vote for Seattle's new proposed streetcars. Councilwoman Sally Clark calls streetcars "a useful part of the whole transportation system." But after she scheduled a vote on her resolution in the council's Transportation Committee Tuesday City Councilwoman Jan Drago called off a vote, delaying it until later this year as a new round of questions was raised. This may put off voting for the 4 streetcar lines that would cost an estimated $685 million until after the November election.

While some neighborhoods seem keen on the idea, The Belltown Business Association is happy with just Metro service, much of it in the free zone anyway, so why would we want a streetcar that would charge fares?

I agree that things seem to be working just fine with the Metro service. What do you think?

For those of you scratching your head, a mnemonic is a special word, or list of words used to help a person remember something. SeattleBrad from The Capitol Hill Seattle blog reminded us over here at Belltowner that Seattle has it's own well known mnemonic for remembering streets names: "Jesus Christ Made Seattle Under Protest." (J = Jefferson, James C = Cherry, Columbia M = Marion, Madison S = Spring, Seneca U = University, Union P = Pike, Pine)

So why doesn't Belltown have one yet? The street names being Stewart, Virginia, Lenora, Blanchard, Bell, Battery, Wall, Vine, Cedar, Clay, Broad.

Any takers?

Great news for bus commuters. Many bus routes in Ballard, Belltown, Capitol Hill, Fremont, Madison Park, Mount Baker, Queen Anne, the University District and Wallingford will be arriving more frequently starting this week. Every 15 minutes or less! And even better, buses on Routes 3 and 4 between downtown Seattle, First Hill, and the Central Area will arrive every eight minutes or less during weekday daytime hours. Hallelujah. There's nothing more obnoxious than arriving only seconds late for your bus and having to wait an entire half hour or more for the next one.

Riders will also notice increased service on the following bus routes: 3, 4, 10, 11, 12, 14, 26, 28 and 44.

Click here for more information.

For those of you Belltowners that may have questions about the Sound Transit expansion plan that will be on your November ballot, there will be a question and answer session held this evening at the McLeod Residence with Sound Transit's Executive Director of Policy, Planning and Public Administration, Ric Ilgenfritz.

The event is being coordinated by Friends of Seattle and is not intended to be a lecture, but more of an opportunity for attendees to ask questions regarding the proposed investment in our bus and rail system.

There is a $10 suggested donation which includes a drink. Hey, can't beat that. The session starts up this evening at 5:30pm. Click here for more information.

"I am moving to Belltown and am looking for a parking space to rent monthly" reads the ad on Craigslist. Sounds like a good business. Why not rent out your parking spot while you're at work? Make back some of all that money you're spending on gas.

Click here to check out the ad.

Lately I've been putting off buying gas until my gas gauge is well over the red zone. You know why? Because gas is stupid expensive these days and I cringe everytime I have to buy more. Unfortunately, today I pushed my luck and ran out of gas. With only moments of juice left in the car, I managed to get it to a parking spot in time. I threw my hands up in the air, and grabbed the nearest bus.

"There's no doubt that the high gas prices are motivating people to change their travel behavior," said APTA president William W. Millar. "More and more people have decided that taking public transportation is the quickest way to beat the high gas prices."says the American Public Transportation Association.

Many Belltowners work in the area and have the luxury of walking to work, but there are plenty of us that commute. Some of us are forced to fill our gas tanks up to 2 times a week. It costs the average person 50 bucks to fill their tank, so when you add things up, driving is becoming quite the expense these days!

Save yourself a buck and the Earth at the same time. Go here to check out Belltown bus routes.

The Alaskan Way viaduct continues to "settle" before our very eyes since it's initial damage caused by an earthquake about 7 years ago, but state transportation officials insist everything is going to be ok.

An inspection conducted last weekend revealed that it had "settled" another 3/8 of an inch, which brings the total to about 5 1/2 inches between Columbia Street and Yesler Way.

Deputy Transportation Secretary David L. Dye says the latest settling has not caused any additional damage and that repairs to strengthen four column foundations should keep the viaduct safe until 2012, when it is scheduled to be demolished.

"We've never felt safe driving on the viaduct," Seattlest writes of the situation, "New steel rods and the continued declaration of 'it's safe, it's safe, we swear! don't mind the settling...' doesn't do much to ease those fears."

I'm going to have to agree, I'm definitely a little freaked out myself, regardless of their attempts of sugar-coating the situation by referring to the viaduct as "settling".

I've never used Zipcar personally since I have a car and I don't mind occasionally riding the bus, but it sure seems like it makes sense. Not only does the car sharing service help save the environment, but, "With Zipcar, you always have a car around the corner!"

Sounds great! Why not? It's as easy as:

1) apply online
2) reserve a car for either a couple of hours or the entire day
3) walk to the car then hold your zipcard to the windshield

Piece of cake!

Prices range from $50 to $250 bucks a month depending on how much usage you require.
Go here for more info.