This time, it’s the scrap yard for sure.

     After two earlier tries to sell its four 1920s-vintage ferries, the state now says it has a deal to get it done, and the first two of the boats may be heading for Mexico by next week.

     Once they get to Ensenada, the four so-called “steel-electric” ferries that hauled passengers and vehicles across Puget Sound for close to seven decades will be cut up for scrap.

     The Illahee, Klickitat, Nisqually and Quinault will be gone forever.

       Washington State Ferries has sold all four vessels to Eco Planet Recycling of Chula Visa, Calif., for $200,000, a fraction of what it was thought they were worth a few months ago.

      The four boats, originally built in 1927 for the Southern Pacific Railroad in the Bay Area of California, have been moored at the ferry system’s Bainbridge Island maintenance facility since they were permanently removed from service in late 2007 because of bad hull corrosion.

       There’s plenty of metal in the old boats, but the state has had a tough time selling them. It couldn’t get the price it wanted listing them on the state surplus list and eBay. Trying a negotiated-sale route, it got one bid from a Shoreline-based recycling firm, which said it would pay $500,000 plus 10 percent of the actual scrapping revenue.

     That company, Environmental Recycling Systems, also planned to tow them to Mexico for dismantling.  That deal fell apart when the expected $700-per-ton scrap price dropped to $200. Escalating fuel prices increased the cost of hauling them south, and ERS asked for a delay, said Marta Coursey, spokeswoman for the ferry system.

       The state instead negotiated a second sale, for $650,000 to a Tacoma real estate firm, Managing Green, which considered using them as possible office or restaurant spaces. It couldn’t find moorage for the vessels, however, and that purchase also fell through. Managing Green forfeited a $30,000 deposit in the process, Coursey said.

        Late last month, the system said it had arranged to sell the boats to Eco Planet Recycling. Coursey said the four ferries will be towed, two at a time, to Ensenada, Mexico. The first two, the Nisqually and the Quinault, will be towed away next week, “exact date to be determined,” she said. The ferry system thinks the Illahee and the Klickitat “will be towed away approximately one to two weeks after the first two,” Coursey said.    

       The Puget Sound area’s former private ferry operator, the Black Ball Line, brought the four ferries to Puget Sound in the early 1940s after they were made obsolete by new cross-bay bridges in California. 

       The state acquired them when it bought the ferry system in 1951. The boats worked all over the Sound, most recently on the Port Townsend-Whidbey Island route, among the San Juan Islands and in service as backups.

      They were pulled from service because officials said their badly corroded hulls made them too risky and expensive to run. The state has begun building new boats for its fleet and expects the first two new ones to be finished next year.

       Beth Campbell, a candidate for Seattle mayor, says there’s more of a distinction to be made between opponents of a tunnel replacement for the Alaskan Way Viaduct, such as herself and fellow candidate Michael McGinn.

       In a statement posted on her campaign Web site Wednesday, Campbell said not enough has been made of a key difference between herself and McGinn: that she wants to replace the 1950s-vintage viaduct with a new elevated cable-stay bridge, while McGinn wants the trips to be handled using expanded bus service and added lanes on Interstate 5 and Spokane Street.

      She said that hasn’t been made clear in media reports or by McGinn himself. “He knows there are literally tens of thousands of voters that think he means ‘I’m replacing the viaduct,’ ” which shows McGinn “will have no qualms about being less than honest with the public when he is in office.”

      She also blamed the media for not explaining the distinctions.  For its part, the PostGlobe, in a May 18 viaduct story, did explain McGinn’s position. Campbell said McGinn’s idea, often referred to as the “surface-and-transit” option, “carries with it a substantial penalty for hundreds of thousands of people” by eliminating road capacity. “It should be called out for what it is. …”

        She also questioned McGinn’s assertion that a less costly viaduct replacement would free up money for other priorities. “If you’re going to be mayor, you know that transportatoin dollars go to transportation things; they are not dollars that you just reallocate … to use on neighborhoods, policing or schools, for example.”

         McGinn, in response, said Campbell is wrong about the money reallocation question. The city is committing $930 million to the tunnel project from property taxes, utility rate increases, car license fees and parking taxes, McGinn said.  Some of that money could be spent elsewhere if not on the viaduct replacement.

      “We’re already seeing problems meeting the obligations of city government because of the recession. How are we going to make sure we maintain public safety, maintain our streets, take care of those in need?”

        He said his viaduct-replacement solution will “give us better transit solutions at lower cost and will help us transition to a less-pollution transportation system.” McGinn said he’s “been pretty clear in all my public statements” about how his solution would work and said he explains it frequently when asked about it.

       He said some of the traffic now on the viaduct can be handled on I-5 and on the Spokane Street Viaduct. Engineers think lane capacity could be added by closing some downtown ramps, using part of a shoulder on I-5 and with variable speed limits. McGinn said widening the Spokane Street structure and adding a ramp to it will provide other lanes for drivers to use.

       He said a number of experts have said the idea he supports would work, and “you don’t have to take my word for it.”

    Now comes the big test.

   On Friday, they were scrubbing the stations, the security people were in place, the trains had been tested and about 200 dignitaries, officials and media representatives took one of the first rides on the region’s new light rail system, from Seattle’s Westlake station in the downtown transit tunnel to Tukwila.

      The ride went off without a hitch.

      Saturday will be different. The system faces the possiblity of tens of thousands of riders boarding on the first day of public operation, when the rides will be free, the weather forecast is sunny and there are the Bite of Seattle and a Sounders FC game as well as new trains to see.

       About 60,000 soccer fans are expected to attend the noon Sounders contest at Qwest Field, which is within walking distance of a rail station off Royal Brougham Way South. With rail service opening at 10 a.m., many may take the trains.  The Bite of Seattle is expected to draw 450,000 people to Seattle Center.

      Sound Transit has backed away from its initial crowd projections but expects a big enough throng that it’s paid for shuttle bus service to help move them and eliminate long delays. Riders trying the new trains between Westlake and Tukwila will be asked to get off at the end points, and if crowds are big enough, “there could be an hour wait” to get back on for a return trip, said Rebecca Roush, manager of Sound Transit’s light rail “launch” operation.

       Friday’s ride was a chance for the dignitaries to ride the train “without piles of dirt and (wearing) a hard hat and goggles”  they used while the line was being built, said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., who helped bring home $500 million in federal cash to build the 14-mile line opening Saturday, plus an additional $813 million to extend it to the University of Washington in seven more years.

      The ride from Westlake to Tukwila took 34 minutes. The ride back took 28 minutes between Tukwila and the International District station in the tunnel, where most of the dignitaries got off the train.

       “Nothing will ever work for everybody, but it’s going to make life easier for a lot more people,” Sound Transit Board member Fred Butler said of the trains.

       Critics of the sysem were not in evidence at the ceremony. Before the ride began, Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels, Murray and others recalled the years of work it took to get the line built and recognized a number of other officials and leaders who had pushed to get it. Longtime attorney Jim Ellis, author of two transit ballot measures defeated in 1968 and 1970, was in the audience.

       Virginia Gunby, a former state transportation commission member and longtime transit advocate, said the work took long enough that several early-day rail advocates were no longer alive.

    “There are a lot of people who aren’t here who tried to get (rail)  transit for a long time,” she said.

See the train schedule

See fares

 

By Larry Lange

PostGlobe transportation reporter

Now the old lady on a bike will have another way to travel.

      No longer will Puget Sound-area commuter trains just follow what have been freight train tracks. On July 18, light rail service will begin running on its own 14-mile corridor and is scheduled to reach Seattle-Tacoma International Airport by year’s end.

      It’s the first leg of what’s eventually supposed to become a 60-mile system stretching from downtown Seattle to Lynnwood, Bellevue and into Pierce County.

       There’s much anticipation about the coming of the initial $2.3 billion system, which will connect Seattle’s downtown transit tunnel with stations in eight other Seattle neighborhoods and one in Tukwila.

       And although it’s a big change in transportation, it also may make a difference in the  neighborhoods as people begin riding the trains. New housing is planned along the route, and some people expect more businesses will come, too.

      “This place is going to come alive with lots of people walking,” predicted Mona Lee, an avid bicyclist who writes a blog called “Old Lady on a Bike.” “Now it’s just lots of cars going by.” She’s ready to take her bike on the trains, maybe to get to the top of Beacon Hill without having to pedal up it.

      If it changes Lee’s life, how much the new line will change the corridor along Martin Luther King Jr. Way South isn’t clear, and developments likely will be driven by the economy. Many residents still have safety concerns about the line, most of which runs at street level. And it’s too early to tell how much prosperity the line will bring with its riders.

 

      “I think people are going to ride it, but how many are going to get off here?” said Allen Jefferson, operator of a coffee shop near the Othello Street rail station.

SoundTransit Link light rail train leaves the Othello Station New Holly southbound on Martin Luther King Jr. Way South. (Grant M. Haller)

 

     Sound Transit has run commuter trains among Seattle, Tacoma and Everett for several years using shared freight-train tracks. The number of riders of those trains has generally grown, notably after gas prices escalated and travelers sought a cheaper work trip. As of April, the numbers have declined 1 percent as people lost jobs in a bad economy.

      The new $2.7 billion, 14-mile line between downtown Seattle and Tukwila also is a rail operation but on a separate set of tracks and using lighter, electrically powered trains.

      Planners and rail backers have long assumed that once people board trains that will carry them on rails separated from snarled traffic, they’ll keep using them and will give up their cars at least for work travel.

 

SoundTransit Link light rail train leaves the Columbia City Station S. Edmonds St southbound on Martin Luther King Jr. Way South. (Grant M. Haller)

Sound Transit will offer free rides July 18 and 19, the first two days passengers can ride, and is preparing for as many as 100,000 riders the first day. Fares will be charged starting July 20 and will be based on distances traveled. In some cases, charges will be higher than for Metro buses during off-peak hours, and youths, seniors and disabled riders will pay more across the board for a ride separated from other traffic.

 

       Several bus routes that serve the same areas as the rail line have been shortened in deference to the new trains.

      The agency predicts 21,000 people will pay for rides on the initial system each weekday by the end of this year and 26,600 per day by mid-2010 once a Sea-Tac Airport station is finished and trains begin stopping there. But the really big numbers come later, with the agency predicting 91,000 boardings per weekday once the system expands to reach the University of Washington. Construction of the segment to the UW is scheduled for completion and opening in 2016.

      Casual conversations with travelers about the new trains draw mixed responses, with most saying they’ll ride it depending on their needs to go downtown and the circumstances. “I’ll check it out, especially if I need to go to the airport,” said one Beacon Hill bus rider who gave his name only as Bobby. Rainier Beach resident Laura Cook, standing at a Metro stop on Rainier Avenue, said she’ll keep riding the bus to shop “unless I’m going downtown, and then I’ll take light rail.”

    Having “another way of getting into the city is a blessing, in my book,” said Devin Quinn, manager of the Quality Rentals outlet near the Rainier Beach station.

 

SoundTransit Link light rail train heads south on Martin Luther King Jr. Way South. (Grant M. Haller)

Areas around stations are expected to be come more heavily developed and more densely populated, bringing new businesses welcomed by some neighbors. Neighbors of the Othello Street station plan to celebrate the line’s opening day on a nearby vacant lot July 18, with live music, children’s activities and coupons to nearby businesses to attract visitors.

 

      “I think there’s a commitment to making it work for us, supporting the neighbors that are here, supporting the neighborhoods that are here and bringing in additional businesses,” said Daphne Schneider, a NewHolly resident and member of an Othello Street station advisory group. “I think it will revitalize (that) neighborhood.”

      The economy could be as much of a factor in that as the stations. Developer Othello Partners said it will break ground this month for a $70 million, 352-unit apartment complex across Martin Luther King Jr. Way South from the Othello Street station. It plans another complex on property directly north on the opposite side of Othello Street but is seeking financing for it.

      One new development, a women’s homeless shelter, recently opened a block from the Othello Street station but remains partly unoccupied while the owner, Union Gospel Mission, tries to raise enough money to fill all of it. Other hoped-for developments await financing and improvements in sales potential. “We’re on hold, like most everybody else, because of the economy,” said Scott Shapiro of Eagle Rock Ventures, which proposes a 64-unit residential development near the Columbia City station.

         On Beacon Hill, site of an underground station, there are plans to use part of South Lander Street near the station as a public space on occasion, and some hope for a new P-patch community garden or even a “town square” development between 14 th and 15th avenues a few blocks from the station.

      City neighborhood coordinator Steve Louie said it’s not clear how much business the new line will produce on the hill, because the station is 165 feet underground. Residents there aren’t of a single mind yet how much more development and population is acceptable or whether the four-story building height limit should be raised.

      “How high that is is very much debatable,” said Judith Edwards, chairwoman of the North Beacon Hill Council, a neighborhood group. “There’s no consensus.”  Likewise, Columbia City resident Bill Sheehan recalls how the line took out more than a dozen houses in its path and how several businesses were lost when a nearby housing development was renovated. Some Rainier Valley residents worry higher prices will push others out.

      “I think people are looking forward to it, with some caveats,” Edwards said of light rail.

PARKING

 

Workers put on finishing touches to the SoundTransit Link Othello Station New Holly on Martin Luther King Jr. Way South. (Grant M. Haller)(

Also lurking is another question: parking in neighborhoods near the stations. Some community leaders don’t think parking will be a problem. The city established restricted-parking zones around the stations to make sure local residents can continue to park near their homes. The zones, however, are limited in size, and Edwards says some residents worry that outsiders will park all day just outside the zones. Residents are being supplied with free permits for two years, but after that, they will have to pay an annual fee based on the number of vehicles.

 

      Jenna Walden of the Othello Neighborhood Association thinks parking could become a problem if more businesses move in close to stations. “The chicken-and-the-egg dilemma has been a constant,” she said.

      Rainier Valley activist Patricia Paschal agrees “parking is a big issue. We’ll see what happens.” The city has prohibited building new parking facilities near the rail stations, fearing they’ll just create more traffic, but it “will closely monitor parking conditions and make adjustments as needed,” city transportation spokesman Rick Sheridan said.

 

SAFETY

      Most of the line will run at street level, without crossing gates to separate trains from other vehicles. Trains sound bells when approaching crossings, and signs warn pedestrians to look both ways before crossing the tracks. “It’s no different than having to pay attention to cars,” Schneider said.

      As of last week, there had been three train collisions with cars or people since preservice train testing began, including a collision Monday between a train and a car. The car driver suffered minor injuries. The other collisions involved another car and a pedestrian.

      Some, such as Paschal, worry about the risk, saying the ground-level rails were “a dangerous thing to put down the middle of this area.” A 1999 environmental impact statement predicted 29 car-train collisions annually by 2020, based on other systems’ experience.

      Sound Transit spokesman Bruce Gray said the trains travel the speed limits in Rainier Valley and the agency has integrated its signals with those for other vehicles. He said train operators weren’t at fault in the three collisions, because two of the collisions involved cars that made illegal left turns and the third involved a pedestrian crossing against a light before the impact.

     Gray said Sound Transit has been talking about safety in the valley for two years, mailing fliers, visiting schools, distributing materials in 11 languages, setting up a children’s Web site to emphasize safety and discussing safety at a street fair.  “I think we’ve done more than put out a few press releases,” he said. He said the impact statement also predicted 44 fewer vehicle-to-vehicle collisions along the route because of the addition of the rail line.

      Some street-level adjustments are being made, sometimes with controversy. Seattle installed center curbs on South Graham Street near the rail line to help prevent collisions and stop traffic backups across the tracks. Merchants objected that the curbs restricted access to their businesses, but the city left the curbs in, citing a “clear safety issue.”

      The city is still adjusting traffic signals on Martin Luther King Jr. Way South because of the trains. Residents have complained that traffic backs up for several light cycles after trains get the green light at South Alaska Street. Sheridan didn’t have information about that light but said the city is “working to strike a balance for all roadway users.”

 

LAND USE

      Seattle is rethinking its land-use plans around the underground Beacon Hill station, the elevated station at Rainier Avenue and Lander Street and a street-level station at Martin Luther King Jr. Way South and Othello Street. Recommendations for changes are expected by the end of the year, neighborhood planning manager Lyle Bicknell said.

       There’s no immediate plan to rethink land use around eight other Seattle stations with more recent land-use updates, though all allow greater development density than now exists.

     Bicknell said other cities’ experiences shows people like the convenience of living near rail lines, but “our challenge will be to show how density can be done well.” City design standards apply just to the larger developments.

      A few developments such as the NewHolly complex near the Othello station have popped up along the rail line, and “I suspect that, especially as the economy picks up, we’ll see more of that,” Bicknell said.

      A controversial measure in this year’s Legislature, House Bill 1490, would have set minimum station-area housing densities at 50 dwellings per acre, as part of an attempt to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The proposal was defeated after local officials and activists objected.

     “The state, the city and regional authorities, along with transportation and environmental groups, have their eye on how this will be dictated,” Walden said. “The question is whether they will respect the local desires of how this should be integrated.” 

FINANCES

      The economy has raised other issues with the rail operation, too. Sound Transit has reduced by $2.2 billion its estimates of how much money its sales and motor vehicle excise taxes will raise to support its operations over the next 14 years, because less tax revenue is being produced than expected.

    Agency critics and its own Citizen Oversight Panel have warned about rising costs for some time.

     “In large part, Sound Transit appears healthy today from a fiscal standpoint precisely because, since 2006 (the original opening date), it has not been operating its promised Central Link rail line at all,” said Emory Bundy, a longtime Sound Transit watcher and critic.

        Sound Transit spokesman Bruce Gray responds that the agency is fiscally healthy, “because our financial models and our operations try to err on the conservative side as much as possible.”

        But after hearing more calls for cost controls, the agency convened a task force that late last month said it had found ways to save more than $300 million over 30 years. Measures included putting bus operation and maintenance out for competitive bids or negotiating better prices for the work; building its own bus maintenance base and doing itself the work it now has other agencies perform; seeking exemption from taxes on fares and train-operation payments; and speeding up construction of a train-maintenance facility.

       “Given the fact that revenues are down, people are keenly aware of the need to be efficient,” said Dow Constantine, King County Council chairman, Sound Transit board member and King County executive candidate, who headed the task force. “We need to be watching every penny.”

Woman crosses in front of the SoundTransit Link light rail train’s Othello Station New Holly on Martin Luther King Jr. Way South. (Grant Haller)

    There are warnings from the state Department of Transportation about northbound lane closures on Interstate 405 in Bellevue this weekend plus night work next week in Bellevue, Renton and Tukwila.

    Drivers heading to downtown Bellevue on northbound I-405 this weekend should plan for delays. Crews will close the car pool lane on northbound I-405 from Coal Creek Parkway to Interstate 90 all weekend, from 9:30 p.m. Friday through 5 a.m. Monday.

   Crews will close an additional lane nightly as early as 10 p.m. The additional lane will reopen by 9 a.m. Saturday and Sunday and 5 a.m. Monday.

    Crews also may close the following lanes and ramps during the night and early-morning hours in the Bellevue, Renton and Tukwila areas from Monday through Thursday for construction work:

   Bellevue

     Two lanes on northbound I-405 from 112th Avenue Southeast to I-90; two lanes on southbound I-405 from I-90 to Coal Creek Parkway; three lanes on northbound I-405 from I-90 to Main Street; three lanes on northbound I-405 from Southeast Eighth Street to state Route 520; and ramps at the downtown Bellevue interchanges, including at I-90, Coal Creek Parkway and 112th Avenue Southeast.

      Renton and Tukwila

     Up to two lanes in both directions on I-405 between Interstate 5 and state Route 167. More I-405 construction updates are online at: wsdot.wa.gov/projects/i405/conupdates

State maintenance crews will close the Evergreen Point Bridge for the weekend at 11 p.m. Friday for annual inspection and maintenance work. The bridge will remain shut until 5 a.m. Monday. The closure will extend from Montlake Boulevard to 92nd Avenue Northeast.

The state Department of Transportation also said the express lanes of the main alternate crossing, Interstate 90, will be closed Sunday for three hours because of a bicycling event.

During the Evergreen Point Bridge closure, state engineers will test that bridge’s main power supply and inspect the mechanical systems. They also will conduct ultrasonic testing on the draw span’s vertical guide rollers and perform other maintenance work.

During the closure, drivers will be able to use state Route 520 between Interstate 5 and Montlake Boulevard in Seattle and as far west as 92nd Avenue on the east side of Lake Washington.

There are a number of events around the area this weekend, including Mariners home games Saturday and Sunday. Drivers also should plan ahead for the Livestrong Challenge bicycle event that will close the I-90 bridge express lanes to drivers from 6:30 to 9:30 a.m. Sunday while cyclists make their way across Lake Washington.

In addition to the I-90 bridge across the lake, alternative crossings include state Route 522 north of it and Interstate 405 south of it.

The department will release Evergreen Point Bridge inspection results in mid-August.

 

For safety reasons, you probably wouldn’t want to get close enough to the underside of a Sound Transit light rail train to kick the “tires.” And you wouldn’t want to kick them too hard if you did get that close. They’re solid steel.

Removing worn wheel rims from the 94-foot rail cars is just one of many specialized items of knowledge needed by the 180 people who’ll operate and take care of the agency’s trains once it starts passenger service July 18 between downtown Seattle and Tukwila.

There are three braking systems to check out, including the track-contacting brakes that use sand as an abrasive to help stop trains in an emergency. There are roof drains to keep clear in wet weather.

The outside surface of the steel wheels must be checked periodically to make sure they stay round and must be ground into perfect circles again if they’re not. Those outer edges, resembling steel doughnuts, must be removed with a special puller.

Also in the car roofs are each car’s batteries, circuit breakers and heating/air-conditioning system, among other components needing ongoing service.

Care of light rail trains isn’t exactly like car or bus maintenance, and almost all the rail maintenance people had to be trained for the work or evolve into it after starting as bus mechanics, according to Sound Transit’s operations and maintenance director, Paul Denison.

“It’s a specialized field,” he said during a Wednesday tour of Sound Transit’s maintenance facility. “There’s really no ‘light rail university.’ ”

Crews will check the levels of braking sand and various other fluids each day and correct problems reported by drivers. In addition, crews will check 115 specific items for wear every 5,000 miles, or about every 10 days.

There is a train-car wash room at the 26-acre maintenance facility, complete with rotating scrubbers, and an area for body-panel repairs for trains involved in collisions.

So far, 35 of the rail cars have been taken to the maintenance facility off Airport Way South across from the Tully’s Coffee roasting plant. Twenty-eight of those will be needed to operate the system to Tukwila each day, three more when the service extends to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. That will leave the system three backup spares every day, which Denison said should be enough, but the most critical part of his crew’s job will be “to make sure our operators and our customers have enough trains in the morning.”

In the next 18 months, 27 more cars will be taken and stored at the facility to be used on the rail extension from downtown to the University of Washington when that segment opens in 2016. Denison said nine more tracks will be added at the 26-acre maintenance site to store more trains.

Eventually, another maintenance facility will be built as part of the light rail expansion authorized by voters for completion by 2023. A location hasn’t been picked, but meanwhile, “I’ll be watching for costs,” said Larry Phillips, a King County councilman, Sound Transit board member and candidate for King County executive. Light rail operating and maintenance expenses are budgeted to total $21.8 million this year, when service will begin in midsummer. The total is estimated to come to $38.7 million in 2010. A citizen oversight panel already has said the agency needs to control expenses.

By Larry Lange

Post Globe transportation reporter

King County’s downtown-to-West Seattle water taxi sold 31,557 rides last month, setting a record for May, the county said Monday.

The number represents a 20 percent increase over May 2008, when 26,137 rides were sold. Ridership in May 2007 was  22,259.

King County Councilman Dow Constantine, who heads the county Ferry District Board, said the cross-Elliott Bay service continues to attract more riders as the county nears expansion to year-round service next year. He said the taxi “is a great transportation choice for commuters that takes cars off the road and gets riders out of traffic,” and growing ridership bodes well as the district contemplates another local demonstration ferry route.

The taxi also drew more cash fare revenue during May, collecting $44,518 during the month compared with $30,285 last year. The county said that’s an increase of 47 percent.

More on the taxi is available by phone at 206-553-5000 or online at kingcounty.gov/Metro.

       Parts of the southbound lanes of Interstate 5 in South Seattle and on Martin Luther King Jr. Way South will be closed overnight in the next few days, starting Sunday, while crews prepare for installing new electronic speed limit and lane-status signs.

     Sunday through Thursday: Each night, crews will start closing lanes on southbound I-5 between Martin Luther King Way South and Boeing Field at 7, and by 8, they will have two lanes closed. Lanes will reopen by 5 each following morning.

      Monday through Tuesday: Each night, crews will close one lane of southbound Martin Luther King Way South at 7.  Lanes will reopen by 5 each following morning.

      The work  is needed to install a series of electronic speed-limit and lane-status signs over each northbound lane on I-5 between the Boeing Access Road and Interstate 90 in Seattle.  The equipment is part of a new state congestion-relief program, intended to reduce collisions and increase safety.

       More information about the program is online at  www.wsdot.wa.gov/movingwashington/. More information on this particular project is at www.wsdot.wa.gov/Projects/I5/VariableSpeedSafety/.

Drivers who use Fourth Avenue South in Seattle’s Sodo neighborhood could face closures and short delays in the next several days, starting Friday night, the state Department of Transportation said.

At 7 p.m. Friday and Monday to next Thursday, crews working for state contractor Kiewit Pacific Co. will close all lanes of Fourth Avenue South between South Royal Brougham Way and South Atlantic Street/Edgar Martinez Drive South for construction work. The street will reopen by 5 each following morning. A signed detour will divert drivers to Sixth Avenue South. 

During the closures, crews will drive 80-foot-long steel piles into the ground underneath Fourth Avenue South. The material will be part of the foundation for a new Interstate 90 and Interstate 5 exit to Atlantic Street and Edgar Martinez Drive.

In the project, crews are building the new offramp and a bridge over the railroad tracks on South Royal Brougham Way. The project also includes the recently completed widening of the First Avenue South as welll as South Atlantic Street and Martinez Drive South, to eventually accommodate vehicles, trucks, pedestrians and bicyclists. It is intended to move traffic more quickly through the corridor.

More information is online at www.wsdot.wa.gov/projects/sr519. A photo collection is at www.flickr.com/photos/wsdot/collections/72157611230638731/.