Taylor Avenue North was fully closed last weekend, as was part of Mercer Street and Fifth Avenue North. Many of the full closures were scheduled for nighttime work, thankfully, but construction in the area has still been a headache.
At the same time, nearby Fairview Avenue North has been reduced to accommodate repairs after a sewer line was accidentally blocked with concrete. The repairs were originally expected to be done during the day, but Seattle Public Utilities decided to hold repair work off until 7 p.m. each night to avoid major delays. Repairs for the area, just south of Mercer, are expected to take a month and will cost the responsible party $300,000, according to a MyNorthwest.com article. In the meantime, it’s the drivers who will pay, with longer delays and backups in an area that’s already a mess.
The Washington State Department of Transportation’s annual congestion report for 2014 was “brutal,” said Seattle Times columnist Danny Westneat. Interstate 5 has seen an uptick in delays by 72 percent in the last five years, and drivers heading east have seen 78 percent more delays in that same timeframe.
What isn’t clear is what we should do about it. Improving bus and light rail services is a start, but it isn’t getting any better any time soon for drivers in Queen Anne and beyond.