The interim temporary Newcastle Transit Center is just about done. It’s been that way for a month. Problem appears to be an abundance of those orange traffic barrels. They’re everywhere. There must be hundreds and since there’s no place else to store them the contractor has decided to leave them on the street.
Right now the “landscaping” is being planted and bus stop shelters erected. These take place on the sidewalk. Landscaping is defined as “native plants that have a 50/50 chance of surviving.”
The bus shelters are places where people can wait for the bus while it’s raining. We have a lot of rain here. Every month the weather person announces that the previous month set a new record for rainfall. Apparently their “records” only cover the current year. “This has been the rainiest November on record since last summer.”
Sound Transit spent most of the budget on paving. They took up the old dilapidated asphalt that was well over two years old and looked it. Then they put down some cement pads where the bus is supposed to stop as well as cement paving in the intersection itself. Very high tech stuff.
While doing all this they brought in truck loads of orange barrels and never took any away. Maybe they can move them into the empty Library property and open the street. Maybe. Maybe they could pile them up and make a library.
Meantime the King County Executive has proposed a plan for the closed BNSF rail corridor. There’s a lot of non-specific and apple pie type of dialog relative to this “plan.” Such as “enhance our quality of life,” etc.
Here’s something that may be a surprise to some of us: one of the reasons many of the old abandoned rail corridors have been made available for trails and bike paths is that the railroads retain the right to buy them back if they need to. In other words it would be hard to sell off parcels for shopping centers and apartment buildings now only to have BNSF exercise its buyback right in 2020. So they need to remain in the hands of the public (parks, trails, etc).
Anyway, King County plans to enhance the quality of our lives by doing something. But what? Here are some of the outfits involved with King County in this: Port of Seattle, City of Redmond, Sound Transit, Puget Sound Energy, and Glen the Lake Boren Carp. A lot of people are not aware of that last one but we all know there has to be at least one voice of logic and reason in a group like this.
OK, what has this to do with hundreds of orange barrels in Newcastle? Well instead of hauling all those barrels back to Maple Valley lets use them on the BNSF corridor. Saves several trips back and forth.
Maybe they could line them up on the old I-90 railroad overpass. Right now it’s covered with graffiti but nobody notices. I bet very few of us even realize there’s a railroad bridge over I-90 in South Bellevue. It’s just part of the background.
The one that’s not part of the background is the historic trestle in the Wilburton neighborhood. The old wood structure harkens back to an era when steam locomotives pulled boxcars around. Can you imagine the old steam trains chomping across NE 8th Street back when it was a two lane dirt road? Neither can I.
In other news (only remotely related) the final leg of the Link Light Rail will open on December 19. They picked that date in honor of my birthday. I’m humbled. That leg will extend the line from Tukwila to SeaTac International Airport.
After it opens people will be able to take it from the airport to downtown Seattle. If they have an Orca Card it’ll be almost like free. I’ll have to make another inspection trip in a month or so. I have an Orca Card.
So, to wrap up: Orange barrels in Newcastle have to be dealt with. Will they use them to build the new library or to make the BNSF rail corridor improvements? Can we expect the quality of our lives to be enhanced as a result? How much does a traffic barrel cost anyway? Can you believe I used a word like “harkens?” And why is my shower still ice cold?
Al
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