SDOT apathy on Mercer will hurt us all

It turns out, this weekend, a time when over 60,000 fans are expected to show up to CenturyLink Field for the Sounders game, the Seattle Department of Transportation is limiting Mercer Street to just one lane each direction.

They’re doing this to tackle a new Aurora Avenue overpass above Mercer Street. When the weather was nice, I rarely saw them working on weekends, oddly enough. I live around the area. I pass Mercer all the time, usually waiting for three green light cycles at Dexter before I’m able to turn left onto Mercer. Forget about turning right – you can’t on Dexter.

According to The Seattle Times, SDOT is “converting Mercer into a two-way boulevard to include trees, wide sidewalks, and bike lanes.” Bikes don’t really travel Mercer now because it’s not meant for bikes and there’s no real reason for bicycles to go down Mercer, but ya know … when in Rome. And of course there’s no huge reason to walk down most of Mercer, which is why the foot traffic is easily accommodated now. But ya know, might as well build it. It’ll at least end up helping traffic.

Oh what’s that? “…the overall project is unlikely to improve car traffic.”

The Times continues, “For several months, there have been two lanes each direction on Mercer during construction. The full boulevard will have three lanes each way and SDOT says the third eastbound lane is to open in late November…” I suspect that won’t happen because they drag their feet on Mercer. They rush bike lanes on Second Avenue, where everyone seemed to agree wasn’t an ideal place to bike, but Mercer? It happens when it happens.

I’m hard on SDOT for a reason. They seem to forget who they serve. They serve their customers and their customers are overwhelmingly drivers. When they take weekends off, seemingly on a whim, they’re not getting Mercer fixed. When they choose high-volume days to start suddenly working, they’re telling you they don’t give a damn what inconvenience you experience. When they don’t work at night because it’s dark (apparently they don’t know how to operate portable lights), they’re telling you to screw off — they’ll do things on their own timeline.

SDOT is run by a bike activist. Scott Kubly is an ideologue. I want someone in charge who looks out for ALL people, ALL modes of transportation, which includes bikes, and Metro, and pedestrians, but doesn’t give them special treatment over cars. It doesn’t appear we have that leader.

Do you know what Mercer represents? The economy. Economic advancement.

The folks getting on and off I-5 at Mercer are going to and from work — to and from Amazon.com or Tesla or the Gates Foundation or Presage, where they make good money and spend it at the Blue Moon Burger, or Serious Biscuit, or Bartells, or Uptown Espresso, or SIFF Theater.

The folks getting on and off I-5 at Mercer are going to and from Seattle Center, where they’re checking out a show at KeyArena.

The folks getting on and off I-5 at Mercer are the plumbers, and electricians, and contractors trying to get to Queen Anne or Westlake or South Lake Union to work with their clients.

Many of these folks are coming from outside of Seattle: from Tacoma or Renton; from Bellevue or Mercer Island; from Everett and Lynnwood and Shoreline, and they’re blessing the city with their hard-earned money for our services and goods. SDOT is spitting in their faces because they just don’t want to take seriously the problems facing drivers. They pretend that the needs of everyone else are more important than the drivers, rather than acknowledge that we all should be treated equally. It’s wrong. It’s unfair. It’s ultimately going to hurt our economy.

But hey, we get a wider sidewalk and a bike lane.