Just what are these WSDOT workers doing?

We’ve all seen it before—a bunch of construction workers standing around a job site, watching one person do the work.

A listener asked me about that exact situation last week, and I decided to find out the answer.

Tommy hit me up on the 97.3 KIRO FM text line last week and sent me this picture from the Scatter Creek rest area on I-5, north of Grand Mound. The pictures show about a dozen people, most in reflective WSDOT vests, watching one person working in a grassy area.

WSDOT Construction Training (Photo: courtesy of Chris Sullivan)

Tommy asked me what I could find out about what was happening. He was concerned that so many public employees appeared to be standing around when they could have been working.

Why WSDOT workers were just standing around

My initial thought was that this was a training session, but I reached out to WSDOT for confirmation.

WSDOT was testing out a new multi-functional lawn mower that also sweeps and plows bike lanes. It was also testing a remote-controlled mower. Any members of the WSDOT team who might end up using the equipment were invited. WSDOT wanted to get feedback from its workers on the equipment before deciding whether to buy it. So, this was a training session.

And I think this is a perfect example of how I want Chokepoints to work. I’ll take any question and find out the answer if I can. It can be something really simple like this, or something major.

Just reach out. There are no silly questions.

Chris Sullivan is a traffic reporter for KIRO Newsradio. Read more of his stories here. Follow KIRO Newsradio traffic on X.

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