Rantz: SDOT incompetence makes traffic and closures even worse

Somehow the Seattle Department of Transportation is so hyper-focused on bike lanes it didn’t realize that Seattle is going through a development boom.

Officials were so hyper-focused on creating protected bike lanes on streets that can’t even handle cars, that SDOT didn’t quite notice all the cranes in the skyline for all these new apartments and office buildings going up.

I’ll give SDOT some credit because often times when either a government agency, or just an everyday Joe acts incompetently, they’ll lie to save themselves from the embarrassment. But not SDOT. The department embraces its incompetence and lack of foresight because it’s a direct impact of employees not really caring about anyone but the 3.1 percent of bike commuters in the city (a number that has gone down since they committed tens of millions of dollars to bike infrastructure projects). And as a result, there are a bunch of crosswalks and street closures due to the construction sites popping up all across the Seattle area.

Related: Dumping furniture in Seattle the pinnacle of laziness

Depending on the street or sidewalk closure, that can snarl traffic pretty significantly. If you don’t manage the closures, the impact is even worse. Throughout 2015 it wasn’t managed by SDOT.

So what about 2016? It’ll get worse.

The Seattle Times reports, “In the next few weeks, the city expects more than 70 sidewalk, street and parking-lane closures just in downtown and South Lake Union.”

But good news, Brian de Place (the city’s streets-use chief) is beginning to pay attention. I’m not sure where he was in 2015, but 2016 is the year of change for him. Perhaps it’s a New Year’s resolution.

The Times writes, “His task is to minimize the growing pains and modernize Seattle’s way of dealing them by learning from other cities.”

Much like most of our resolutions, I’m sure he’ll stick to focusing on this for about eight days before he reverts back to his old ways.

I don’t mean to be pessimistic about this but read this line from the Times: “Taking lessons from New York City, de Place and the Seattle Department of Transportation have mandated meetings with builders in hot spots like downtown to get a look ahead and better coordinate work. That way, Fifth Avenue isn’t closed for a delivery of steel beams the same day the viaduct is shut down for a state safety inspection, said Ken Ewalt, an SDOT construction coordinator.”

So, to be clear, SDOT and de Place needed to learn from New York City that they should be coordinating and meeting with developers?

When a bunch of new development is slated &#8211 and you know it’s happening because they alert the city and get permits and permission from the city &#8211 it didn’t dawn on them to have the developers meet with them to discuss scheduling?

Times: “Taking another cue from New York, de Place is hiring more inspectors and equipping them with electronic tablets so they can do more work from building sites.”

Congratulations. Well over a year into the increased development, the department is hiring people to handle the problem and buying these newfangled electronic tablets to make work a bit more efficient. I’m sure they’ll spend eight weeks in some ad-hoc SDOT committee trying to figure out whether or not they’ll go with a Surface, an iPad, or a Google Nexus.

SDOT was supposed to post details and photos online of contractors breaking city rules in their developments, but that hasn’t happened yet. No real reason has been given why. To be fair, I don’t need to see the posts. What would I do with that information? Shame them on Twitter? How about you enforce the rules, SDOT?

Times: “On Christmas Eve, the day after a reporter asked SDOT about the closed lane at 1101 Westlake Ave. N., barriers at the site were removed and the lane restored. The closure permit was no longer in effect, an SDOT spokesman said.”

You’d think this kind of news would embarrass SDOT.

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