Mallahan: "Seattle needs to stop paving public's patience"

Joel Connelly (Strange Bedfellows):

The Seattle Department of Transportation must minimize disruption as it repairs streets while maximizing communication with disrupted businesses and neighborhoods, according to Seattle mayoral candidate Joe Mallahan.

"One of the major challenges facing the next administration is going to be managing the multiple major transportation projects that will be underway, Mallahan, a vice president at T-Mobile, said in a statement.

Incumbent Mayor Greg Nickels and SDOT, in Mallahan's words, "have shown no regard for how their actions impact Seattle residents."

"As mayor, I will make Seattle : 8px; overflow: auto; width: 400px; height: 300px; backgroundresidents and businesses a priority so they are impacted as little as possible while transportation projects in the city are underway," Mallahan argued. "Specifically, I will make sure SDOT and the city focus on four key areas: coordination, preparation, communication and quality control.

"I will create an oversight team to provide accountability in all of these areas."

The SDOT's resurfacing work disrupted auto, bicycle and foot traffic on 4th Avenue, through Belltown, for most of the spring.

The transportation department is currently repaving 2nd Avenue from Belltown through the downtown area. The arterial is a major route leading toward stadiums where the Mariners and Sounders play.

Nickels was asked about disruptions on Tuesday during an interview for a candidate profile on KPLU radio. He argued that the work is necessary and must be done during the summer.

"We are tearing up the streets and doing it during the baseball season: It's true, but that's when the weather is such that you can actually resurface streets," said Nickels, who has made much of being a Mariner fan.

Nickels conceded that blocks-long construction is "distracting" and "does delay" those using downtown arterials, adding: "But when it's done you have a street that's not going to fall apart."

"We actually have to tear them up to rebuild them," Nickels said.

Nickels has made a campaign theme of progress in road resurfacing and creation of bike lanes under the city's Bridging the Gap transportation levy.

Mallahan has focused campaign fire on SDOT, not only the snowbound streets of last December but the torn up arterials of summer.

He has promised to replace the department's director Grace Crunican. Crunican has also come under critical scrutiny from a fellow mayoral candidate, Seattle City Councilwoman Jan Drago. Drago is chairwoman of the council's transportation committee.

"We need to take our commitment to pedestrian and bicyclist safety very seriously," Mallahan said, "and do a better job of preparing sidewalks and streets so they are safe and easy to use during construction.

"I will ramp up communications with commuters and businesses about ongoing projects, preparation and planning. I will make sure we have quality control so the Streets Maintenance Division isn't tearing up projects and rebuilding them repeatedly."

In The Washington Poll, released Tuesday, Mallahan came in second place behind Nickels.

The poll, overseen by a University of Washington political scientist, found that transportation is the highest issue on voters minds: 30 percent of those surveyed listed replacement of the Alaskan Way Viaduct as the most important issue.

Twenty-three percent listed other transportation issues, such as SDOT's botched snow storm response last December.