|
|
KCDOT closes out 2005, looks ahead
 The
past 12 months brought many challenges and opportunities to the
King County Department of
Transportation (KCDOT), as fuel prices escalated and demand for
services and capital projects increased.
Lessons learned from 2005 will shape how the department gears up for the
coming year.
“In 2006, the department will continue to creatively and effectively
address county transportation priorities within funding constraints,”
said KCDOT Director Harold Taniguchi.
Providing essential transportation services will be the first priority
for all four divisions within KCDOT. The goal for the Fleet
Administration Division will be to provide quality services, parts,
materials and supplies at competitive cost to its customers. The King
County International Airport will work to maintain basic operations in
the face of declining revenues. The Roads Division is emphasizing
strategies to preserve and enhance existing road capacity. The Transit
Division plans to expand bus service in South and East King County
thanks in part to rebounding sales tax revenues, but will also have to
absorb the costs of the unprecedented increases in fuel prices.
In addition to leading the department, the Director’s Office will
concentrate on fine-tuning business practices and ensuring that KCDOT is
fully prepared to respond to emergencies and natural disasters.
Here’s a look at some of the KCDOT milestones and achievements in 2005:
Fleet
Primary business – The Fleet Division manages the acquisition,
maintenance, rental and replacement of King County vehicles and
equipment, as well as the purchase and warehousing of parts, road
materials, traffic signs, and supplies. It also accounts for countywide
fixed assets and the disposal of all surplus property.
Auctions – In 2005, the semi-annual automobile and heavy
equipment auctions hosted by Fleet were very popular with the public.
Fleet also conducted more than 20 sales and auctions of county surplus
property, including timber sales, computers and online auctions,
resulting in additional county revenue.
Hybrids & savings – King County Fleet Administration has long
been recognized for its progressive environmental programs. In recent
years, Fleet became one of the first government agencies in the nation
to purchase new hybrid electric passenger vehicles. It was another move
that proved to be way ahead of its time.
Today, King County owns the largest fleet of hybrid electric cars of any
government agency in Washington. By the end of 2005, King County
employees were using more than 140 hybrid electric cars. The county
estimates it saves more than $3,100 dollars in fuel costs for every
hybrid car it puts on the road over the life of the car, compared to
conventional cars, and is saving more than 14,000 gallons of fuel
annually.
King County’s program has become so successful that Fleet Administration
Director Win Mitchell is now leading a national consortium of government
agencies in pooling their collective buying power to lower the costs of
new hybrid electric vehicles.
Airport
Expanding passenger service – In July, Southwest Airlines
submitted a proposal to King County to move their operations to Boeing
Field and build a terminal and parking garage to accommodate up to 85
flights per day. A few months later, Alaska Airlines made a similar
proposal. The county was obligated to evaluate the feasibility of both
proposals together.
King County Executive Ron Sims asked KCDOT staff to do a preliminary
review of the requests, and cautioned that he would not endorse any
proposal from any airline to move commercial passenger service to Boeing
Field if it led to significant negative traffic and noise impacts for
King County residents.
In early October, Sims determined that either proposal alone might be
possible to accommodate and mitigate at Boeing Field, but it was not
possible to accommodate and mitigate both.
Runway rehabilitation – KCIA staff spent a good deal of 2005
working on plans to rehabilitate the main Boeing Field runway in 2006.
The paved surfaces of KCIA’s primary runway and Taxiway Bravo are near
the end of their useful lives, and also were damaged during the 2001
Nisqually Earthquake. While most of the earthquake damage was repaired
immediately, the pavement continues to settle and deteriorate. If not
addressed, these problems will require increasingly frequent repairs and
could lead to increased runway and operational restrictions.
This past year, the Federal Aviation Administration provided design
guidance concerning the pavement thickness and other mandated
requirements. And, KCIA staff met with tenants to discuss how the
project can be completed in phases to minimize operations disruptions.
Roads
Bridge safety – In 2005, the King County Road Services Division
had five major projects underway to rebuild or rehab bridges, along with
several smaller jobs to upgrade the seismic stability of the county’s
bridges. The two biggest projects were the completion of a new Elliott
Bridge over the Cedar River between Renton and Maple Valley, and the
rehabilitation of the Meadowbrook Bridge near Snoqualmie.
In 2006, the bridge unit will concentrate on selecting a plan to
preserve the crossing over the Duwamish River now served by the
deteriorating South Park Bridge. There are also plans to start
construction on a new Tolt Bridge near Carnation this year, with
completion scheduled for 2007.
Preserving existing infrastructure – There were fewer new
construction starts in 2005 than in previous years, due to dwindling
funding for local road projects. The construction work done in the past
12 months focused more on preserving existing roadways and bridges. The
one exception was the completion of the South 277th Street project. The
busy stretch of roadway near State Route 167 was widened, and curbs,
sidewalks and a bike lane were added.
In June and July, Roads crews raised Northeast 124th Street on either
side of the Novelty Bridge southwest of Duvall. The project reduces the
frequency and length of closures of the road due to flooding. During the
summer and fall, Des Moines Memorial Drive between South 99th Street and
South 128th Street was repaved, restriped, and sidewalks and bicycle
lanes were added. Also, new markers were embedded in the sidewalk panels
to remember those who lost their lives in World War I.
Protecting the environment – Throughout the year, Roads continued
to replace aging under-road culverts with ones that were also fish
passable. The innovative practices Roads employs when doing these kinds
of transportation projects in environmentally sensitive areas was
recognized more than once in 2005 by those outside the agency.
County staff has pioneered techniques to build and maintain roads that
enhance the environment through the use of best management practices and
the latest technology, and the Roads Division is frequently asked to
share it with other agencies around the world.
Transit
Restructuring downtown bus service & beyond - For the first nine
months of 2005, King County Metro Transit was intensely focused on
preparing for the closure of the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel. The
tunnel was closed in September for a two-year retrofit, so both buses
and light rail can use it. Although only 21 bus routes moved to surface
streets in September, more than 70 routes and 100,000 bus passengers
were affected by the downtown changes.
In 2005, Metro staff did extensive public outreach to gather input on
making transit service changes in south and east King County. Those
changes will be finalized this spring and start going into effect in the
fall of 2006.
Accommodating increased ridership – Gas prices soared starting in
the spring and culminating in the fall, resulting in more people riding
the bus or joining carpools and vanpools.
Beginning in May 2005, transit ridership increased every month when
compared to the same time last year. The number of cars at Metro’s 123
park-and-ride lots climbed steadily since spring, and by the end of the
year there were 723 Vanpools in operation. And during the month of
November, there were more than 17,000 people in Metro’s Ridematch
database – the highest it has ever been since RideshareOnline.com
started service in 2001.
Adjusting waterfront streetcar service – Despite construction
disruptions, the George Benson Waterfront Streetcar Line continued to
serve commuters and downtown neighborhoods in 2005. In November, service
was switched from streetcars on rail to buses on the street.
Replacing the streetcars with buses clears the way for construction of
the Seattle Art Museum’s Sculpture Park where the streetcar maintenance
facility was located. Metro is partnering with a local developer to
create a mixed-use housing and retail complex that will include a new
streetcar maintenance facility near Occidental Park between South
Washington and South Main streets in Pioneer Square. Until that project
is complete, Metro will use the buses to operate Route 99. Metro hopes
the vintage streetcars will be back on their tracks by mid-2007.
New transit facilities – In 2005, Metro opened a new
park-and-ride at Redondo Heights in Federal Way and significantly
expanded the Kenmore Park-and-Ride. There will be more expansion in the
coming year, as Metro opens the 1,000-stall garage at Issaquah Highlands
in February and begins construction of a new Burien Transit Center later
in the year.
Experimenting with technology – In September, Metro passengers on
two routes began testing rolling WiFi service. Metro installed small
mobile connection boxes on buses serving the two transit routes. The
boxes were outfitted with a cellular air card that allows passengers to
power-up their laptop computers or WiFi-enabled devices and access the
Internet.
|
