|
|
Looking back at 2006
2006 was a busy year for the King County Department of Transportation.
|
For the King County Department
of Transportation (KCDOT), 2006 was a year split between planning
for the future and meeting the demands of the present. It encompassed
responding to multiple major storms, limited new construction, keeping up with
repairs on aging infrastructure, and anticipating ways to expand the
county’s transportation network.
Each of KCDOT's four divisions had a busy workload in 2006.
Here’s an overview for each:
King County Metro Transit
With a tax measure on the ballot in November, the
Metro Transit division spent a
good portion of 2006 planning on what an infusion of dollars could do to
make the county’s bus system more convenient and more efficient. The
“Transit Now” sales tax increase was approved by more than 56 percent of
the voters in November 2006, and the first of the service improvements
will occur in February 2007. Overall, the one-tenth of one percent sales
tax increase will fund Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) in five key corridors,
more frequent service on high-ridership routes, new service in rapidly
growing neighborhoods, and partnerships with other agencies or
businesses to maximize ridership and better serve expanding employment
centers.
Under its regular work plan, Metro’s Service Planning group led the
efforts to revamp service in South King County. Many public meetings
were held to help Metro revise the network of bus routes in South King
County to make service to and from Seattle more efficient, create
connections to other major work centers, and improve transit reliability
in heavily congested corridors. The changes went into effect in
September.
Earlier in the year, Metro opened its new Issaquah Highlands
Park-and-Ride garage and debuted the new Route 218 – both of which have
been well-used by bus passengers in the past 10 months.
In January, Metro celebrated the one-year-on-the-road anniversary of the
new fleet of hybrid articulated buses. The first-year report revealed
the hybrids were not only logging better fuel economy than their
conventional diesel cousins. But, they were also delivering on their
promise of lowering greenhouse emissions and providing solid mechanical
reliability.
King County Road Services Division
Starting in January 2006, the
Road
Services Division fought an endless battle against the elements. The
year started with 30-plus days of rain and massive mudslides. By the
time construction season rolled around in late spring, the division was
still facing more than $7 million in storm repairs from the previous
winter. Those repairs had barely been made when the region was hit with
a triple-weather whammy of floodwaters, snow, and wind in November and
December. Clean up and repairs from those late-2006 storms will continue
for some time.
The Roads Division also tried to keep up with repairs to aging bridges,
culverts, and the seawalls on Vashon Island. It meant many short-term
repairs to the South Park Bridge and the Dockton Road and seawall, along
with an overhaul of the under-road culverts near Duvall. For 2007, the
division plans to spend more than $100 million to preserve and
protect the transportation network throughout unincorporated King
County.
New construction projects in 2006 included: the completion of the York
Bridge near Redmond and the start of the Tolt Bridge replacement project near
Carnation; new traffic signals at the busy intersection of Novelty Hill
Road and West Snoqualmie Valley Road; sidewalks and pedestrian
improvements in White Center; and the annual paving program to smooth
out more than 60 miles of roads in unincorporated areas of the county.
King County International Airport
The big project at the King
County International Airport (KCIA) at Boeing Field in 2006 was the
rehab of the main runway.
That runway is one of the longest in the state and supports the movement
of billions of dollars worth of manufactured aircraft, air cargo,
general aviation, test flight operations and passenger service in the
region each year. The project allowed the airport to continue to safely
and efficiently support the more than 500 aircraft and 150 businesses
based at Boeing Field for years to come. The project was completed in
just 20 days last summer and used more than 116,000 tons of asphalt to
resurface the 10,000-foot runway.
King County Fleet Administration Division
The Fleet
Division continues to lead the region and the nation in innovative
ways to maintain vehicles with environmentally friendly methods.
The division was named as one of the top ten in 2006 by Fleet Equipment
Magazine, and recognized as being one of the greenest fleet operations
in the nation, given its large inventory of hybrid vehicles and use of
alternative fuels.
This was underlined in November, when the Environmental Protection
Agency awarded the Fleet Division and several partners money to purchase
hybrid utility trucks. King County was recognized at that time for its
efforts in heading up a consortium of local and state government
agencies interested in taking hybrid vehicle technology to the next
level with the production of medium and heavy-duty work trucks that use
less fuel and produce fewer harmful emissions. |
