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Q: This state’s transportation department has long contended that studded tires cause excessive road wear. So why, asks Dorian Yeager of Renton, doesn’t the state have a studded-tire endorsement on driver’s licenses, similar to a motorcycle endorsement or a commercial driver’s license, which is also a regular license with an added endorsement?
Yeager figures the proceeds from fees for such an endorsement could go toward fixing roads that studs damage. “I suspect very few people overall in this state use studded tires, yet all of us pay for the damage equally,” he said. “It’s not unreasonable to have a small fee for the increased damage.”
A: Transportation Department spokeswoman Meghan Soptich says that’s an issue that’s out of her department’s hands. It’s a proposal she’d recommend people talk to their elected officials about, since it would need to be changed by the Legislature.
State Department of Licensing spokesman Brad Benfield agrees. “I certainly can’t speak for our Legislature,” he said, “but my experience would lead me to believe that our lawmakers likely wouldn’t add such a requirement to a driver’s license unless there was a public-safety concern with using studded tires, and that a driver should be required to demonstrate how to drive on them safely.
“Plus, there may be easier and less expensive ways to reach the same goal.”
Benfield speculates that if the Legislature were to consider an endorsement, legislators might be more apt to look at something like an annual permit a vehicle owner could stick on the car’s window, or perhaps requiring those who sell studded tires to collect a one-time tax or fee at the time studs are installed.
“These options wouldn’t cost as much to administer,” he suggested, “and they would be more enforceable and would be easier for our citizens to comply with.”
But, again, that would be up to the Legislature.
Q: There are Puget Sound-area residents, such as Linda Kawamura of Renton, who might be persuaded to take the Sounder train into downtown Seattle for appointments or shopping if train schedules fit theirs.
“Since the train only runs during commuter hours, this is impossible,” said Kawamura. “Does Sound Transit plan to run any trains for shoppers during the Christmas shopping season? I would think the downtown merchants would encourage this.”
A: As a matter of fact, Sound Transit does have a holiday plan. The regional transit agency just announced its upcoming holiday Sounder commuter rail schedule, which includes an additional midmorning and midafternoon run between Tacoma and Seattle, but only on five designated days.
The extra run would depart Tacoma at 9:30 a.m., arriving in Seattle at 10:30 a.m., with a return trip leaving Seattle at 2:30 p.m. and arriving in Tacoma at 3:30.
Those five days are today, because some workers are off to observe Veterans Day, and also the Friday after Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, New Year’s Eve, and Martin Luther King Jr. Day in mid-January.
In Seattle, the train pulls into King Street Station, with nearby bus service to downtown and most parts of the city. Bus rides within the downtown core are free.
No extra holiday service has been scheduled between Seattle and Everett.
In its regular schedule, Sound Transit has six round-trip commuter runs during morning and afternoon rush hours on weekdays between Seattle and Tacoma, with stops in Puyallup, Sumner, Auburn, Kent and Tukwila, and also three round-trip runs between Everett and Seattle, with a stop in Edmonds.
Q: How long is too long for a sidewalk to be closed off because of a construction project? Seattle resident and downtown worker Catherine Cornwall points out that a Seneca Street sidewalk between Fifth and Sixth avenues was torn up for a time not long ago. No work was done for at least a week, she said. The weather was sunny that week, so the work delay should not have been weather-related.
“Is there any way to force the contractor to finish the work up quickly?” she asked. “Or can [contractors] just keep the sidewalk closed indefinitely?”
A: There is no set limit on the time a contractor is allowed to keep a sidewalk closed to pedestrians, says Joe Bell, the Seattle transportation department’s director of street use and urban forestry. The closure period more or less depends on the project.
But work on sidewalks and in streets requires a city permit, and that enables the city to monitor construction in the public right-of-way.
Bell says there can be escalating penalties for extended closures, and the city hopes that’s a deterrent to unnecessary delays. “To ensure pedestrians are provided with safe passage, street use only allows the sidewalk on one side of a street to be closed at a time,” he said.