The city wants to know how you feel about the safety of Seattle streets. You can tell them from 6-8 p.m. tonight at the Northgate Community Center, 10510 5th Ave. NE, as part of its Road Safety Summit. This is the second of three public forums on road safety.

The City of Seattle envisions a transportation system with no traffic fatalities or serious injuries, where all users share responsibility for their safety and that of others they encounter in their travels.

The Road Safety Summit, through…public forums, an online survey, and in-person outreach, is providing a chance for the public to give their input on three questions:

1. What do you think are the highest priority safety problems to solve on Seattle roads?
2. What do you think are the most important things to do to make Seattle roads safer?
3. We often talk about what government can do to promote safety. What are the ways that non-governmental groups and individuals can promote safety?

We have asked a broad cross section of stakeholders — elected officials, experts, roadway users, major employers, advocates, business leaders, and community leaders—to listen to the public and to come up with action items that will address the public’s top road safety concerns.

Working together, we will develop a shared citywide commitment to safety and an action plan that will help us work toward our goal of no traffic fatalities or serious injuries.

The third public forum is next Monday at the Southwest Community Center, and a final Road Safety Summit Meeting is on Dec. 12 at City Hall.

If you’ll be driving along 85th Street today, take note that traffic near the intersection of 6th Avenue NW is narrowed to one lane in each direction due to utility work. And 6th Avenue NW is blocked off with cones, so no turning off or onto 6th.

Thanks to audience feedback, we’re expanding what started out as a graffiti reporting map to now include the opportunity for you to report potholes, burned out streetlights, problems with signs, broken sidewalks and other public infrastructure issues that the city of Seattle says can be fixed in short order.

Report issues to the city using the links and phone numbers you’ll find on the map page. Then tag the map with your report. When the issue is resolved, update it on the map. The aim of this tool is to highlight local issues and the city’s responsiveness in addressing these concerns.

According to the city, it’s their goal to have potholes repaired in two business days, burned out streetlights fixed in 10 business days and graffiti removed from private property in 10 days after the owner has been contacted. The map can be used to see how well the city is doing at meeting those goals.

If you have any feedback on the map, post a comment, or send us a note at tips@phinneywood.com. We’re also looking for a more catchy name for this service, so share your ideas.

Just a reminder that the Seattle Department of Transportation will close the right hand, southbound lane of the Aurora Bridge on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. each day to repair the exterior surface of a bridge column.

So if you’re heading downtown, be prepared for some slowdowns.

The Seattle Department of Transportation will close the right hand, southbound lane of the Aurora Bridge on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. each day to repair the exterior surface of a bridge column.

So if you’re heading downtown, be prepared for some slowdowns.

Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) will close the sidewalk on a portion of Holman Road NW at 8th Avenue NW from Feb. 1-12, so crews can paint the railing on a raised portion of the road.

The sidewalk will be closed 24-hours-a-day. During the first week, the crews will close the northern sidewalk, and then starting February 8 the crews will close the southern side. Pedestrians will cross Holman Road at 7th Avenue NW and at 13th Avenue NW.

Seattle Department of Transportation tells us that the westbound lanes of 85th St. at the Greenwood Avenue intersection are back open today, after the road was repaired following a water main break that flooded the intersection three weeks ago.

Marybeth Turner says the road crew had a little finishing work to do this morning before reopening the lanes, but that traffic is now flowing in all directions.

We haven’t had a chance to drive through there yet today, so please tell us how the road looks and feels.

We’ve got an update to our earlier post on this: On Monday, the Seattle Department of Transportation will start repaving North 85th Street just west of Greenwood Avenue where a water main break damaged the road.

Westbound North 85th will be closed and eastbound 85th will be restricted to one lane during the work.

Look here for pictures of what it looked like during the break.

Starting at 9 a.m., Monday, westbound traffic on North 85th will be detoured left onto Greenwood Avenue, then right onto 80th and right again on NW 3rd Avenue before returning to 85th.

Officers will be on hand to direct traffic. Northbound traffic on Greenwood is already prohibited from turning left onto 85th and that will continue to be the case during the repaving.

Marybeth Turner at SDOT says drivers should expect delays and be advised to use alternate routes. Sidewalks will remain open.

Westbound 85th Street is still down to one lane just west of the intersection with Greenwood Avenue, due to the hole left over from last week’s water main break.

It’s creating quite the backup.

We’ve got a call in to the Seattle Department of Transportation to find out when this piece of road is slated to be fixed.

Judging by how much nicer Greenwood Avenue is today, street sweeping crews have been through the area, hitting their Jan. 21 deadline.

Greenwood Avenue bike lanes, where most of the sand accumulated, look good for most of their length. One area that needs another pass though is 50th between Phinney Avenue and Fremont Avenue, where a serpentine trail of sand remains on the bike lane, prompting cyclists to ride further out into traffic.

In our last post about this, cyclists “j” and NZ expressed concern about this very issue.  We’ve left a message with the city Department of Transportation about it. If you see a road issue you want to draw the city’s attention to, call (206) 684-ROAD (7623).

City officials say they’ll have the 12,000 tons of sand spread on area roads during the recent snow storms cleaned up by Jan. 21. Greenwood Avenue is one place that’s got plenty to pick up from the bike and center lanes. Here’s a picture taken this morning at 71st and Greenwood Avenue.

Ten street sweepers are mainly out from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. If anyone gets photographic evidence of a sweeper in the neighborhood, send it to us and we’ll post it.

Mayor Greg Nickels reversed course today and said the city will use salt on the roads in emergency conditions, work more closely with Metro Transit and hire additional contractors to clean up sand after the storm.

The policy change came after the city got a lot of flak for its policy of packing down snow, using sand  and some liquid de-icer in spots instead of clearing streets.

“In normal Seattle winters, this practice has served us well. But the three storms that we experienced this month dumped more than a foot of snow,” Nickels said during a press conference today. “This time, liquid de-icers were not enough. People were frustrated, and so was I. By amending our salting practices, we will be able to clear more roads faster, while maintaining our environmental commitment.”

Watch the full press conference here.

The mayor also said they’ll hire two private contracting crews to help five city crews clear up sand left over on streets. Looking at just Greenwood Avenue, they’ve got some work ahead of them, as sand covers the center turn lane and the bike lanes on each shoulder.

Also, the city will have crews out taking care of missed garbage collections on New Year’s Day.  Though this doesn’t affect our neighborhoods, Thursday customers will have garbage picked up Friday and Friday customers will have theirs picked up Saturday.