January Capitol Hill tunnel update

Currently there are three TBM, Tunnel Boring Machines, digging 21 foot diameter holes through the hill i live on.

Sound Transit has a page with the most current (generally monthly) project update.  I've been using that data to plot the locations of each machine on the map.

The January data was released this week, so here are the locations.

Brenda is currently being trucked back up to Capitol Hill to start over again on the second tunnel.

 Balto is exactly where Togo was last month, under 17th Ave E & E Galer St.

Togo has made it to the Water Tower loop at volunteer park!

70,001

Tonight on the ride home from Bike Works with Ken, i reached a bit of a milestone.

That's 70,000 miles lifetime. I was kind of proud.

Yes, i started tracking my miles when i was in first grade, it's a little embarrassing.

Seattle's Steepest Streets Slip-up

During our recent snow week, Capitol Hill Seattle Blog, which covers the news for my neighborhood, was discussing sledding options and linked to a post from a couple of years ago. That post referenced the steepest streets page on the City of Seattle website.

I went to the City's page and took a look at the list, as this kind of thing interests me. My first impression was that the list looked slightly different from the one i'd seen on the City's page back in the 1990s, and still seemed to omit some streets in south Seattle but nevertheless i accepted it as accurate.

Here's the list (steepest blocks in Seattle from the City's page):

26.04% E Roy St (25th Ave N to 26th Ave N)
23.8% E Boston St (Harvard Ave to Broadway Ave)
23.6% E Highland Dr (24th Ave N to 25th Ave N)
22.6% Mercer St (Melrose Ave to Eastlake Ave)
22.5% E Boston St (Boylston Ave to Harvard Ave)
22.4% Mercer St (24th Ave N to 25th Ave N)
22.3% E Prospect St (24th Ave N to 25th Ave N)
22.0% Helen St (24th Ave N to 25th Ave N)
21.7% Helen St (25th Ave N to 26th Ave N)
21.5% Ward St (25th Ave N to 26th Ave N)

The page also lists the steepest unpaved street as:
28% NW 60th St (2nd Ave NW to 3rd Ave NW)
which is steeper than the steepest above.

However, as i looked closer, i noticed something interesting.
Two of these streets don't exist!

22.6% Mercer St (Melrose Ave to Eastlake Ave)
22.5% E Boston St (Boylston Ave to Harvard Ave)

Both were removed before1961 as part of the the construction of Interstate 5 which plowed a huge trench through the heart of the city, removing hundreds of streets and over 5,000 houses.


So the #4 and #5 steepest streets in Seattle haven't existed in well over 45 years!

As i looked closer i found that the list is four decades out of date in another way! The Avenues on the east slope of Capitol Hill (between 23rd & 27th) which make up 7 of the blocks on this list have the directional  North.  But that's wrong; in reality they have the directional East.  The other three entries, (including the 2 non-existent ones) on the west slope of Capitol Hill, mention Eastlake Ave, Melrose Ave, Broadway Ave & Boylston Ave which also should have the directional East. They have had that designation for over 40 years since the directionals were re-organized in the late 1960s.  The directionals on the list are from BEFORE that re-organization.

This list is not the whole city and it's half a century out of date!

The city's webpage states the survey report is from 1969, but that is seems unlikely.  It appears to me that the data on this page (Steep Streets in Seattle) is taken from a 1950s survey report of Capitol Hill only, not of the whole city. When this web page was created sometime between 1999 and 2012 no one even GLANCED at the data to see if it made sense.