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Traffic pains, delays as Mercer Street shift begins

by KING 5 News

KING5.com

Posted on January 30, 2012 at 3:26 AM

Updated Monday, Jan 30 at 6:24 PM

SEATTLE -- The big Mercer Street switch went into effect Sunday and will likely have impacts on the commutes to come for a while.

Engineers moved eastbound traffic to a new stretch of roadway, and that effectively blocks off roads in the city's South Lake Union neighborhood.     

The old Mercer Street, which people took to get to Interstate 5, is now shut down for good.  Now, traffic is on a new one-way road to the freeway, leaving a dead-end and lane restrictions for people who live and work in the area.

As the city phases into stage two of the Mercer Street project, drivers and walkers need to be aware of the new changes.  

For instance, cars coming north on Westlake, Terry or Boren Avenues will see that they are stopped at Republican Street.

Click here to view full detour and road closures maps

Business owners in the area are optimistic about the traffic mess, hoping that there will be more foot traffic in the area as a result.

"It is a little scary...the Mercer [street] debacle," said local business owner Lauren Stephen. "[I'll be] very glad when it's all over and we have survived it."

Seattle Department of Transportation hopes to have Mercer Street open for two-way traffic near Lake Union by later this year.

Go to the Seattle Department of Transportation website for more information on the Mercer Street project and road closures.

 

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Comments: Displaying 1 - 4 of 4

useyourhead99 said on January 31, 2012 at 9:47 AM

Well said queenanne. The city tried 3-4 times to get the voters to pay for Paul Allen’s project under the guise of fixing the Mercer mess and failed every time, but then did it anyway. Can somebody tell me how this will improve traffic flow to the freeway with one less lane? If it is by cutting off feeder lanes then why not just do that in the first place? It will still be a “mess” but it will sure look purrdy. Your welcome Paul Allen.

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crzyppl said on January 30, 2012 at 3:11 PM

Just the headline of "Traffic delays likely as Mercer Street shift begins" is worth a good laugh. :-) Once again the powers that be continue to try and fix what realy wasn't broken. The lights on Mercer Street needed to be syncronized (sp?) and some of the "feeder" streets cut off. Let's see just how much more money the city doesn't have is thrown down the already clogged drainage ditches. Geez.....

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zaxxon7469 said on January 30, 2012 at 1:37 PM

I can see it now, since those streets are blocked off and will efectivly eliminate turning traffic onto E-bound Mercer, then thats less traffic on mercer. The city Engineers will tote this as a triumph when they see less traffic and tote it around patting themselves on their backs. Granted it is a hard location to traffic engineer to make everyone happy, but you can just see the writting on the walls from here.

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queenanne said on January 30, 2012 at 9:20 AM

It's unbelievable to me that this entire costly, inconvenient mess will not even improve traffic when it is finished (in fact make it worse eastbound by most estimates). We're trading two congested arterials for one gigantic nightmare river of traffic - oh, excuse me, a lovely tree-lined boulevard with wide sidewalks from which the amazonites can laugh at our misery. And of course the big winner is Paul Allen, who got us to do it to ourselves without even trying. Next, the tunnel to make the debacle complete. What a bunch of clueless dummies we are. No one to blame but ourselves.

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