During our daily walks along 14th Ave NW, we’ve become curious about the white painted lines that have appeared in the intersection along 14th Ave NW north and south of Market. Our curiosity led us to contacting SDOT to find out what’s going on. We received a very prompt and helpful response from SDOT civil engineer, Oli Frenchowicz. Here’s what he had to say.
The project to install markings along 14th Ave NW in Ballard is scheduled for September (weather permitting). Our crews have quite a big backlog of street marking work due to the slow summer season start and large number of projects.
A contractor is scheduled in September to start the yellow line markings, and our SDOT crews will complete other marking work soon after.
The goal of the 14th Ave NW project was to better organize the vehicles at the intersections for improved operations, formalize the pedestrian crossing spaces, and improve visibility for pedestrians, vehicles, and cyclists operating along the corridor.
You may have noticed some sign work was already completed as part of this project. The parking restriction signs formalized existing parking restrictions per Seattle Municipal Code. Additionally, we designed to accommodate larger vehicle turning movements at the intersections. The parking restrictions will help larger vehicles (delivery trucks, fire trucks, garbage trucks, etc.) make the turns once the markings formalize the driving paths.
In addition, we asked Oli if they could paint a crosswalk going north/south across NW 59th on the west side of 14th at the south end of Gemenskap Park, which seems to have been left out of the original design. He advised that they would add this to their their project for consistency near the park.