Has Director's Rule 2015-10 been repealed or suspended? Or, if still in force, what about enforcement?

[Douglas MacDonald]

Hello. Sue.  

There was a time when SDOT trumpeted DR 2015-10 as an overdue, welcome and necessary protection of pedestrian accessibility in the city’s (unending) period of intensive construction activity affecting sidewalks..

I’ve had a gnawing sense for some time that SDOT’s attention to the pedestrian protections of DR 2015-10 has been waning. 

In the last few days this has been forcefully brought to mind.

The construction site at 2002 Greenwood Avenue North so far as I have been able to observe over many months has never been in compliance with DR 2015-10.  But I was still really  surprised to see its condition last Sunday (August 29) when it looked like this. Since when is this “good enough?” It isn’t even close. This is a big and visible project in a critical pedestrian space. What’s the story? Has SDOT simply turned a blind eye (probably not a very sensitive way to put the question, but maybe it’s the exact way to put the question)?

Today, to heighten my concern, I observed the construction site at 320 N. 85th (85th at Phinney). It looked like this.  This is a complete dereliction of DR 2015-10 standards.  Is there some kind of exculpatory backstory?

In recent periods SDOT in many areas seems to have defaulted to “complaint-based enforcement” on a host of sidewalk/accessibility protections.  For example, mis-placed SDOT “shared mobility” devices like e-bikes and e-scooters (mis-parked by their discarding users far more often than properly parked - evidence across the city too numerous to even bother to try to submit). Vegetation.  Compliance with sidewalk cafe rules and permits. Sign boards blocking sidewalks in defiance of public space management rules. 

Is DR 2015 - 10 now only enforced in response to complaint?  If that is so, has SDOT made that clear to the Pedestrian Advisory Board and the disability advocates and organizations such as Disability Rights Washington who pressed so hard for DR 2015-10 in the first place.  Is the Law Department tuned in to the tort liability and ADA violation liability that the City steps into when it takes a pass on DR 2015-10 enforcement on its own initiative?

By the way, has Mike Shaw yet been replaced?  Who is the acting SDOT ADA coordinator?

[Douglas MacDonald]

This is the email I sent on September 1 about two other sites not far from the one about which you earlier replied.  

Note especially the site on 85th within a block of Greenwood Avenue at the grand zero intersection of the Urban Village and the transfer point of two major Metro Bus lines, the #5 and the #45.

Today is two weeeks+ since I first called attention to it (does any SDOT vehicle ever drive along 85th with eyes open? does any SDCI inspector ever visit this large multi-unit project?).  Anyway, as of an hour ago, the same sidewalk now looks like this, Comparing with the photo from over two weeks ago, you can judge for yourself the nature of my unhappiness with this There is, by the way, not even a pretense of a pedestrian detour. And if a safe detour could be laid out (certainly not across 85th), it would be blocks long.

If this contractor is getting away with this, somebody at Seattle.gov isn’t getting their job done.  That is, if DR 10-2015 is still part of SDOT’s commitment to pedestrian accessibility (and ADA). 

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