As promised, the work that was postponed on 28th Ave NW just north of Market Street is underway.
Crews from the Seattle Department of Transportation will be adding curbs along both sides of 28th between NW 56th and 57th and one-half block just south of NW 56th on the east side of the street to create a safer walking environment for pedestrians. (Thanks Robby for the photo!)
Work begins on 28th Ave NW
![](https://www.myballard.com/wp-content/uploads/2024-My-Ballard-Tile-Ad-Troop-100.png")
I think this is somewhat unnecessary.
since they've disallowed people from parking diaganol and begun enforcing the parallel parking, there's no issue for pedestrians.
could this curb money be earmarked for sidewalks somewhere instead?
So what are they doing north of 65th?
Rain gardens.
I am of two minds about it. But, I sometimes walk that way headed for the locks , and it will be safer for me and the doggy.
Adding sidewalks to someplace that currently has none usually requires a lot more work than simply putting in curbs. Most of those streets in Greenwood that don't have sidewalks, for example, have drainage ditches for stormwater runoff. If you put in sidewalks, you have to put in a new drainage system as well. This project doesn't require putting in any new pipes, it's just ripping up some pavement and pouring new concrete. The money spent on this project would get you very little new sidewalk.
Also, this is funded by the Neighborhood Projects Fund, which is for small-scale, community-proposed improvements. New-from-scratch sidewalks are the sort of thing that would probably be funded by a larger-scale program like Bridging the Gap (which is indeed funding 117 new blocks of sidewalks).