Damage To Median On "Boulevard" At 43rd Avenue NE Repaired By SDOT Yesterday

damage to Boulevard median
last month







 

 Area repaired yesterday

 

Yesterday afternoon, a neighbor living on the "Boulevard" at 43rd Avenue NE and NE 45th Street, reported that SDOT was repairing the damage to the median caused by a large vehicle turning the corner with limited space last month.

The  neighbor said:

Good news!  SDOT is repairing the 43rd Avenue median. I saw the trucks and went out there and thanked them. The man I spoke to said he was going to speak with a supervisor about possibly paving over the part that gets driven on by buses and trucks. 

The Laurelhurst Blog posted last month about the damage as described by another neighboring resident who lives near the area:
 

Looks like a large truck or construction vehicle ran over the north west portion, at the intersection of NE 45th Street and 43rd Avenue NE, of the median taking out a huge chunk of grass and leaving it in a very bad state.  

If anyone knows who this is, please speak up as they need to pay for the repairs - replacing the grass, etc. 

We take great pride in keeping the median looking nice and this is really too bad.

 

 Comments to the Laurelhurst Blog following that post said:

.

Vehicles can't make the turn due to cars parking on the corner, usually Children's Hospital employees, who then walk to work across the street.  

This type of damage happens a lot with trucks like Amazon Fresh, FedEx, UPS, random Contractor, school bus or a random car that can not make the turn. This latest was a school bus. 

Every time someone drives over the median I fill in the hole and work to clean it up. If we want to fix it we need to add drainage for this grass and add no parking signs.   

I have lived on the Boulevard for 40 years and this type of damage has happened very frequently over the many ears.  Large trucks turning the corner off NE 45th Street must dodge parked cars and have no where else to go on that narrow street. 

Care of the median is very inconsistent.  Once the city abandoned the care of the medians things went downhill quickly.  Plants died for lack of irrigation and the median became overgrown.  The City finally agreed to once again irrigate the median periodically.  And now some of us are paying to have the median mowed.  However the beds are filled with weeds and trash; northern beds are the worst.  For a while I paid my gardeners to periodically weed and clean up some of those beds but grew weary of shouldering that burden alone.  I think it is a shame that Laurelhurst residents are not banding together to keep our main entrance attractive. 

Regarding the damage to the median on 43rd Avenue NE at NE 45th Street, this is the result of Children's employees and construction staff parking in front of our house.  We see numerous big delivery trucks drive up on the median--FedEx, UPS, school buses, big dump trucks, you name it - because it's a tight squeeze for them to get through if cars are parked there. Sadly, this is nothing new. Perhaps you can request that Children's have their landscape crew repair and maintain it.

The Laurelhurst Community Club (LCC) said that the Boulevard along 43^rd Avenue NE is SDOT property.  LCC added that "neighbors have banded together to do the mowing and maintenance and neighbors on the southern most segment have been most active., and many neighbors on the northern portion are older and have not been as active or organized."

Jim Sawyer, Children's Hospital Director of Security said that staff and contractors are not allowed to  park on neighborhood streets and to call Hospital Security to report a violator at 987-2030.

 

He added:

Children's Hospital Security actively tickets the streets and attempt to respond to all complaints within an hour. This is a priority for our patrol and enforcement team. We patrol and ticket the streets regardless of whether we receive calls or not. IF one of our neighbors calls we have and will give their concern priority response. It again is a priority for our team.

There are no assigned  parking areas in the neighborhoods - all assigned areas are on hospital property or in one of our designated off site lots. 

I will note that we advise staff there is NO cut off street distance-all street parking is unauthorized. By cut off distance we mean-if an employee were to ask “If I park a mile and a half away and walk in-is that OK”? If-when we field these questions we answer NO-you need to park in your assigned area if you drive-there is no amnesty so to speak if you park a greater distance away. 

If an employee is a repeat offender it becomes a  serious performance issue which could result in disciplinary action up to and including termination.