Q&A | Short I-5 car-pool lane | Scary Capitol Hill intersections

Q: What's with the short-lived car-pool lane that ends almost as abruptly as it begins in one of the most congested areas of Interstate 5 — near the Washington State Convention & Trade Center lid in downtown Seattle?

South Lake Union-area resident Joe Lancaster says he's perplexed not only by that short car-pool lane but also by the Mercer Street onramp to southbound I-5. That ramp runs parallel to freeway traffic lanes for a short distance before traffic in that lane merges into freeway traffic.

Lancaster's gripe is that the merge causes southbound traffic in the far-left freeway lane to slow significantly to allow traffic from the onramp to enter. "The most frustrating part of this is that just yards later, the car-pool lane begins, only to end after emerging from under the Convention Center," he said.

"It seems to me that the half-mile of car-pool lane under the Convention Center would be better used as a regular lane allowing merging cars to flow freely into traffic."

A: Rick Roberts, the state Department of Transportation's traffic engineer for King County, says the southbound car-pool lane starts just south of the Mercer Street onramp to allow buses and car poolers to bypass the heavily congested area under the Convention Center.

The car-pool lane does continue from downtown Seattle to the Pierce County line, but after a break — about a half-mile south of the Mercer Street onramp. That break exists, Roberts says, to let traffic in the southbound express lanes cross the car-pool lane to merge with mainline freeway traffic.

This summer, crews will be restriping the Mercer Street onramp and the start of the southbound car-pool lane to give drivers more room to merge, Roberts said. And the start of the car-pool lane will be moved farther south, beyond the Denny Way overpass. That will give drivers more time to get up to speed before merging.

Q: Capitol Hill dweller Amy Broomhall can recall several close calls in her own neighborhood. She says getting through some neighborhood intersections can be a bit dicey, particularly since some intersections have two-way stop signs and others have none at all.

Because parking is scarce around her place, people tend to park wherever they can. And in some cases, says Broomhall, cars parked close to an intersection can block a driver's view at the intersection. "One has to inch out, hoping against hope that someone is not barreling down the [cross] street," she said.

Wouldn't it make sense for the city to make busy intersections, like those on East Republican Street from Broadway west to the freeway, four-way stops? And wouldn't that also stop people from driving too fast on residential streets?

A: Some of those intersections don't meet national standards for a four-way stop, says Wayne Wentz, the Seattle transportation department's traffic-management director. A list of criteria are included in the national standards, but the two main considerations, says SDOT spokesman Rich Sheridan, are the number of collisions reported at an intersection, and traffic volumes. (National standards consider five or more collisions within 12 months pretty significant.)

One way for sight distances to be improved would be for parked vehicles to respect the 20-foot parking restrictions near any marked or unmarked crosswalk, said Wentz. He said the police parking-enforcement unit has been asked to step up enforcement of parking restrictions on Capitol Hill.

The transportation department plans to have street trees trimmed for better visibility.

Q: Is any advance notice given when there are lane closures on the Tacoma Narrows Bridge? Chris McEwen, of Bremerton, says he and his wife were delayed an hour and a half on a recent Thursday night when three of the bridge's four lanes were closed. "By the time we got home, a burglar had stolen a puppy from us," he said.

A: When the Narrows Bridge closes for emergencies or construction, it's the state transportation department's practice to activate the 511 information line and electronic highway message signs, and post alerts on the DOT's travel Web site (www.wsdot.wa.gov/traffic), said DOT spokesman Patrick Conrad. For construction closures, the DOT tries to list information several days ahead of time on its construction update page.

"Unfortunately, that particular night ... the closure did not get to our information system," Conrad confesses. "We are looking into why."

Travelers are supposed to be able to get travel information from the 511 hotline, which is supposed to be updated every few minutes to offer Puget Sound traffic information, ferry schedules and mountain pass conditions.

Travelers also are supposed to be able to find up-to-date travel information from the DOT's highway advisory radio, AM 1610 and AM 530.