A former Fremont resident dropped us a line after taking some great photos, including the one above, of the new 46th Street Mural that was just completed. William Anthony met the mural’s creator and set up a photo shoot last weekend. You can see more of the photos here on unurth.com. Thanks for sharing William!

Crews continue to work Monday through Thursday nights drilling holes for the suicide prevention fence across the bridge.

Photos from WSDOT

Police say the attacker got into a physical altercation with some people inside the bar, and then used the bottle or glass to hit multiple victims.  Some of the injured were taken to the hospital.  Officers arrested the suspect, who had been placed in a choke hold by security until police arrived.

Photo courtesy of King County Metro Transit

Fremont riders are amongst the trolleys’ many riders with routes 44, which stops at North 45th Street and Stone Way.

The county needs to replace all 159 existing vehicles by 2015, with an order deadline at the end of 2012.

King County Executive Dow Constantine has sent the King County Council a plan for a proposed evaluation in its imminent replacement of this fleet. It focuses on the technology of electric trolleys and diesel-electric hybrid buses, with a goal toward finding the most fuel-efficient, best value for the system. The Trolley Bus System Evaluation is expected to continue through the middle of next year. It will explore the costs, impact on the environment, funding opportunities and legal issues.

Metro plans additional public meetings for discussion of the evaluation as results become available. The next one is in Mount Baker on Sept.13.

Metro has already conducted a preliminary evaluation of several potential propulsion systems, including electric trolley, diesel, diesel-electric hybrid, compressed natural gas, electric battery, and hydrogen fuel cells.

After she left the home, the man called police and gave them a description.  Officers thought it might be a woman they were familiar with.  They later found her at a bus stop at 46th and Phinney.  The homeowner identified the woman and police arrested her.

As the neighborhood is on the flight path to Seatac airport, passengers will get a bright surprise if they happen to look down at the right time. They’ll see this:

“I’m relieved, but grateful to all the people in the community,” said retired Boeing engineer Bill Lindberg, who has lived in the neighborhood for almost 25 years and who spearheaded the project. “It proved to me how people come together in a community. It takes some coordination and effort. But everybody wants to contribute.”

Lindberg met many new neighbors in the petitioning process set up by the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT), which required the approval of neighbors who live along streets adjacent to the intersection.

Dozens of volunteers painted until about 7 p.m. last night and started again this morning around 9 a.m. Painting finished with the black outlines at about 4:30 p.m. Neighbors enjoyed a barbecue afterward, while kids jumped off their energy in a giant Blues Clues bouncy ball set-up provided by Brian Eaton, a firefighter who worked a 24-hour shift yesterday and spent all day today painting alongside his wife Kathy and their two young sons, Cooper and Mason, who all painted yesterday.

Cooper Eaton waits for more paint from Michael Sauer, pouring into a container held by Bill Lindberg

Kate Gengo (shown below) moved to Seattle from her native New York city and has lived in the neighborhood for four years. As a single woman, she hasn’t had too many opportunities to get to know her neighbors, who tend to be busy families. But getting involved with the project has changed that.

“This is the only way I’m able to meet my neighbors on a personal level,” said Gengo, who is studying to be an elementary school teacher. She is an avid gardener who has chatted with folks on their way to Wallingford Park as she’s worked outside.

Working side by side with her neighbors and their kids on the mural has been a memorable experience for her.

“I love to see kids problem solving, how they think creatively,” she said.

Adults tagged female progeny with special praise.

“The little girls work from dawn to dusk,” said Rachel Marcotte, the artist who came up with the design and who oversaw the chalking and painting. “They’re focused. Workaholics!”

Halle Sauer, 8, who was the first to think of making the design a turtle and who helped paint the turtle’s head and shell, as well as a leaf, has already given the new neighborhood pet a nickname: “Bubbles.”

Marcotte said its real name is “Arthur William,” in deference to Lindberg’s name.

Lindberg said the project cost about $1300 in equipment (painting supplies, chalk, etc.), 40 gallons in custom color paints from Rodda Paint (which gave them a discount) and Seattle Department of Transportation street permits. A little less than half of that amount was covered by the city’s Department of Neighborhoods Matching Fund. Neighbors will raise money to cover the rest.

Kuma Coffee, with a shop right around the corner on Stone Way, donated much needed caffeine to fuel the morning workers and Stoneway Hardware donated labor in shaking up cans of paint not even bought at their store.

The level of detail that went into planning and executing the project paid off, with everything running pretty much on schedule all weekend thanks to Lindberg’s organizational skills and the participation of more volunteers than expected. He built in time for minor delays.

“We got a lot of advice from the ladybug people (street mural at 49th and Burke). But theirs is more simple and only took one day,” he said. “The detail and complexity of our design took longer.”

The project began early Saturday morning with cleaning dirt and debris off the street, then pressure washing, then chalking the outline and adding in paint-by-numbers style markers. Volunteers mixed paint with special grit to give cars more traction and make the road less slick. The paint is supposed to dry at least overnight before cars start rolling over their creation.

“We made huge progress, although we’ll definitely need touch-ups,” Marcotte said. She worked with her daughter (also an artist) Rebecca Aldrich, this morning to redraw the chalk lines that blew away from the day before. There were also other snafus — more comical than catastrophic — along the way. “Some kids got paint on their shoes and walked around. One girl got paint on her butt and kept sitting in the white area. But that’s part of the fun. I’m glad the kids are involved. It’s making me happy.”

All day, neighbors and other volunteers — such as Marcotte’s family — worked together on the street canvas.

“The most amazing thing about this was the people. They embraced it and took ownership. It’s beautiful not to be mine anymore and to hand it over to the neighborhood,” she said. “It’s the most gratifying thing as an artist, to be able to give this to people.”

Families worked side by side in adding paint to the chalk outlines made earlier today, after hours of sweeping, cleaning and pressure washing to make the street canvas as pristine as possible.

Painting will continue Sunday.

Kathy Eaton, (pictured above painting with her 4-and-half-year-old son Mason wearing a turtle on his shirt) has lived in a house on the corner of this intersection for 7 years with her firefighter husband, Mason and older son 7-year-old Cooper. She’s glad for the project that has connected so many of her neighbors, who also hope the mural slows motorists down.

“We see a lot of cars go speeding down this intersection,” she said. “I’ve seen some bikers hit.”

Rebecca Aldrich (left) & her mother, turtle artist Rachel Marcotte, a botanical and wildlife illustrator with a degree in design, share a light moment as they mark areas that need to be painted white

Wendy Sauer and younger daughter Halle fill in spaces between the lines with white paint

The streets are officially closed from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. today and tomorrow.

Today, the process of turning a street into a mural began in earnest, with dozens of neighbors organized by retired Boeing engineer Bill Lindberg joining Maple Leaf artist Rachel Marcotte (pictured below directing Lindberg, upper right corner) at 6 a.m. this morning to sweep years of leaves and dirt away from the intersection. Marcotte’s son-in-law, Kevin Byers, operated a pressure washer to clean the surface afterward. By 10 a.m., Marcotte and other artists, including her jewelry-making daughter Rebecca Aldrich, were outlining the design with chalk. Later, they will chalk in the colors that can be filled in by volunteers, paint-by-numbers style. The painting will take place this afternoon and tomorrow.

The Neighborhood Traffic section of the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) has provided oversight and coordination to help bring this street mural to life, including approving the quick-drying, water-based and non-toxic highway paint that will be used for the mural. Grit will be mixed into the paint to make it more durable. The mural is funded in part by the city’s Department of Neighborhoods Matching Fund and will be repainted annually — though it won’t be as labor intensive as this initial work.

Neighbor Michael Sauer rose early with his wife Wendy and their two daughters, 8-year-old Ella and 6-year-old Halle, to help on the project, which has brought the neighbors together.

They came onto the project a few months ago after taking a walk past the ladybug street mural at 49th Street and Burke. They commented on it to Lindberg, saying it’d be a good thing for their own neighborhood and Ella said, “What about a turtle?”

From her initial suggestion, Lindberg moved forward.

“We were all kind of gung ho. Bill listened and his response was, ‘Let’s do that!’” Sauer said.

“Bill knows how to break a huge thing into smaller tasks,” Marcotte said.

“The purpose of this is to acquaint neighbors to each other better and make children feel pride in something they’ve helped create for the community,” said Lindberg, who’s lived in the neighborhood since 1986.

While it’s a coincidence that the design chosen was a turtle, neighbors do think it is a fitting image for the intersection and hope it encourages drivers to ease up on the gas pedal.

“We noticed people slowed down at the ladybug,” Sauer said. “At times during the day people just fly through here. I’m surprised there are not more accidents. In our minds, we feel it’ll make a difference.”

Rebecca Aldrich (right)

The intersection will be closed from 9 a.m. to approximately 7 p.m. today and tomorrow.

The Neighborhood Traffic section of the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) has provided oversight and coordination to help bring this street mural to life this weekend, which has been months with the making in planning by the neighborhood and Bill Lindberg, the resident who spear-headed the project, and the artist, Rachel Marcotte. The mural is funded in part by the city’s Department of Neighborhoods Matching Fund.

In order to prepare the “street canvas,” on Saturday the street will be pressure washed, brush scrubbed and then the design will be chalk out-lined. On Sunday the artwork will be re-chalked, painted and dried. At least 50 neighbors are expected to lend a hand to the work effort.

We’ll be there in a bit and show you the work in progress.