If you’ve passed Husky Stadium recently, you’ve no doubt noticed that something big is going on. With fencing all around the E-11 parking lot and large machines at work, it’s hard to miss the activity. The over-sized construction site is the staging ground for the Capitol Hill-to-University leg of Sound Transit’s light rail project. Part of the site will also become a new light rail station that will serve the University area.

At present, what you see and hear are crews readying the work space. They will spend an entire year preparing to dig the massive tunnel. First, the crews will level the parking lot to create a “table top” work area. Then, they will begin digging down to create a trough-shaped excavation. Finally, they will put the boring machines in place and start digging south.

One day shift is at work presently, a second shift will come on this summer and a third shift will be in place sometime later. Once the boring machines start, work will take place around the clock to keep the project efficient. According to Peter Dewey, assistant director of Transportation Services, an estimated 50,000 truck trips will be required to remove earth during the first three years of tunnel construction.

The contractor hired by Sound Transit to dig the tunnel will be working until May of 2013. A second contractor will start work in the spring of 2011, overlapping with the first, to build the station, install escalators, finish the tunnel interior and construct exterior improvements.

The project affects 91探花parking. The crews are currently using a 600-stall area in the E-11 parking lot. Eventually, when the project is completed, the parking lot will be restored and improved, and the University will reclaim all but about 130 of the original parking stalls. The new lot will be offset from the street and landscaping strips with trees will add aesthetic appeal, as well as help with the lot’s carbon footprint.

Losing the E-11 parking area for six years will have a large impact on the 91探花community. The 600 stalls are thought to serve around 1,000 people, and the lot has been highly utilized by people heading to the 91探花Medical Center and other areas of south campus. All of the commuters using E-11 had to be relocated. Commuter Services provided commuters with advance notice and offered a choice of other parking options. Three hundred of these commuters have been relocated to the new Portage Bay Parking Facility, which was expanded in part to help offset the loss of E-11 and help serve south campus commuters. Other commuters have relocated to surface lots.

Fans attending events at Husky Stadium will also feel the loss of nearby parking spaces. During Husky games, campus parking will likely be completely full.

Trucks serving the construction site will result in increased traffic on Montlake Boulevard and North East Pacific Street, as well, although construction vehicles are being rerouted around the Triangle during the day. Construction traffic is expected to increase in volume starting in August with peak traffic occurring the winter of 2011–12.

Although more traffic and fewer parking spaces may be inconveniences in the short term, the light rail is expected to serve 70,000 people daily when it opens in 2016, which will reduce traffic, free up parking spaces and provide an economical commuting option for many 91探花staff, faculty, students and visitors.

While many on campus may not have noticed, four Transportation Services units 鈥� Commuter Services, Transportation Improvement, Shared Services and Transportation Administration 鈥� moved into a new home at the end of March. The new consolidated space, called the University Transportation Center (UTC), is located in the bottom of the new Portage Bay Parking Facility on NE Pacific Street and 15th Avenue Northeast.

Transportation Services has been working with Capital Projects to meet LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification for the space. The UTC is only the second LEED CI (Commercial Interiors) project on campus, the other being the Benjamin Hall Interdisciplinary Research Building, opened in 2007. LEED CI ratings are applicable to tenant improvements of new or existing office space. “We’re anticipating the highest rating possible,” said Clara Simon, sustainability manager in Capital Projects.

Some of the unique sustainable features of the UTC that contribute to LEED certification include bicycle storage and locker rooms with showers to encourage bicycle commuters; low-flow water fixtures; an EnergyStar refrigerator; and 30 percent used furniture. All paints, coatings, adhesives and furniture comply with strict limits on volatile organic compounds and the building was flushed with 100 percent outside air before TS moved in. The space is designed to use day lighting, and the energy-efficient lighting system automatically adjusts light levels depending on the amount of daylight in the room. Building materials were purchased within a 500 mile radius and lumber was certified for sustainability.

While Simon is still waiting for the final numbers on total recycled materials used in the building, she was able to share that a 95 percent construction waste recycling rate was achieved for the project. The building is projected to save 36 percent of water and 35 percent of energy from lighting alone, as compared to the national standard. The parking garage will also include a UCAR key system and four UCARs, a pay-by-space machine for visitor parking and an electric vehicle charging station. The charging station is the first to be installed as a part of a LEED project on campus.

The project has been in the works for the last eight years and is financed primarily with funds from Sound Transit’s use of University property. The University received $10 million when it agreed to let the light rail project use the E-11 parking lot south of Husky Stadium as a six-acre construction site. A 100-stall area will be permanently lost to the new light rail station. Some of the money received went toward constructing the Portage Bay Parking Facility which, in part, offsets the parking spaces lost and helps to serve clients from Health Sciences and Bioengineering who had been utilizing the E-11 lot.

The balance of the cost for the garage is financed with debt, which will be paid off at a rate of just over 1 percent of Commuter Services’ budget each year. When the West Campus Garage (now the Portage Bay Parking Facility) was identified for renovation, the decision was made to “carve out space to create an office,” as Peter Dewey, assistant director of Transportation Services, describes it. Until now, Transportation Services has occupied buildings such as the Bryant Building and the Purchasing and Accounting Building. The move to the new space frees up much of the Bryant Building and the basement of the Purchasing and Accounting Building where Commuter Services had been since 1985. The new building will better serve customers, both through a more centralized and easier-to-reach location and through money saved by gaining efficiency in a consolidated space.

“Customers comment on how much lighter and brighter our lobby is,” says Kay Dumlao Doherty, Commuter Services’ sales and administration supervisor. “They find us easy to locate, they are grateful that we’re able to provide more customer parking and they like the one-stop shopping they get from having all of Commuter Services together. By far, the most common comment has been 鈥楴ice digs!'”

Staff can now work together more easily with reduced travel times, which will save customers money. The total annual projected savings from the new building, which includes measures such as staff travel time, vehicle use and energy savings, is $96,446, according to Commuter Services’ annual cost savings report.

“We are excited to have achieved so many of our goals with this project,” says Josh Kavanagh, director of Transportation Services. “First of all, to reflect the University’s sustainability vision and Transportation Services’ mission, we were determined to create the greenest work space possible within this multipurpose building 鈥� and we have met that standard. We have applied for a LEED Platinum certification, and if we do achieve LEED Platinum, we will be the first building on campus to have such a rating. With sustainability as a starting point, we worked to create a workspace that provides the flexibility we need to do our work 鈥� now and in the future; one that completes the integration of staff, products and services that comprise Commuter Services; and provides shared spaces for all TS employees to meet. We couldn’t be happier with the result.”

The UTC’s new address is 3745 15th Avenue NE, Seattle, WA, 98105, and the new box number is 355360. Customer auto access to the UTC will be in parking area W27, the first floor of the garage, entering from 15th Ave NE.

Rick Parfitt is a loser. In fact, he’s the “biggest loser” among 18 91探花Facilities Services employees who signed up to participate in a weight loss competition inspired by the TV show The Biggest Loser.

Parfitt, a painter who went from 215 pounds to 194, losing 10 percent of his body fat during the 90-day competition, said he’d felt for a long time that he ought to lose weight, but the necessity of having surgery in July for a thyroid condition led him to put his good intentions into practice. “I want to be in the best shape I can be for the surgery,” he said.

He accomplished his goal mainly by changing his eating habits. First, he went from white foods 鈥� rice potatoes, pasta, milk 鈥� to brown ones, like whole wheat bread and brown rice. Then he stepped up his consumption of salads and fruits. He gave up soft drinks and stopped eating after 6 p.m. As for exercise, well, Parfitt has a physical job. But he also spent his evenings working on his father’s house that he just inherited, thus keeping himself from evening snacking.

“I feel great,” Parfitt said. “I don’t want that weight on me ever again.”

The 91探花Biggest Loser competition was the brainchild of machinery mechanics Jason Edwards, Dean Mussio and Frank Waring, who talked it up and recruited participants from a number of different shops.

Each participant anonymously logged the percentage of body fat he or she lost each month. They supported each other by trading healthy recipes, sharing ideas about what was helpful and getting more exercise together 鈥� and, of course, being spurred on by the competitive aspect of the challenge.

Maintaining a healthy weight is important for everyone, but for folks in the trades, staying in shape is about more than just looking good and staying active 鈥� it’s also about health and safety on the job. “My doctor calls us 鈥榠ndustrial athletes,'” Edwards said. “All day we’re climbing ladders, twisting, crouching down. At the end of the day, my joints hurt, and I realized I had to do something.”

Like Parfitt, Mussio eliminated soft drinks. And he said that he’s now cooking differently, using more vegetables and leaner meats. “Like when you make tacos, switching out the hamburger for ground turkey 鈥� you can’t even tell the difference. . . . I’ve always done a lot of cooking, but now I use more fresh vegetables.”

“And I’ve logged my food 鈥� to keep track of what I was eating and calories,” added Waring, who came in second in the competition by losing 8 percent of his body fat.

All the men have made an effort to be more active 鈥� taking the stairs instead of elevators, walking more at breaks and crossing campus by foot instead of driving or taking short cuts. They’ve even started basketball games at lunch. But they all agree that the emphasis is on lifestyle changes rather than dieting. “It’s small things, really,” said Mussio.

Many people in the group also signed up on The Biggest Loser for the “Pound for Pound Challenge” through which one pound of food is donated to a local food bank for each pound lost by participants.

Edwards, Mussio and Waring are already planning the next round of The Biggest Loser that will start in July. This time the competition will incorporate teams.