Durkan decides Seattle's impending traffic nightmare needs a general

Carolyn Adolph

January 03, 2019 / 2:25 pm

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Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan has put a former Air Force major general in charge of mobility during the "Period of Maximum Constraint". His name is Mike Worden, and he was recently short-listed for the job of SDOT director.

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Seattle mayor Jenny Durkan is calling in military expertise to help with the traffic drama that begins January 11.

Durkan has hired retired Mike Worden, an Air Force major general.

Durkan said Worden has decades of experience in crisis planning. He was also a finalist to be the director of Seattle Department of Transportation.

Now he will be the city's first-ever "director of citywide mobility operations coordination." He will be based at the city's emergency operations center downtown.

It will be his job to keep people, freight and emergency responders moving, by coordinating the city's response and working with other agencies.

This isn't just for the three weeks sans viaduct and sans tunnel. Worden is expected to run the show for the entire four-year "period of maximum constraint," known colloquially as the "Seattle Squeeze."

Wordon officially joined the city on January 2.