I took a walk today from my house to Green Lake and back to revel in the last day of summer. It was glorious out. Perfect temperature, not too fall cool and not summer hot hot. Only taking one short break to kick out the rocks in my shoes, it took about 90 minutes.

Using a new pedestrian-centric map the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) has created that conveniently shows the number of minutes of different street segments, I added up what their estimated time would be for the approximate same route and it came out to 72 minutes.

Not so bad, considering these estimates don’t take into account the steepness of the street or an individual’s physical condition. There is going to be some variation, so the numbers should be taken as rough estimates.

A zoom-in on the Queen Anne part of the SDOT map

As Seattle residents know — and as visitors quickly pick up — city streets vary in slope from pancake flat to whoo-boy steep. Those streets are colored yellow on the map.

The routes on the Seattle Walking Map come from a variety of sources, including The Feet First walking advocacy organization, King County, and SDOT. Routes follow sidewalks, shoulders on quiet streets, and park trails.

This new series of maps divides Seattle into three sections: north, central, and south. Adjoining sections of the map include a limited amount of overlap, should the selected route cross from one section to another. You can print out PDF’s of all three and or the full city map here, or you can fill out a form on that page and have SDOT mail you a copy.

A raft of large, new street projects will be announced Wednesday evening, the mayor’s office has announced.

Please join Mayor Mike McGinn, City Councilmember Tom Rasmussen, and community members for an announcement of the list of Neighborhood Street Fund Large Projects to be funded and built in 2010-2012. These projects directly reflect neighborhoods’ desires for improvements that support walking, biking, and transit. Each three year cycle, Bridging the Gap helps build approximately $4.5 million in community nominated large projects throughout Seattle.

The announcement is set for 4:30 p.m. just outside Maple Leaf, Northeast 90th Street and Ravenna. A specific location was not named. It’s not on the mayor’s or Rasmussen’s calendars, either. And the announcement will be al fresco.

One of our readers, Don Rudolph, sent in this extraordinary picture he snapped of a summer night in Queen Anne last week. Take a look!

Don wrote,

Summer nights are so great in Seattle, but when a crescent moon hangs over the Olympics while Venus looks over … amazing.

Have some amazing pictures of summer (or summer nights) in Queen Anne? Share them at tips@queenanneview.com.

If you’ve ever walked down a street strewn with fallen fruit and thought “Too bad that food went to waste,” this may be the volunteer opportunity for you.

Solid Ground’s Lettuce Link program is looking for help with its Community Fruit Tree Harvest, which delivers apples, plums and pears picked from Seattle fruit trees to food banks and meals programs. Last year, volunteers harvested more than 19,600 pounds of fruit.

There are four volunteer orientations coming up:

• Tuesday, July 27, 6:30pm – 7:30pm, Ballard Library (5614 22nd Ave NW
• Wednesday, July 28, 6:30pm – 7:30pm, Solid Ground in Wallingford (1501 N. 45th St.)
• Thursday, July 29, 6:30pm – 7:30pm, Northeast Library (6801 35th Ave NE)
• Monday, August 2, 6:30pm – 7:30pm, Douglass-Truth Library (2300 E Yesler Way)

Here’s what you’d do as a Community Fruit Tree Harvest volunteer:

• “Scout” trees in your neighborhood to see if they are ripe before sending volunteers to harvest.
• Harvest at scheduled work parties.
• Be “on call” to harvest fruit in your neighborhood. (An email will go out to the volunteers in a particular neighborhood when a tree there is ripe. Available volunteers will make arrangements for picking.)
• Provide garage storage for ladders, picking buckets and/or harvested fruit.
• Deliver harvested fruit to food banks and meals programs.

If you’re unable to attend an orientation, we’d still love to have your help! Contact Sadie at fruitharvest@solid-ground.org or 206.694.6751.

If you have fruit to donate, please contact Seattle Tilth’s Garden Hotline at 206.633.0224 or help@gardenhotline.org.

Publicola published an interesting story yesterday that raised the question of whether or not Seattle should extend the current closing time from 2 to 4 a.m. across the board, or stagger times throughout the city in an attempt to improve public safety. From Publicola,

The theory is that by encouraging staggered closing times, the thousands of customers who roll out onto the street at  am would be dispersed over the night. This would take pressure off of SPD, allowing them to do better, more focused enforcement. It would also help curb drunk driving (at 2 am there is little taxi cab availability due to the spiked demand for cabs with everyone settling up at the same time.) There would also be less concentration of noise on the streets at 2am solving one of the most frequent complaints from downtown residents. And of course with an increase in operating hours comes an increase in revenue (and jobs) for bars, and in turn, more revenue to the State and City.

Many cities across the country have started extending liquor service to 3 and 4 a.m., while a few have tried 24-hour service, including Birmingham, Alabama, Atlantic City, Memphis and the entire states of Nevada and Louisiana. Read Publicola’s full story here.

Since both Lower and Upper Queen Anne have a large bar and lounge presence, there’s no doubt the hill would be greatly affected by any change to the city’s current closing time. So, Queen Anne, what do you think? Should Seattle keep closing time at 2 a.m., extend it, or stagger it? Do you think this would improve safety in the neighborhood?

The city recently launched a new website that provides a network of news feeds from 12 city departments, including utilities, parks, police and fire.

Citylink lets anyone check on the latest news about Department of Transportation projects, Seattle Police Department Blotter crimes and power outages on one page, instead of having to check each department’s web page separately.

The 12 news feeds are:

• Power Lines: News and updates from Seattle City Light
• SPD blotter: News and updates from the Seattle Police Department
• On the Move: Advisories from the Seattle Department of Transportation
• At Your Service: Seattle Public Utilities news and events
• Fire Line: News and updates from the Seattle Fire Department
• Building Connections: Seattle Department of Planning and Development news
• Art Beat: Seattle Arts and Cultural Affairs news and events
• Center Spotlight: Seattle Center news and events
• The Scoop: Seattle Animal Shelter news and events
• Parkways: Seattle Parks and Recreation news and events
• Bottom Line: News and updates from Seattle’s Office of Economic Development
• Nickels’ Notebook: News from the Mayors office