We like to provide information...

Ever get one of those awards that makes you take a step back and go "whoa"? We received one of those recently and it caught us off guard (thus the mildly shocked picture of me and Lloyd to the right).

Did you know that as an agency, we have sent out 2.5 million e-mails in the last eight months? Keep in mind these e-mails weren't to just one person; there are over 36,000 of you that we are keeping up to date with information about road closures, construction updates, traffic alerts, mountain pass updates and more.

We were recently awarded an "Excellence in Communications Award" from GovDelivery, a company we use to send out our e-mail updates. We won this award for sending out more than 2.2 million e-mails during the first six months of service. This is even more impressive when you consider their list of clients.

These e-mails weren't subscribers to just one list. We have over 170 different lists that you can subscribe to. Many of those millions of e-mails we recently sent out were due to the crazy weather we had this winter that at one point effectively shut down all north-south, east-west routes in Washington. An e-mail was sent out every time a road was closed or opened during these storms, which was very appreciated by freight haulers and those just wanting to know if they could get home.

We also sent out an e-mail every time the pass report changed, and if you know mountain pass weather this can happen several times a day. Other e-mails were just letting you know what is happening with transportation in Washington and how you can get involved in the decision making process through open houses and environmental document review.

If you haven't already signed up for our e-mail service, you will be amazed at what you can learn and how your commute will improve because you will be one of the first to know what areas to avoid. Be sure to sign up for our weekly "Express Lane", it's a roundup of weekly activities for the agency and a couple of featured projects which can prove to be very enlightening.

If you don't like getting emails, we have all sorts of other ways to keep you informed of what's happening. Here are a few:

pssst... and stay in touch with this service because we are also hoping to use it to send out text messages for traffic alerts in the Puget Sound area...stay tuned.