By Matt the Engineer on January 29, 2010
SeattleBubble just posted some very interesting numbers for the 25 most populated cities in the US. There are a few lessons from this set of data, but my favorite is how cheap this city is – as dense cities go. Click on the “Density” tab, and we’re #8. Our Income/Rent ratio is 5 – much [...]
Posted in affordability, density
By Frank on January 27, 2010
Looks like Mayor McGinn is willing to compromise on his May special-election vote for replacing the waterfront Seawall. It’s looking more and more like the decision to avoid the council was a rookie mistake. Of course, it could have been some kind of brilliant rope-a-dope designed to get them to focus on the date, not [...]
Posted in viaduct
By serial catowner on January 26, 2010
Underlying a lot of my thinking these days is one basic thought, which apparently hasn’t occurred to a lot of people- that somewhere around 2020 people are going to realize that to save the world, everything has to change. Everything. To cut carbon releases to the bone it will be necessary to house people close [...]
Posted in Uncategorized
By Frank on January 26, 2010
We’re back! Sorry for going dark for the last 48 hours. I’ve been migrating the blog software from Drupal to WordPress, mostly in an effort to cut down on comment spam and make it easier to post links and images. In an ideal world, I would have warned everyone in advance that I was going [...]
Posted in About This Site
By Frank on January 25, 2010
I-5 ranks #7 in America: #7, I-5, Seattle Weekly hours of bottleneck congestion: 256 Worst bottleneck: Southbound, 45th St/Exit 169 Length of worst bottleneck: 1.46 mi Weekly hours of congestion on worst bottleneck: 34 Speed of worst bottleneck when congested: 21.3 mph The expert opinion: “We have one major problem in downtown Seattle, and that [...]
Posted in i5
By Frank on January 20, 2010
Vintage Seattle has a great postcard of 1970s Bellevue. Bellevue’s growth over the last few years is a good reminder of how much the region’s changed, and how much the center of gravity has shifted away from Seattle over the years.* In the 1960s, you could build a Seattle-centric transportation system. No more.
Ironically, despite greatly increasing its stature and urbanity vis-a-vis Seattle, Bellevue still seems interested in pushing transit out to the hinterlands, rather than have it run where people live.
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* Obviously Seattle’s still the big dog, but in relative terms its unipolarity has declined as the rest of King County has grown in population.
Posted in regional planning, regional transit, sprawl, Urban Planning
By Frank on January 19, 2010
Last Thursday, the Mayor proposed a property tax levy, to be approved by referendum, to fund the replacement of the seawall. His reason:
“The current plan leaves the existing seawall in place for far too long,” said McGinn. “Replacing our deteriorating seawall, before it fails, is one of the basic needs for our city. One of the first briefings I had during the transition was on the seawall. It was alarming. The current plan will not see the completion of a new seawall for at least another six years. Based on what I know now, that�s not good enough.“
The city council has concerns. At the very least, they want to be consulted:
“We want to make certain that the City’s Central Waterfront Partnership Committee has full opportunity to participate on this issue,” councilmembers said. “Legitimate questions have been raised about how to best restore some ecological function to the central waterfront shoreline as part of the seawall replacement…the Committee members’ input is vital to the success of the project.”
Why wouldn’t McGinn get the council’s support before announcing this? What is he thinking? If the seawall is in as bad shape as McGinn claims, surely it would be easy to win the council’s support, no?
Finally, there’s a sense that this is disconnected from the overall viaduct debate. Is that intentional? To be sure, the replacement of the seawall has always been a separate, city-funded project, but it’s still referred to by WSDOT as the “Alaskan Way Viaduct and Seawall Replacement” project. The two have been considered, heretofore, as interdependent projects. McGinn would seem to be attempting to disentangle them.
But again, why blindside the council here?
Posted in viaduct
By serial catowner on January 19, 2010
If Metro wants to get rid of electric buses, they will complain of the costs, and enticingly offer ‘better’ diesels on the trolley routes. In response those living near the routes will be the loudest opponents. The issue, however, isn’t really about routes or costs- the most recent audit didn’t look for savings in management practices, because management didn’t ask them to do so!
If Metro has a problem with the ETBs, it’s a problem of an electric-motor-on-wire v. diesel nature. It has to do with the whole of the electric systems, from bus to wire to power supply. And this is precisely why we need to keep those wires, and buy new buses.
The diesel culture at Metro doesn’t like the electric culture- anyone who’s worked in a shop will know how that goes. How do they deal with the Link and the SLUS? By Balkanizing them, making them responsible for their own bailiwick- and nothing else. Obviously a large new system like Link needs an institutional presence of this nature, but the streetcars (overhead and control and motor maintenance) should be bundled with the ETBs.
The ‘can-do’ culture emerges where you have a lot of people working on the same projects. It attracts people with those interests, and they interact with others in the world working in the area. It provides a market for manufacturers and a testing ground for innovation. It builds the infrastructure to make stuff work and provides the pool of skilled workers to keep it working.
This is what we gain if we improve the trolley system in Seattle, and this is what we lose if the trolleys are replaced by diesel buses. With the handwriting on the wall that electric power will become very important for transit systems in the near future, this is the infrastructure and culture we need to keep. When the call comes to electrify more routes, we need a cadre of people who have been there and done that, both in hanging wire and in purchasing electric buses.
KCMetro today is traveling a classic road to bankruptcy, using capital reserves for operating costs. Throwing a few more bundles of money in the furnace by not buying new trolleys will only prolong the agony by a few months or, at best, a year. They shouldn’t be allowed to do that.
Posted in Uncategorized
By serial catowner on January 17, 2010
SDOT has posted a survey to see if the public will allow them to discontinue the electric buses. I know, that sounds harsh, but if they were sure they were going to keep them, they wouldn’t post a survey. Nobody asked you or me the last time they bought some buses.
Be sure to fill it out and submit it, and there’s a space you can write in another reason to like electric buses- they don’t depend on foreign oil.
Posted in Uncategorized
By serial catowner on January 14, 2010
It occurred to me that there might be a simple solution to the whole parking conundrum- let developers build without any required parking as long as there are lots in the neighborhood available to park on. When there are no parking lots available, developers must provide parking as specified in the codes.
This provides a substantial stimulus to early developers, who can provide more density- right where we want it. It keeps the whole issue alive in the minds of slow developers, who certainly wouldn’t want to be the last to develop in the neighborhood. It ameliorates the current problem of parking requirements that provide more parking than we want to see in TOD. If the last developers put pressure on to rework the required parking regulations, that would not be an entirely bad thing.
And, it’s simple.
Posted in Uncategorized
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