The Seattle City Clowncil voted yesterday to create a plan to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct with surface/gridlock.
This continues the Clowncil's practice of working against the people's wishes for a Viaduct replacement. The Clowncil earlier backed the tunnel, which was ultimately rejected by the voters. Now, the Clowncil is moving ahead as if NO-NO won the March vote -- even though any reasonable reading of the results makes clear that surface/gridlock had the least support of any alternative. But at least the 74% of voters surveyed who responded that lawmakers would ignore the will of the voters are vindicated!
Oh, well. Sadder still, the Clowncil is spending $8 million on the surface/gridlock plan, at a time when the city claims it can't afford enough police officers
And saddest of all, 3 of the Clowncilmembers who are up for re-election this fall -- Clark, Rasmussen and Godden -- don't even have opponents yet.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at May 30, 2007 09:51 AM | Email This193,673 votes were counted toward not building either proposed freeway (bring us another solution)
The results are clear, and despite some remarkable gestures of interpretation, the numbers speak for themselves whether taken together or extrapolated to indicate all possible combinations. The message from the election is the same. It appears to me that the council is listening to the sound of the feet of their constituents more than they have in the past. Seattle might just gain one of it's very few instances of planning for the future in spite of it's propensity for planning for the present.
Posted by: Acid Brain on May 30, 2007 11:06 AMSteinbrueck's speech the other day laid it all out. Buy your food grown within 50 miles of where you live (and no food shipped in from far environs as that uses fuel and pollutes). Live within biking or walking distance from where you work to eliminate commutes. If you elect to drive rather than use public transport you will pay dearly in tolls, fuel taxes, drive time taxes and other ways to discourage commerce, trade and - what the eco-wacko left want to take from you the most - your mobility.
It's coming folks and any of you that think you can fight it are blowing smoke up your own posterior. This is all being done in the name of Global Warming™ and Climate Change™ and the obvious of ennui (or stupidly, I'm not sure which) of everyday citizens on this is letting the eco-wacko left run rampant to construct their extremist Socialist paradise. Having a governor that is incapable of leading or making any decision is just accelerating their agenda.
The extremist eco-wackos are also now concentrating their new-found power on California style rules and regulations for us here (along with California's net out-migration of business and people too I'd guess) and, believe it or not, taking down dams on the Columbia and Snake. If you think that will never happen, think again. All we need is an Al Gore in the White House and say goodbye to reliable, clean, affordable power as well. Sounds crazy but so did all the other stuff here a few years ago and I've only touched the surface of all the stuff that is goin' down.
Welcome to the Brave New World. Socialist Style. All figured out, planned and ordered for you.
Only in Washington.
Posted by: swatter on May 30, 2007 11:53 AMMaybe you should run Stefan, you certainly complain enough. Maybe it's time you got off your high horse and made a difference.
Posted by: All Bark, No Bite on May 30, 2007 12:01 PMHooray -- I celebrate Seattle Politicians for cutting through the quagmire and voting correctly for the right civic architecture.
Let's hope the vote stands through completion.
Giggy, you mean all that cheap oil we can get from Venezuela? Or how about Russia, Saudi Arabia, & Iran? You really want to continue to enrich out enemies so you can continue drive your Hummer 75mph down I-5?
Maybe it's time to start thinking about someone other than yourself.
Take your electric bill. Multiply by 3. Pay that new amount.
Take the electric bill of your local grocery store, dentist, insurance office. Multiply by 3. Take that increase, divide it by the customers, add 40% (to cover the taxes for the extra income require to pay that higher bill), and pay that.
The NW benefits from amazingly cheap electricity precisely because of the dams. Eliminate them, and our power rates will be similar to what you pay in New York, or Chicago.
And our power will predominantly come from coal or natural gas, not hydro...
I worked for a manufacturer of fisheries/marine research SONAR systems back in the 90s, and supported a few dozen studies of fish passage on dams. Multiple different cases were tried - different weirs, different flow rates, no turbine, all turbine, spillways open, bigger/redesigned fish ladders.
No matter what, there was precious little change in the migration of fish. And no matter what happened, many years would see huge spikes of returns, and others would see nothing.
The ocean - and how we manage our fisheries - is the cause there, not the dams. Tearing down the dams will just ensure we all need to make a lot more money...
Posted by: Edmonds Dan on May 30, 2007 12:22 PMMuch easier to just stay out of Seattle, of course. The funny bit of it is that we'll get good bagels in Bellevue and redmond ( and , I suppose Lake Stevens and Monroe). I'm not aware of many other businesses that haven't already gotten eastside locations.
Following these policies, San Francisco simply became a suburb for the well-heeled hip and downtrodden, with essentially no middle class, no business, and not that much traffic. The real business and industry moved to San Jose and Palo Alto.
I imagine that's what will happen here. Software in Winachee, anyone.
As for us non-Seattle residents, it's just another reason to avoid downtown.
Posted by: Palouse on May 30, 2007 12:49 PMThe fact that affordable housing has been eviscerated speaks more to unchecked laissez faire economics and land speculation as anything else.San Francisco's housing market is hardly "unchecked laissez faire economics". It is burdened by strict city rent control and the state's Prop. 13 property tax control (equivalent to rent control for property owners) Posted by: Stefan Sharkansky on May 30, 2007 01:19 PM
The time to get the hell out of this miserable state is NOW before it's too late. My son has been advising us of this since the viaduct controvery came up well over a year ago. He bolted with his money, his industry and his dignity to citizen friendly Nevada. He claims an additional bonus to living in Nevada is attractive and most of all happy people with smiles on their faces.
Posted by: Ragnar Danneskjold on May 30, 2007 02:29 PMNYC & LA are in a perpetual state of Gridlock (think heavy traffic from 6:30am to 11pm). These cities have the highest population density in the country.
Heck, a house less than a block from mine sold for 600k+ after being on the market for less than a week. Apparently some people still want to live in the city even if you don't.
Take away the viaduct and you eliminate the ability to travel North-South in the city. I-5 would be a permanent parking lot.
Now they announce on the news that they are going to put a $6 each way toll on 520. A month ago the news was saying that they were gonna toll I-90 as well, and the toll would be the same as 520. So ... no way to get into town from the East.
From the west, you already have tolls on the ferries.
So, unless you work on a major bus line, you must live within a few blocks of where you work. So must your spouse. Those of us that dont want to live in the city at all, for whatever reason, are to be prevented from entering the city because of either gridlock or cost.
How long do you think it will take for employees to demand that employers either pay the cost of going to work (tolls, etc, thereby raising costs and prices for the businesses products thereby decreasing margins or lowering sales), or tell thier employers that they need to move thier offices outside the city.
Once businesses move to Bellevue, they wont be moving back. The new skyscrapers in Bellevue will be filled to capacity, and the skyscrapers of Seattle will slowly wither. The political power Seattle holds now, will move North, South and certainly East. Seattle will become a blue-collar industrial town, because the land will lose its value, and thereby be the least expensive place to put factories. Bellevue will be the white-collar town.
It will only be after the avalanche has started that the city planners will realize thier mistake, and it will be way too late to fix it.
Posted by: Rainman on May 30, 2007 03:49 PMWhy 99 can't get built on the cheap as Aurora-Ave-by-the-bay instead of the viaduct is beyond me. It seems like the most cost-effective approach. Put in some pedestrian overpasses and be done. Maybe a single traffic light for pedestrians in front of the aquarium and a flyover for northbound traffic to the ferry terminal.
Building a new gold-plated limited-access elevated road between two surface streets just sounds like a giveaway to Balfour Beatty that makes the proposed Sonics arena look cheap.
Posted by: viaduck on May 30, 2007 05:08 PMStefan spends plenty of time making a difference, especially in King County Elections.
Go for it Seattle. What I am seeing happening is that business and people are moving out of the City. Jaguar/Land Rover of Seattle, now has a nice new showroom in Lynnwood. Gregg Cycle has a nice new store just north of the Alderwood Mall in Lynnwood. Restaurant Supply of Seattle moved years ago after their building basement was hit by a sewer project and is now in Shoreline. Many businesses are leaving Seattle.
Many people who have children that they want to put in public education have abandoned Seattle for the neighboring cities. I am seeing with the high gas prices and talk of more traffic congestion later this summer people looking for work outside of Seattle so they can just leave the city.
I think that by embracing gridlock, that Seattle will increase the exodus of children from the Seattle Schools, businesses that rely upon driver-customers and (oh NO!) parking. I also see employees voting with their feet to leave Seattle.
Posted by: Bob on May 30, 2007 07:35 PMI heard it said that the Seattle Center will dry up without the Sonics. I think the Seattle Center will dry up with Nichols lack of leadership. It is probably his agenda to turn it into a utopian High rise area anyway.
Watch for that pipe dream need for funding soon!
Posted by: GS on May 30, 2007 09:09 PMThe world is awash in oil. Our high gas prices here are the result of insufficient refining capacity. We use 15 percent more gas than we refine. The rest is imported. Supply and demand buddy. We can thank the eco-wacko left for fighting the building of every refinery since 1976. We are now reaping that reward. Now refineries are so expensive to build that the payback period is more than 25 years out at today's profit margins. No oil company is going to tie-up billions in capital to wait 25 years or more to make money.
I'm sure you're a big ethanol kind of guy. Less BTUs than gasoline so cars travel less on a tank PLUS ethanol makes more of the stuff that produces smog. Now THAT is one hell of a solution: Use more of it and produce more of the pollution that causes asthma, sinus problems, acid rain. Typical government solution brought to you by the eco-wacko left. The eco-wackos also want us to use compact florescent bulbs (will soon be mandated, trust me). Another eco-wacko boondoggle. What will we do when 300 million Americans start tossing their mercury laden CF bulbs into land fills? Not to mention the lead in the circuit boards.
What am I saying here? That the eco-wacko left, of which you must be a part, insists on stuffing bullsh*t technologies down everybody's throat, for no other reason (I guess) than they like them, and they are the wrong technologies. The free market produces the best solution but you screwballs refuse to see any reasonable logic. Browbeat your elected representatives into ethanol, stuff it with millions of $$$ in subsidies and watch and the price of everything skyrocket while you pollute the planet even further. Look at a list of the thousands of products that use corn. All this eco-BS does is make every day a little worse for those on the lower end of the economic ladder. How is that thinking of myself? A thriving economy, based on reasonable market solutions, lifts the boats of the poor too. How is that thinking of myself?
Hopefully the adults will win out this present surge of the eco-wackos. And when I say "adult" I don't include you.
Great idea! This is the kind of clear thinking I like.
Posted by: G Jiggy on May 31, 2007 07:49 PM(or journey-people, for diversity) (excuse me, for Seattle, journey-transgenderworkunits with unisex bland neutral-colored overalls)
Posted by: jimmie-howya-doin on May 31, 2007 09:24 PMthere aren't that many of you idiots left so you best keep shouting as loud and long as you can.
we both know your days of relevance are numbered.
Are you aware of a process called the scientific method? If you are not, let me take you back to 5th grade so you can learn it. See ... back in the dark ages, people believed in things like ... oh, the earth is flat. Other people .. we like to call them scientists .. disagreed. These disagreeable scientists faced considerable problems ... loss of funding ... loss of religion (excommunication) and even loss of life. See, the reason was, they were competing with Dogma. Dogma is a belief system ... it does not have to be grounded in fact.
To combat Dogma, the scientists came up with the scientific method. In the scientific method, a theory is proposed, and then every scientist that wants to comment on it also takes the responsibility of disproving it. See, the assumption in science is, that the scientist got it wrong. You put a theory out there, and everyone else works thier butt off to make you look like an idiot! To make matters worse ... they dont even believe in democracy ... if even 1 scientist can invalidate part of your theory, you gotta scrap that part and come up with a new theory that takes the disproven part into account. See, consensus is what drove Dogma, so those disagreeable scientists made sure that proof had to always be beyond doubt.
So, when you talk about how our days our numbered because we dont believe in your DOGMA ... it is because your science sucks! Any scientist that claims that global warming is a fact, is not a scientist. It is not only not a fact, it is not even a proven theorm. Even if you assume that Global Warming does exist, there is no proof that it is caused by mankind, and at least some level of proof that if there is global warming, that it is natural.
So, you go ahead and continue to pray to Gaia, and give your tithes to Pope Gore ... you see, you are the flat earther here ... you are the one that prefers unprovable dogma to real science. Those of us who actually understand and care about science would really like it if those of you who think it is consensus driven, determined by who shouts the loudest, or believes that disproofs are not worthy of addressing ... well, we would really like for you to STFU.
Posted by: Rainman on June 1, 2007 12:10 PM