Seattle: A walkable city

I grew up just outside Seattle. My father worked in downtown Seattle, and we’d make frequent trips in to the city to meet with him for lunch, to go to REI to buy stuff for summer camp, or to otherwise enjoy the city. Many of the trips in to town, we’d pile into the car, and make the drive across the lake into the city. Once here, we’d “do downtown” by foot. We’d often park at my dad’s office building garage, and walk from there. Now, years later, my wife and I are living downtown. We’d selected our location to be close in and able to walk more places we wish to go.

Today, the sun came out early in the day and we had gorgeous blue sky. We set out on foot to enjoy our city. We were joined by many, many people (I’m too lazy to count ‘em all, and not very good at estimating, so we’ll just say lots of people). When you approach Seattle by ferry or from the south on I5, or look across from West Seattle, it seems so far from the Space Needle to downtown, you don’t realize how close it really is. Half an hour tops, and you can walk from the Space Needle through downtown to Pioneer Square and the stadiums. Walking the waterfront is easy (well, it’s a bit slow if it’s crowded) with wide sidewalks and only two crosswalks to worry about (the ferry terminal and the driveway at the Edgewater hotel) on the bay side of Alaskan Way.

Today, the Seattle Sun Worshipers were taking full advantage of the day. People were milling about the waterfront. The Seattle Art Museum’s Olympic Sculpture Park was busy with people walking the trails, sitting outside and inside the Paccar Pavillion. We saw many people starting up the Elliott Bay trail from Pier 70.

Seeing the number of people out on foot makes me feel like Seattle is becoming less car-centric people are opting more and more to use other means of getting around. Of course, we could all just be looking to scratch that itch for some sun that comes after periods of grey during our winters.

Viaduct Replacement: Congratulations, It's a TUNNEL!

Well, it hit the papers this morning: we're getting a tunnel to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct.

Details are still emerging at this time, and more have since I first read about it this morning, including the mention of transit in the plan.

The decision is not without controversy:

• Voters shot down a tunnel in a 2006 advisory vote. The selected tunnel option is a deep-bore, unlike the "excavate and cover" tunnel initially proposed, but that's not likely to appease some people
• It's the most expensive option on the table, with current estimates at $4.24 billion
• It does not appear to provide entry/exit from the highway from Battery Street Tunnel on the north to the Stadium area at the south end
• It does not connect Ballard to the bypass

I've got mixed feelings about this.

I like that we won't have to look at an eyesore elevated roadway along the waterfront. I like that it can be done with very minimal impact on existing businesses and current traffic patterns, which business owners should appreciate during these tough economic times. I like the fact that the plan includes for increased transit capacity, however, that does little to help matters if folks won't use the additional transit capacity. I like the open space planned along the waterfront, and hope it remains open space and is not entirely sold off to development interests.

I'm concerned about the cost during a time when we have a state deficit of over $6 billion. I'm concerned about the idea of a miles long tunnel in an earthquake-prone area (OK, so the Bay area has done just fine with BART, but you never know...). I'm concerned about the tunnel's capacity; the current plan calls for two lanes in each direction, it doesn't sound like it adds any more capacity to the roadway. If we don't get our collective mindset changed about transportation in general, and mass transit in particular, in this region, when the tunnel opens in 2015, it will be insufficient for the needs of traffic in the region.

From what I've seen in the news, there is no mention about what this means for cyclists and users of human powered transport. Perhaps I'll get answers to that tonight at the "Bikes & Bridges" meeting.

Cascade Bicycle Club January Presentation

Bikes & Bridges
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
7:00 PM
Seattle REI, 222 Yale St.

This is one of the monthly presentations that the Cascade Bicycle Club hosts. This month's presentation is a briefing from the project teams responsible for both the 520 bridge project and the Alaskan Way viaduct project.

This is an opportunity to hear how bicyclists are being taken into consideration for the projects and voice any concerns or ideas that you might have.

Cascade Bicycle Club monthly presentation series: http://www.cascade.org/EandR/Monthly_Presentations.cfm

For more information you can contact David Hiller at the club. His e-mail address is on the link provided above.

A new year

The turn of the new year always seems to be a time in which we reflect on the past year (what we've accomplished, what we wanted to accomplish and didn't, how the events of the year have changed us, etc) and look towards the coming year with plans and resolutions.

Sitting here, I think back over the past year, especially the period since last June. A lot has happened since Maurie and I started this blog. We managed to leave the car parked quite a lot. We relied upon public or human powered transportation most of the summer. I lost my job. I started my own business. We moved to Seattle. Our updates to the blog slowed down considerably.

Looking forward to the rest of 2009, as it relates to this blog, I have lots of ideas. I want to write more about transportation issues in our new home town. I've never been much for making resolutions. In high school I started joking that my New Year's resolution is to stop making them. I don't know, I guess I see New Year's resolutions as these pie in the sky ideas that we come up with during the reverie of the changing of the year and the desire to begin anew. I rarely hear of a resolution being approached in a manner that bears results. There's little planning, no measurable milestones set to guage progress towards fulfilling the resolution, and consequently little to hold one's feet to the fire for sticking to it.

So, no, there is no resolution coming from me with respect to gettinaround. However, as I look at the coming year and all that I need to do for my business, for my home and family, for my health, and for this blog, I have a goal: REGULAR updates to the blog, throughout the year! I hope to be able to put up at least one post each week dealing with transportation issues. I will even attempt to keep things balanced out a bit and not terribly heavy on bicycling (although, let's be honest, it is great exercise, much faster than walking, and fun to boot!)

There's no shortage of things to write about for the blog. We are supposed to be moving forward with a replacement for the Alaskan Way viaduct, as well as a new 520 floating bridge; Seattle now has a bicycling master plan; Cascade Bicycle Club and the Bicycle Alliance of Washington have all sorts of advocacy programs and events throughout the year; the ZipCar car sharing program is huge in Seattle; there are plans for more streetcars; light rail will start service in King County, with expansion linking downtown to Capitol Hill and the University District. I'm sure there will be even more, and these are just Seattle-area things.

Walkin' in a winter wonderland...In Seattle!

Well, after a teaser snowfall over the weekend, we got the real deal today. When I got up to go to my dad's office, I looked out and the decision was made, no way would I drive! Yes, I confess, I was going to drive. Trying to get to meetings and drum up clients around town has put me back in the car more than I want to be.

Anyway, one flake of snow and Seattle goes into panic mode, and the drivers, well, let's just say I saw enough today to really confirm I made the right decision! What I saw today:

• mid-90's vintage BMW with all four wheels locked up sliding, kind of sideways, kind of straight into an intersection.
• SUVs, pickups and all variety of passenger cars sliding around corners
• folks driving on icing streets as if they were bone-dry pavement in the middle of summer
• many cars with engines near redline and wheels spinning, but not really going anywhere

One other thing I saw, and experienced, that had me scratching my head some was the number of articulated buses that Metro Transit was running in this weather. For those of you who don't know what an articulated bus is, it's kind of like two buses joined together with an accordion-like section. The thing is, the drive wheels are, like in any other bus, the rear wheels, only on the second portion of the bus. In essence, the trailer is pushing the cab!

Now, I know these increase carrying capacity. This is a good thing when people are opting not to drive. However, in the ice, they do tend to jackknife a bit. The one I was to catch to my dad's office did so (before arriving at the stop I was to board it), and my dad also saw several of them jackknife when he was dropping my mom off at work. Perhaps Metro should consider parking the articulated buses in this weather and decreasing the frequency of some routes to spread the buses out to account for the decreased passenger capacity.

Oh, when we really embrace a real mass transit solution regionally that includes something other than buses being run throughout the area, not just a few other options?

Getting Back to "Normal"

With our recent move I feel I have spent more time in the car in the last few weeks than I did the entire rest of the year all together. We have walked for several little errands as we worked to put our new home together, but with all the trips back and forth between our old place and the new as we attempt to get rid of all the excess stuff we have acquired over the last few years, we just hadn't managed to get back into our usual routine, especially concerning grocery shopping. But today we had a day where we just planned on staying put and relaxing. No moving related work, whatsoever. This gave us the opportunity to slow down just enough to allow for a leisurely walk , instead of drive, to the nearby Whole Foods for the few grocery items we were needing or once seen, seemed to need (unfortunately we were hungry when we shopped!) This was a direction we really hadn't set off in before so there were many discoveries along the way, one of the great benefits of walking places. In a 9 to 10 city block area we discovered a local Italian restaurant that seemed to be doing a Thanksgiving Day feeding program, a creperie with organic ingredients on the menu, an apartment in a courtyard with a bird feeder that was being enjoyed by a wingless "bird" with a grey fluffy tail and a huge flock of Bushtits and Chickadees foraging in a very nicely landscaped area in front of a building. It's only on foot or maybe on a bike that I really get the opportunity to enjoy all the nature that graces a busy city like Seattle.

I look forward to the last couple trips being over with and a full return to "gettin' around" the way we so very much prefer.

We've got press, yes we do!

We've got press, How 'bout you!

While we've been busy, um, not updating the blog, we've gotten a bit of press.

First off, we were mentioned in the October issue of the newsletter for the Washington State House of Representatives: In the House (see article on page 7).

A little over a week ago, we were awarded "Site of the Month" on 365 Days of Trash.

Not bad for neglecting the blog, eh?