This morning's KUOW report on the dangerous 47th & Admiral Way intersection is further testimony to the fact that the Seattle Department of Transportation only believes its engineering criteria, not the experience and eyewitness accounts of actual people.
SDOT is hopelessly mired in bureaucratic inertia that holds internal procedures as more important than serving the public. When will elected officials reform this agency?
May 30, 2007
May 28, 2007
May 24, 2007
My point exactly!
It's like I've been saying:
One in six! Imagine if we could take the keys away from 17% of drivers: fewer collisions, more pedestrians and cyclists stay alive -- and bye-bye congestion.
Of course, also less revenues for city and state treasuries from traffic tickets. So don't hold your breath on this ever happening.
Many Americans would fail a standard DMV test
One out of six drivers on the road today would not pass a written driver's license test if they were given one today, according to a national survey conducted by GMAC Insurance.
...
Questions included such things as "A traffic light with a flashing red signal means?" and "If, while driving, a tire suddenly blows out, you should..." Source
One in six! Imagine if we could take the keys away from 17% of drivers: fewer collisions, more pedestrians and cyclists stay alive -- and bye-bye congestion.
Of course, also less revenues for city and state treasuries from traffic tickets. So don't hold your breath on this ever happening.
May 17, 2007
Is this 'limitless' energy?
Al Globus of the National Space Society writes about Solar Satellite Power:
The basic idea: build huge satellites in Earth orbit to gather sunlight, convert it to electricity, and beam the energy to Earth using microwaves. We know we can do it, most satellites are powered by solar energy today and microwave beaming of energy has been demonstrated with very high efficiency. We're talking about SSP - solar satellite power.
SSP is environmentally friendly in the extreme. The microwave beams will heat the atmosphere slightly and the frequency must be chosen to avoid cooking birds, but SSP has no emissions of any kind...
More
May 16, 2007
Pioneer Square Literature Patrol
I just had a copy of "Yiddish Policemen's Union" signed by its author, Michael Chabon. I just happened to be in the Mystery Bookstore, and in he walks.
He's there right now.
He's there right now.
May 11, 2007
Streetcar may need city loan
Licata proved right about operating costs
Seven months before Seattle christens its new South Lake Union streetcar, the expected operating costs are increasing.
And the income from train and station advertising, though robust, is going to arrive more gradually than planned.
So, Mayor Greg Nickels is asking the City Council to give the streetcar a line of credit -- up to $3 million -- to be repaid within 10 years...
. . .Metro Transit, which will operate the trains, plans to bill the city $2 million a year, compared to the city's original $1.5 million estimate. Startup costs will add $500,000, compared to the early estimate of $144,000. The current shortfall is about $1.5 million for the first two years of operations, said a City Council staff analysis issued this week.
Rising costs would mean that the streetcar would soak up a greater share of Seattle's Metro Transit allotment than earlier thought, limiting bus-service expansion to other neighborhoods.
. . .
City Councilman Nick Licata, an early opponent, has long warned operating costs would rise.
"I think it's unfortunately indicative of how we're not paying attention to the more basic services around the city. How did Seattle become unaffordable? It's through a number of these projects that benefit a small sector of the population." Source
Ehh, what's a few million between friends? I mean -- those poor gentrifiers.
May 10, 2007
Steel rails are high in irony
This article gives one pause:
Not only are taxpayers paying for the Streetcar, but now we're expensing parking revenues in South Lake Union and facilitating on-street parking??? These actions are at odds. One would think that our green Mayor would want to raise parking rates, decrease open spots and shorten terms, in order to encourage people to take Metro into downtown (light rail in the future) and transfer to the Streetcar.
Unless the Streetcar was really about gentrification, not transportation.
Visitors and commuters to South Lake Union will enjoy lower parking rates and looser rules than in the rest of Seattle after the city installs automated pay stations this year...
Even as Seattle officials work to eliminate long-term spots and discourage commuters from parking in all other neighborhoods, in South Lake Union the city will sell 1,250 all-day spots at 75 cents an hour."We're not trying to encourage it, but it is going to be allowed," said Mary Catherine Snyder, who runs the city's parking program.
And short-term parkers will get a break, too.
In most of Seattle, the city charges $1.50 an hour... But at 750 two-hour spots near South Lake Union's retail core, city officials plan to charge $1.25 an hour.
. . .
...the city has set a parking occupancy goal as its threshold for success: 85 percent. That means at any given time visitors should be able to find a handful of open spots in a block. Source
Not only are taxpayers paying for the Streetcar, but now we're expensing parking revenues in South Lake Union and facilitating on-street parking??? These actions are at odds. One would think that our green Mayor would want to raise parking rates, decrease open spots and shorten terms, in order to encourage people to take Metro into downtown (light rail in the future) and transfer to the Streetcar.
Unless the Streetcar was really about gentrification, not transportation.
May 3, 2007
New baby Orca confirmed
"J42" -- it's the newest member of Puget Sound's J Pod. From the Center for Whale Research:
McKay breadcrumbs may lead to Reichert
May 2, 2007
A modest Palmer proposal
Don't worry Greg, I got the joke. Funny stuff! I always wondered how 'tokhes' is spelled.
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