Money talks

Here's a video of Will Murray describing his proposal for a sidewalk in the Bitter Lake neighborhood. It's the fourth time he's submitted it -- ironic that it has been unsuccessful, considering the area is one of the urban villages that supposedly is the focus of our smart growth, walkable neighborhoods policies.



Seattle may claim to put a priority on pedestrian needs, but money talks. The $90,000 available annually in the Neighborhood Street Fund represents city hall's real level of interest in making streets safer. In other words -- very little.

There will be no comprehensive improvement in pedestrian infrastructure so long as city hall follows a divide and conquer strategy: allocating a tiny amount of funding and making the neighborhoods compete for it against each other. It distracts everyone from uniting as one community and demanding a solution that is good for everyone.

Sonics aftermath - can we move on yet?

Now that the Sonics are loading their stuff into Clay Bennett's stretch Escalade (one guesses) for the long drive to OKC, is it too soon to raise the issue of what happens to the future city revenue no longer dedicated to paying off the Key Arena remodel?

For years, the City has used the excuse "there just isn't enough money for that" for everything not involving Paul Allen. Well the Sonics settlement means $25 million has been freed up.

I hereby step to the counter and take a numbered ticket in the name of sidewalks for all of Greenwood. Everybody else: the line forms behind me.

Greenwood redevelopment

Coming to you today from Green My Ride, at the Phinney Neighborhood Center.

The new retail/condo project behind the Greenwood Bartell Drugs has been given a name: Piper Village --for Piper's Creek, presumably. Ironically, the site (and everything else within a block or more) sits on the paved-over, drying-out bog that serves as the creek's headwaters.

Wonder where that bureaucratic inertia comes from

SDOT Fun Facts #1

The Seattle Department of Transportation's phone number is 684-ROAD.

Not 684-BIKE. Or 684-WALK. 684-ROAD.

New sidewalks -- but not for YOU

Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels rolled out a new initiative on sidewalk construction today -- but this new development is literally about development. Or more accurately, redevelopment.

It's yet another anti-community, responsibility-evading government response in the many-year attempt to get the City of Seattle to do something about funding the basic public infrastructure that sidewalks represent.

Nickels's plan: require sidewalks be built in front of most new residential construction, as well as major renovation/expansion of existing homes.

Who benefits? Transportation and infrastructure interests in the city budget that are not pedestrian related. Nickels's plan does nothing to address the inequity in funding between roads (one big pot of public money) and pedestrian facilities (homeowners must pay out of pocket, and compete against other neighborhoods for grants).

And they all look just the same

The particularly distasteful and outrageous aspect of Nickels's plan is that it shows how he continues to have his eye on just one objective -- enriching developers through redevelopment projects. His plan means that if you need sidewalks on your street, the solution is for you to move somewhere else: sell to a developer who tears down your home, and replaces it with a new cookie-cutter "Northwest Style" townhouse cluster (curse you, Carlson Architects) with a sidewalk out front.

The cost, of course, is passed on to the new buyers -- not you -- and the money goes into the developers' pockets.

That's the price of sidewalks under this municipal regime.

A chip off the old fiasco

The Seattle Department of Transportation's motto (when did they get that?) is "A vibrant Seattle through transportation excellence." NO, REALLY! I'M NOT MAKING THAT UP! Stop laughing, it's mean.

The latest bit of excellence recently took place in Carkeek, Broadview and Maple Leaf: street chip sealing, scheduled for the second week of July. Chip sealing is an innocuous-sounding process for extending the life of pavement; tar is sprayed on the existing asphalt, then rock chips are layered-on. It's like Oily Roca.

I know about this because Greenwood streets underwent Chip Seal Hell 5-6 years ago, turning neighborhoods into combat zones for months. Here's how SDOT is describing the process today:

The maintenance work will involve the application of emulsified asphalt followed by rock chips on the surface of the street...
Within several days after the street is sealed, our mechanical sweepers will sweep the street to remove any excess rock.
...
DRIVE SLOWLY (no faster than 10 mph) on the new surface for several days. This will prevent loosening the aggregate in the newly resealed street.
Bicyclists and motorcyclists should use extra caution due to loose rock.
Source

OK, this is where I pull out the red card: in Greenwood we never saw any mechanical sweepers. For a couple of weeks we would occasionally see a pickup truck with guys with brooms who would sweep up some of the rock. But no one actually changed their driving habits, resulting in rock being dislodged on an ongoing basis, for about a year. Loose rock piled up, especially at intersections. We never saw the guys with brooms again.

Oh, and telling bicyclists and motorcyclists to use "caution" is a massive understatement. SDOT should really tell you "stay off the streets unless you want your tires and drive trains covered with sticky rocks" (and remember, in this part of Greenwood there are no sidewalks to ride on). And the aforementioned piles of loose rock continued to present hazards for at least two years. It was like my street was both paved and unpaved at the same time.

From their blythe description of it, it doesn't sound like SDOT learned anything from the Greenwood chip seal operation. If you live in Carkeek, Broadview or Maple Leaf, I'd like to hear from you how it's going on your streets.

Quick question for SDOT

Quick question for the Seattle Department of Transportation, as well as the Pedestrian Master Plan Advisory Committee: How do you expect to implement any plan effectively, if the City's answer to the sidewalk-repair part of the equation is You Pay For It?

Sidewalks? They're your problem
By Elizabeth Rhodes; and Diana Wurn
Seattle Times business reporter; Special to The Seattle Times

Sidewalks: Lots of people love having them. Others just wish they had them.

And most don't think about who takes care of them.

In Seattle, that will change this month when homeowners with a sidewalk damaged enough to be a tripping hazard find an informational flier attached to their door telling them it's their responsibility — not the city's — to repair it.

Depending on the severity of the problem, that could set them back thousands of dollars.

More

Imagine the uproar if the City were to suddenly announce you are responsible for repairing the street in front of your house -- the funding inequity between streets and sidewalks is clear.

I Saw What You Did

Here's how it is: I've decided if I see you endangering pedestrians or bicyclists in my town, I'm going to put it on the record. Here's our first offender:

Date: June 26, 2007 at 5:45 pm.
Location: N 71st & Greenwood Ave N.
Vehicle; driver: orange Volvo S60, WA license "NURSJEN", Barrier Motors license plate frame; blonde 30ish woman.
Violation: Two women with small children enter marked crosswalk, crossing west-to-east. As they near the center left-turn lane, northbound NURSJEN momentarily decelerates, then floors it. Smooth, throaty hum of Swedish engineering (Didya spring for the 300hp 2.5 liter?). Women shake their heads. The move saves NURSJEN no time, as she is soon caught in the usual peak-hour backup at 80th St.

NURSJEN -- helping to make the streets that much meaner. Proud of yourself?

SDOT games system?

A little bird recently sang me a song about the process for applying to the Seattle Bridging The Gap transportation and parks fund.

The initial step is for citizens to write down their ideas for projects on official Project Identification Forms, which will be sent to the Seattle Department of Transportation for exploration -- screening. In other words, it sets up a bottom-up process in which the citizens tell the agency what they want.

SDOT may have other ideas. It seems that residents of Greenwood recently met with SDOT staff to discuss how to fill out the Forms. Instead, the staffers presented the residents with SDOT's own wish list of projects, and suggested that those be entered on the Project Identification Forms.

No doubt some people agreed, while others wrote up their own ideas. But SDOT coordinates screening of the projects and final recommendations -- whose projects will SDOT be more likely to choose?


New today:
Decisions on levy campaign leftovers were political

"Bridging the Gap" levy election cash under scrutiny

When Vic Odermat wrote a $1,000 check to the "Bridging the Gap" campaign last fall, he did so to support a property-tax levy for Seattle streets and bridges.

The owner of Brown Bear Car Wash never imagined $4,000 from the campaign fund would go to the Irish Heritage Club and possibly pay for a trip to Ireland for Mayor Greg Nickels' wife.

"Oh my goodness," Odermat said, when he learned that $31,557 in surplus campaign money was doled out after the Nov. 7 election to some nonprofit groups and campaign workers.
. . .
[Deputy Mayor Tim] Ceis said decisions on spending the surplus were made by the mayor's "political brain trust," which includes Ceis and Nickels' aides Viet Shelton, Regina LaBelle and Michael Mann. The mayor was told of the payments, Ceis said, but was "not very involved" in the decisions.

Ceis said he never thought about turning the surplus over to the city to help with street projects at the heart of the levy's mission. Source

Wouldn't it have been nice if the money had gone to citizen groups that want to plan pedestrian safety projects? Currently they are required to seek grants to hire consultants to do the work.