Transit Sleuth

I was speaking with a friend about the crime on 3rd between Pine and Pike in Seattle. I’ve seen more violence and read about more violence on that street in the 1.8 years I’ve lived in Seattle than I heard the entire 6+ years I lived in Portland. I can absolutely relate with this article. The crime doers on this street are absolute scum, but the city does nothing to clean up or mitigate these issues except send in cops. If anyone has half a brain they realize that cops only stop a very small amount of actual crime. Maybe 15% or 20% is the somewhere around the official estimate.

This article points out how Seattle should look into a follow the lead of places like Portland, Oregon and San Francisco, California.  I quote from the article,

“Physical changes such as more attractive bus shelters, more landscaping and better signage will help Third Avenue, Scholes said. He points to San Francisco and Portland as two cities that have remade their transit corridors into attractive, pedestrian-friendly streets.

Portland’s ambitious makeover, known as the Portland Mall, renovated or rebuilt 58 downtown blocks and intersections with high-end materials including granite, brick and wrought iron, added 45 new transit shelters, new bike lanes and public art. The price — $220 million — made it one of Portland’s largest public-works projects, said Mary Fetsch, spokeswoman for TriMet, the transit agency for the Portland metropolitan area.

Fetsch said the old bus shelters were dark and provided places to hide. The redesigned bus stops are open, well-lighted canopies with clear sightlines.

“You can see what’s happening on the street now.”

Third Avenue from Pioneer Square to Belltown encompasses about 20 blocks, but the council so far has appropriated just $350,000 for the street improvements and another $177,000 for additional cleaning. (Note: This is far less than the $500k Seattle has spent for zero improvements and only cleaning and policing)

“The city will need to invest much more to significantly improve the corridor and achieve something like what Portland has accomplished,” Scholes said. Still, he says, there’s a limit to what physical changes can do.

“More plantings, more lighting, more trees are great, but if we don’t deal with the drug dealing we haven’t improved the corridor.”"

The original article is available here.  All I have to say is, “Seriously Seattle, you’re smack in the middle of some of the best cities in the world (Vancouver BC & Portland), and near enough to San Francisco to not be so behind in matters like this, simply, get your act in gear Ms Emerald City!” Simply put the city really needs to just stop, take a breath, and the city councils, mayors office, and all these groups need to get together to take effective and reason actions against these problems like these other cities have.

I personally worry about many of my friends and family in relation to this type of nonsense. What coward would attack a 60+ year old man taking a picture of Christmas lights. This makes me not want to invite anyone to visit and instead just start packing heat myself. I haven’t had this emotion and reaction since I lived, well over 10 years ago, in the New Orleans area where I actually was shot at before. I didn’t move to the north west to deal with this type of nonsense…

…until later, I sure hope to have a good story later.

This is a somewhat contrarian blog entry, and yes, it is about transit.

Libertarians are about a serious lack of control. Something I strongly wish the Federal Government would take to heart, for the sake of transit and cities. Socialists have the opposite attitude, and want a very hands on Government, which locally and in cities I find to be a very positive and good thing. As long, of course, that this socialist Government at a city level is for and by the people. Here’s my reasoning.

First the Feds & Libertarianism

The Federal Government, in the United States and other places for that matter, suck at knowing much about local issues. The Federal Government is famous for wanting to make everything cookie cutter for every place, every locale, and not allowing each place to exist as it is. In the United States, the Federal Government has been largely responsible for encouraging a perpetuation of suburban expansion through very socialist policies (wealth redistribution, public roadways, large scale zoning encouraged everywhere, etc).

In Portland and Seattle, two cities that pay far more federal taxes than they ever get back, suffer because of Federal Wealth Redistribution through roadway construction, welfare, and other notions. In reality, the cities would be much better off without the Federal intrusion into individual’s coffers and incomes. I’ll add more about this in a minute.

Now for Socialism at a Local Level

At a local level, in a city, socialism works. Why does it work? Easy, it is the way people behave in the first place. We are a social animal, and we work together to achieve larger cities, greater inventions, new thoughts, and expansion of the human experience!

In Seattle and Portland especially, the cities basically pay for their own infrastructure plus the surrounding areas infrastructure. That includes thousands of miles of roads and such that expand far past the edges of the city. That’s fine, and those roadways have existed and would exist without Federal intrusion. It’s because cities will work together for connections, just as they do within the city itself.

What would this give us? If we achieved this split among Federal, State, and Local Politics? What would happen if cities actually could keep 100%, or even just 60% or 90% of that revenue that flows out? Here are some thoughts about that…

1. Cities like Portland and Seattle would have even more extensive infrastructure (as they did 100 years ago, per capita, we’re pretty weak in the infrastructure department these days).
2. Portland and Seattle would have happier people, less cars, and more livability than they do (and they’re not doing bad as it is).

…or maybe I should say “oh for Portland’s sake!“

I live in Seattle these days. However, anyone that has ever read a blog entry or two on this blog probably knows the I also love Portland. Portland got me out to the northwest from the backwards and hellish heat of the southeastern US. Portland also is far more of a driving force in the northwest than many from other parts of the country may realize. They’d look at a map and probably think that Seattle would be more of a driving force.

I’ve come to find that this is not the case.

Don’t get me wrong. Seattle has lead the way in many progressive ways, but just walk down any major area in Seattle with decent livability and you’ll hear a recurring theme if you mention having lived in Portland for a while. I can tell you, 9 out of 10 people will almost swoon with a respect and love for what has been accomplished in the city of Portland. Rightly they should, a tremendous amount of progress has been made toward cleaning up that city in spite of the pitiful desecration that the “American Dream” had left it in. The city continues to make huge progress in biking, transit, livability, parks, financing (without printing money like our glorious Federal Government does), improving community outreach, community involvement, and to top it off the city has more restaurants, strip clubs, art walks, coffee shops, and library books in circulation per capita than any American City! Those are some serious bragging rights.

But that leaves me with a slight problem with all this swooning. Sure I love Portland pride (of all sorts) and am proud to have called it home (and still do to a large degree), but there is a problem when other places start doing nothing but swooning and imitating it! I have a simple request.

STOP!

Seattle has plenty to be proud for, I know Portland has great transit (or better, as most state to me when the topic of Portland comes up, and that is without me even saying I’m the Transit Sleuth guy…), I know it has all these projects and other things they’re doing to make it even more livable, even more fun, more enjoyable, more caffeinated, and even more bike, pedestrian, and human friendly. That’s great, but I want to hear about what Seattle is doing. I want to see Seattle moving forward. I want to hear about what Seattle is doing to keep up and stay competitive with Vancouver BC, Portland, and San Francisco even.

Seattle is a great city. Combine it with Tacoma, and you have a massive power house of a metropolitan area in the north west. The city is pushing forward with bike trails. Which it could do even more with. I think Seattle could be a leader in this realm! But alas, the last 4 discussions I’ve heard about bike trails or greenways end with “as discovered in Portland”… AAAAAHHHHH!!!

Then the transit question. Seattle should take this beast by the horns too. Stop doing half ass measures to barely keep the trolley buses running or a little sprinkling of a streetcar or light rail here or there. Stop mitigating by just allowing people to drive anyway, start allowing people to truly LIVE instead of just pushing the gas pedal and brake in that stop and go catastrophe called I-5. Seattle could lead in so many ways in this regard and has done a lot of work around this. Yet I hear unending stories from people in coffee shops, on the street, downtown, and in Pioneer Square about how the city is going to maybe get around to this or that by the time everyone who cares in 90, and our childrens’ children might get some benefit out of it. Then somebody usually swoons about how Portland already has 4 light rail lines and is working on their 5th (or as I like to call it, the extension of the yellow line south). Seattle should push aside the waitlist of Sound Transit and get King County Metro to move into the limelight with some SERIOUS efforts to bring light rail to Seattle proper (not just tossing it out of site and out of mind into the tunnel). I think some steam will be gathered with the First Hill Streetcar, but the city should really take the lead, brag about what IS being accomplished and keep up the pressure! Stop letting every story end with how bad ass Portland is. This is Seattle, people should talk about how bad ass it is when they’re here IN SEATTLE!

Anyway, I hope that something starts to trigger a serious change. I already do see a serious downtown (and west side) vs. east side pride. Again, something that I believe in. The cultural differences between the east side of Lake Washington and downtown (plus West Seattle) are HUGE! Seattle should be proud of its leadership and should continue that over the east side, there’s no chance they make any progress on that side anytime soon. Seattle is the cultural leader of this entire metropolitan area and the city should be proud of that.

I’ve got my fingers crossed, so let’s here some props for Seattle, and let’s move this forward.

This is one of the better ideas I’ve seen about the CRC / I-5 Bridge & Congestion Problem between Portland, Oregon and Vancouver, Washington. The respective DOTs need to pay attention and stop screwing around with that insanely stupid CRC idea. Most people hate it, and if they like it, they just haven’t thought about the better ideas very much. You’d have to have your head somewhere very uncomfortable to think the CRC – vastly expanded yet no additional throughput Interstate lanes – would actually help Portland or Vancouver.

This idea however, helps vastly more than just the theoretical. This idea helps the railroads, the drivers, the transit users, the river boats, and more.

<iframe src=”http://player.vimeo.com/video/22915646?title=0&amp;byline=0&amp;portrait=0″ width=”400″ height=”300″ frameborder=”0″></iframe><p><a href=”http://vimeo.com/22915646″>A Common Sense Alternative to the CRC</a> from <a href=”http://vimeo.com/user1572838″>Spencer Boomhower</a> on <a href=”http://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a>.</p>

This got me thinking about some of the awesome things going on in Seattle, Tacoma, and Portland. This year is the 10th anniversary of the Portland Streetcar. Tacoma is almost done with an additional stop on their streetcar line. Portland will open the east side line next year. Seattle is starting on their First Hill Streetcar, now, soon, it is kind of in the works. So the expansions, albeit slow by historical standards, continue onward! Overall, congratulations are due to the north west in general! This part of the country, to put it simply, kicks ass!