Electric Car Blues

Literally a Museum Piece

So, back in August, the Lovely Bride and I purchased an electric car. No, I haven't mentioned it before in this space. What, do you think I tell you EVERYTHING that's going on in my life?

The big reason for the purchase that the my 2001 Hybrid Insight, DOCBUNNY, was after 15 years of service, was on its last legs. The seats had been worn threadbare long ago, the radio was down to one speaker, the HVAC was spotty, there were some oil leaks with lash-up solutions, the transmission was getting mushy, and the hybrid battery was showing a sudden and shocking discharge rate, such that going up small hills could drain it completely. so the time had come to replace it.

After checking out a lot of vehicles online, we went for the sit test. We went to dealerships and sat in their cars. Test-drives were the second step of this but the big initial thing was whether I would be able to fit in the vehicle in the first place. While I am a bit wide, I can fit behind the wheel of most cars (Chevies in particular are a tight squeeze and off the table immediately), but I also have a long torso, so that for many cars, I cannot see out the front windscreen - the roof line drops down into my field of vision. Toyotas are like that, and so are the older Teslas (and I was not going to wait to see what was the case for new Teslas). We decided on a Kia Soul
Electric, blue with a white roof.

I'm a Soul Man.

And car purchasing is just as painful as it was fifteen years previous.Despite excellent credit, knowing exactly the car we wanted to purchase, and informing the dealership with 24 hours notice and filling out forms online, it was four hours of filling out forms, waiting for them to be processed, giving more information, waiting for THAT to be processed, checking options, agreeing to options that we didn't necessarily want but were on the car anyway (to be fair, the puddle lights have been rather nice), and then learning that the car that we had TOLD them the day before we wanted to purchase wasn't even at the lot (this was cheerfully reported as "We're preparing the car for you - it will be just a little while").

So, then, how is it? Well, it depends on what you're after. I am looking for a vehicle that will get me the 20-some miles up the Amazon and back to Panther Lake once a day, with the occasional side trip. It does that nicely But it does affect my ability to go to various locations in a single trip, so I'm finding myself planning more.

It is all about Ranger and Recharge: Range is how far you can go on a charge. The listed average range for the Soul is 90 miles. Tesla is talking about 300 miles with its new batteries, but they're still building them. Ninety miles is about 3 gallons of gas in a traditional car. So if you're not comfortable driving around with three gallons of gas, then you may want to wait for the future models,

Recharge is finding out where you need to go to get the charge back. The Soul came with a "trickle charger" which ran off house current but does so VERY SLOWLY. Such that you might not drain the battery to half and then not be able to regain the lost energy overnight, creating a deficit situation (plus by "overnight" I mean 12 hours, which means you bring the car home and let it sit.

This car magnet works on so
many different levels.

The Lovely Bride and I went the extra distance and installed a Stage II recharger, with the help of a state rebate plan. This brings me up to full charge in a couple hours, but it is STILL a couple hours. If you are on the road, you again have to plan for some downtime to recharge. Fortunately, my garage downtown has charging stations. Unfortunately, they just started charging for them. There is also a Stage III charger, which I have yet to use (the only one I know about is at the dealership), but then you are still at the mercy of the time it takes to recharge.

Let me add to that another challenge - cold is an enemy. The battery holds less of its charge during the cold weather. We have a spate of freezing weather in Seattle and the range plunged precipitously. Not that the weather has returned to typical Seattle winter (rainy and grey), the numbers have recovered, but it was a concern. This ALSO may mean you won't see as much of electrics in, say Chicago, for a while.

How does it perform? Nicely. There's no transmission, so it accelerates extremely quickly and smoothly. It is a bit boxy, but navigates and turns well. Downsides? Minor things like no CD player, so I had to download my books on tape and put it onto a USB drive. Oh, and the GPS is absolutely horrible. If you want to know at the traffic conditions an hour ago, it is more than suitable, but I found no traffic on roads that it claims are clogged and have been held stock still on patches of highway that are supposed to have clear traffic. But that's kinda minor.

Ah, yes, and the tire sensors are, in the terms of my mechanic, "sensitive", such that if they get even a little out of balance, a sigil lights up on your dash that is supposed to be a cross-section of a tire with an exclamation point but really looks like the Eye of Sauron atop Barad-Dur. I've had it go off three times so far, but to be fair, one of them was the result of picking up a nail and really needing a patch..

The thing I tell people is that having an electric car is like owning a horse. You can't ride it too long without giving it a rest. You have to water (well, recharge) it when get there. And you're always checking out other horses to see if their owners are having the same challenges.

More later,

DOW breaks 17000!

Well, that was fast.

Martin Luther King, Jr, paraphrasing Unitarian minister Theodore Parker, said "The arc of the Moral Universe is long, but it bends towards Justice."* The arc of Modern Wall Street is much, much shorter, but it too bends upwards towards a higher rate of return.

I mean, why the recovery, and so quickly? Greece is still as much a mess as it was back when we dipped into the 15000s a few weeks back. China's stock market is just a wobbly. Saudi Arabian investments are being reduced as they keep their oil prices low enough to close down the Dakota Oil Shale operations (successfully, as there are fleets of mobile homes now available on the cheap out there). Austerity hawks still circle despite the proven failure of that approach. Congress is just as dysfunctional, and all these lefty operations on the West Coast are raising wages and reaping low unemployment rates. Yet now we're back.

I believe, inherently, that we have trained certain markets to move inevitability, but not smoothly, upwards. The market is overheated because we are willing it to be, and the rise of various tech or housing or stock bubbles are a feature, not a bug, in the system. We talk about corrections, but until that point where we pitch ourselves into a full-bore, we-cannot-ignore-it, mile-wide-steamroller of a recession, the trend line is inevitably upwards.

My own gut check for economic health, by the way, is my commute. The worse it is, the better things are in general. And for the past week, traffic has really, really sucked, for reasons I cannot fully fathom. I think it may be tied with the shortening days, such that people who are used to rising with the first light suddenly are confronted with the fact that this first light is much later in the day. I may be tied to the return of school, which regiments when children have to get out the door, and as such puts an addition timer on the adults. But I do think that it is because we have crossed a threshold where the infrastructure itself is taxed by the increased load of the employed, who all, apparently want to get on the road at the same time I do.

But that's a just a theory. In the meantime, the DOW has restored itself, until the next correction.

More later,

* What Theodore Parker did say, nesting his semicolons neatly, was: "I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways; I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sigh; I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure its bends towards justice." which is a darn sight better than the current attitude of "Past behavior does not guarantee future performance"

Play: Love among the MFAs

Dear Elizabeth, but Sarah Ruhl, Directed by Allison Narver. Seattle Rep through 8 March.

I will get to the play in a moment, but let me whine (and whine way too much) about Seattle traffic. This is the first time I have ever been late for the theater, despite living some 20 miles south of the Seattle Center, where the Rep is based. Yet that particular day, I failed to make it before the door shut. I had to see the first act after the play had begun, in (duh-duh-DUM) late seating.

Here's the story: The Lovely Bride was busy in the city in the morning, practicing for a Tai Chi demo, and I told her I would meet her at the theater and bring the LB's mom up (who, I may have mentioned, is an actress). Given the fact that the LB's mom has just celebrated her 80th birthday, we left early to get there with plenty of time, and made it down off Panther Lake to the major highways by 1 PM for a 2 PM show.

So, 20 miles, an hour to do so, should be OK. What I did not know about was road work in the proverbial Mercer Mess, which is the exit that leads from the highway to the Seattle Center (a couple miles). The first warning was when there was a dead-stop backup a mile from the exit itself, at which point it was too late to change plans. Finally making the exit, one could only see a packed road leading ahead off to the horizon. It was that sort of treacherous mess where the lights turn green but no one moves because there is no place to move. A motor vehicle mosh pit.

I mention to the LB's mom that with a mess this bad, there HAS to be a police officer directed traffic at the other end. And indeed, after taking an alternate route that sent us back into the town, rejoining the backup at the very end, there were not one but THREE police officers directing traffic on Denny and doing their part to contribute to a forty-minute snarl between I-5 and the Space Needle.

We worked though the worst of it with (relative) patience and grace, and I manage to deliver the LB's mom at the theater with five full minutes to spare (huzzah). Then I find out that my usual parking lot, which normally is cheap and pretty darn empty, is today full, including a mobile crane. And that all parking was twenty bucks for some event of which I had no idea. AND the parking spot I eventually found was presided over by a machine that obvious served a very long and very hard life, and was bitter about it and moving with the speed similar to that of the Mercer Mess.

And then in the middle of it all, a Seattle moment. Which I was standing there waiting with several other would-be parons for the parking machine to decide if its electronic life was worth continuing, a Dixieland band came down the street. No, I'm not kidding. Bass drum mounted on the chest, some horns, a trombone, a clarinet or two, and a sousaphone (or maybe a fluegelhorn). They bounced there way down Mercer, hooked a right in front of the theater, and were gone. It was just something I never thought I would see in Seattle, and there it was. And it really took the edge off all the rush.

In any event, while I got the Lovely Bride's Mom to the theater in time, the doors were closed before I got there. I was given (duh-duh-DUM) late seating, which meant that I and a few others who had been caught in the Mess had to wait, hearing the play in low tones but like Tantalus, barred from actually witnessing it. Then we were parked in the balcony boxes for the first act, which in the Leo K theater were actually not that bad, though I lost a chunk of the stage that was stage right/house left. It is not a play that moved around a lot, so that worked out.

And while I cannot blame the theater for the traffic, I will note that there is a concierge function in their promotions, which has in the past reminded us that a play starts an hour early or some big event was happening. This time, not so much. So yeah, an email saying "MY GOD, it will be quicker for you to drive around the Sound and take the ferry in from Bainbridge!" would have been appreciated.

Anyway, what all this means is that I didn't get the opening of the play, and was forced to cross-examine the Lovely Bride at intermission about what I had missed. "I got there by the time he came up to Maine to see her." "OK, so when they were exchanging poems?" "I caught the reference to Celluloid Bird." "No, there was stuff before that." So I don't know how the two main characters met, which I feel is a wee bit of a problem when you want to evaluate their relationship.

More than enough whining. Dear Elizabeth is a presentation of the correspondence between Elizabeth Bishop (played by Suzanne Bouchard, and it is nice to actually see actors onstage at the Rep who have been there before), and Robert Lowell (Stephen Barker Turner, his hair in the continual upsweep of a man who often combs it with his hand in moments of frustration). Now, about 85% of the readers here will say WHO?. And that's part of the prob. These two are noted postwar poets, and the story talks about their long distance, mostly platonic relationship between 1947 and 1977.

And in many ways it is like attending someone else's high school reunion. I am not a poet and find poetry one of the harder things to get through - I find myself lulled by cadence and stop I paying attention to the words.. [Important digression however - one poet I particular like is Lester Smith, who has the benefit of being both very good and still alive. Lester's stuff I can read all day, though I would be hard-pressed to categorize him as either "raw" or "cooked" (which is a Lowell quote). But back to the play.] I don't know either of Bishop or Lowell or their work, and instead of the play opening new doors for me I found myself at the wrong booth in the cafe, overhearing things I know about only tangentially at best.

So, Ruhl has compressed the written correspondence into a dialog, filled with starts and stops and parts of life - marriage and lovers and suicides both potential and realized and stays in the mental hospital. And mixed with it are bits they are working on, ranging from getting published to reviewing other works. And as a word-cruncher by trade, the concept of fretting about the perfect choice of a phrase for weeks at a time seems like an alien concept. I fret about the right words,but I live in a world where deadlines loom like ogres with clubs, just waiting to pick off the slow ones.

And through it all, I was stunned by the idea that these folk are poets, yet get to go to Europe and Brazil. How the heck does that work, financially? Checking the wiki (the play gives us little clue) part of it is through teaching and grants, but also Lowell is listed in the wikipedia as being a Boston Brahmin (which means money in the family) while Bishop is mentioned as having an inheritance. Still, their presence in the greater world seems to not matter as they fight with their own creations, which in turn are mentioned only in passing.

That may be the biggest problem with this play - I'm not sure if it about the authors' work or their struggle or just a very polite relationship. It shows an affection between the two but doesn't really engage. Passions reserved for the work, which, like polite children, remain offstage. The closest thing to a conflict is case where Lowell converts his second wife's correspondence into a series of poems, which Bishop finds scandalous, which is very meta since Ruhl is turning THEIR correspondence into a play.

The actors are just fine, but the play itself is pretty flaccid, neither raw nor fully cooked. I cross-examined the Lovely B and the LB's Mom for further enlightenment, in case there was a central thesis put forth early on that I missed, but no, there was no early statement apparently that bound it all together. It was what it was, and getting there on time was no rescue.

Would I recommend it? Let me damn it by saying that if you like this sort of stuff (as in "the lives of post-war poets"), then you will like the play. After three strong courses of LBJ and August Wilson, anything would be a let-down, but this one made me wonder where that Dixieland band was heading.

More later.

The Political Desk Takes the Bus

So, this A to Z challenge thing takes a break on Sunday, so I can take the day off and not upda... what's this in my mailbox? A ballot? In freaking April? Really? How do they expect me to be a good civic citizen in bloody APRIL?

OK, everyone who doesn't live in King County can leave the room (everyone except like five people shuffle out). For the rest of us, here's the deal - King County Proposition No. 1, Sales and Use Tax and Vehicle Fee for Transportation Improvements authorizes an increase of 0.1% sales and use tax, and hiking our vehicle tabs to $60 bucks per year.

The cash raised would be used to fund the Metro and Mass Transit, with about 40% of the cash used for road improvements (as anyone who drives in the area can attest, a needed thing). And the car tabs go up to 60 bucks from a temporary 40 buck price tag that now has to be rolled back due to the bill that created IT is sunsetting.

Still, that's pretty steep, and you may wonder where the state is with all this. Unfortunately, the State Senate is in the hands of a "Coalition Majority" of every Republican and a couple no-longer-really Democrats who have managed to stall any developments (as well as funding for K-12 Education) in the name of saving cash. Part of this is typical Republican parsimony, but another factor is that the hinterlands see any spending in the cities as a threat to the largess that rains down upon their agrarian districts from Olympia, funding improvements that benefit fives if not tens of rural voters. Despite this lack of legislative progress, I got a Facebook post from a Republican State Rep about how proud they were to have wrapped up the session without having to go to a special session, which akin to an MMO publisher being proud of their game going live with half the features still uninstalled.

And its not like public transportation hasn't worked to avoid this stage of things, raising fares (done), cutting service (done), maximizing existing routes (done), freezing wages (done), and reducing overhead (done). They have not cut to the bone, but pretty soon they are going to have to start throwing away tibias.

Let me be honest with you - I'm not a bus user. The nearest bus stop is about three-quarters of a mile away over a rough country populated by wolves and ravens. I wouldn't know an ORCA card if it bit me on the back bumper. And in the month of April, as the Lovely Bride works through the tax forms, the LAST thing that is on my mind is giving the Gummint any more money, regardless of situation. But I'm supporting this for one good reason.

My commute is fairly crappy.

And it is only FAIRLY crappy. The end of the Great Recession has put a lot of people back to work, and King County is recovering better than most (actually, we're kinda booming). Which means people are getting jobs. Which means they are driving to work. And for some reason, whenever I leave the house to go to the office (and, working for a computer game company, this is NOT at the crack of dawn), it seems that EVERYONE ELSE is also trying to get to work at the same time. And I'm not even heading for Seattle. The 405 is clotted, and all the arterial routes have also coagulated. When you have lake on one side and mountains on the other, your options are pretty limited.

So the one thing I DON'T want to see is some 30,000 more users trying to crowd onto my broadband. At that point the traffic moves to regularly paralyzed and I'm listening to a lot more lectures on tape (right now, it's A Culinary History of Food). Mass transit works well for centralized areas (like, say downtown Kent), and if I can make it easier for others to use the bus, I think that's a win for me. So, for purely personal reasons, I'm going to say YES on this matter, to encourage you to do the same, and to get your ballot in (because its APRIL, and no one else is thinking about voting).

Here are some other views. For a foul-mouthed and vicious support of the measure, I can always turn to the Stranger. For a sonorous, ill-informed view from people who have personal drivers to worry about handling that traffic stuff, here's the Seattle Times. Amusingly, the Times editorial board declares that Now Is Not The Time to have this discussion, while their columnist Ron Judd (the only reason to read page 3 of the Sunday newspaper) excoriates politicians who hide behind the Now Is Not The Time excuse to avoid taking action (You'd they'd co-ordinate better on message, but actually, this is one of things I LIKE about the Times). Oh, and the Stranger of course takes the Times to task for getting stuff wrong.

Yes, it's transit (well, some roadbuilding as well, but mostly transit). Yes, it's taxes. Yes, its freakin' APRIL. But vote Yes on the Proposition. And we can get back to the discussion of alphabetized fantasy worlds.

More later,

About that Bridge

So, last week, you may have heard, part of a bridge fell down north of here. Bridges fall down all the time here in these United States, but this one held some import, since it was on the main and only big highway along the West Coast leading to Canada. Here's some fallout:

- The great news is that no one died. The guy in the truck that clipped the bridge pulled over immediately. Two cars went in, and three people were rescued, one briefly hospitalized. Part of the reason for the lack of fatalities is that the Skagit river is very shallow at this point  (though bitter cold, coming directly off the snowpack).

The bridge (lower left) in ancient, more intact times.

- The bridge worked the way it was supposed to. I know that sounds weird, looking at the fact that its southernmost chunk of it is resting comfortably on the river bed. But the idea was that when it failed, it was supposed to fail in that fashion, Further study may reveal additional problems, but the idea is that one span falls down and leave the others intact. The big danger when this went up was not so much oversized trucks, but earthquakes in the soft earth of the floodplain.

- The bridge was completed in 1955, which makes it only slightly older than I am. Some days, it feels like the bridge is in better shape, but I haven't been hit by as many trucks.

- One thing that I've noticed here, and earlier in the Boston bombing attack, is that we, as a people, are good with having cameras running all the time. About ten years ago a friend and I went to lunch and got into the subject of surveillance society, and I pointed out that we had been on camera about five times since we had left my office. That same route would probably be twice that now. In the wake of any event, people want the primary evidence that a running camera provides.

- Probably because no one was seriously injured, The Washington State Department of Traffic shows a bit of the Pacific Northwest sense of humor in their Facebook page:

As you may have noticed the detour route near the Skagit River keeps changing as we try to make sure people can get past this bridge on roads that weren't meant for as much traffic as we are seeing now. Be sure to check our website before you head out. Expect to add at least an hour to your trip time if you are going that way, or even better plan to stop by one of the local businesses and have lunch on your way through. Don't forget that Amtrak Cascades is also a fantastic option to get through the area and around the detour.

There might be another possibility of a detour route, we are still working to adjust the ramp to just the right height (and just try to get that song out of your head). 
There might be another possibility of a detour route, we are still working to adjust the ramp to just the right height (and just try to get that song out of your head). 

Yes. WSDOT did post this.

 Credit to Mark Nesteroff, twitter user @proudestmonkey3 for the source of this photo.

- Unfortunately, despite WSDOT's recommendation, people are not stopping at the local businesses. It will impact the rest of the state as well. I-5 North is one of three major highway routes into Seattle - the others being I-5 South to Portland and I-90 over the Cascades (which gets closed when we have heavy snowfall). I-5 South crosses the Columbia at the Columbia River Interstate Bridge, which if anything is in worse shape than the Skagit bridget. Now we have rail and a deep port, but it would be easy to seal off Seattle from car traffic fairly easily (as opposed to, say, Gotham City in Dark Knight Rises).

Mean meme. Accurate, but mean.

- Despite the vulnerability to our economy, our austerity-prone conservatives are quickly out in force, arguing that, just because our bridges are falling down, that's no reason to actually spend money to FIX them (unless, apparently, that money comes out of the pockets of mass transit or other things they don't like). Tim Eyman, known to locals for his industrious initiatives intent on keeping government from actually doing anything, sees it as one more way to support his own hobby horse:

"Is the Democrats' first priority to investigate to learn what actually happened so they can initiate a fact-based, measured response? Of course not. Instead, they're ghoulishly, crassly, exploitatively, and predictably demanding the Legislature unilaterally raise taxes $8.4 billion -- without a vote of the people"

- Of course, a functioning government can do both, and it seems that WSDOT is well on its way with its investigation. Not that it will stop Mr. Eyman from thumbing through his thesaurus to find for epithets to hurl at people who actually want to fix the problem.

- And finally, and most importantly - Skagit rhymes with Badge-it, not Bag-it. 

More later,

Cop Spotting

So after a recent traffic ticket (no, I didn't mention it here - jeez, I don't have to tell you guys EVERYTHING, do I?) I found myself sensitized to the local police presence. Hyper-sensitized. To the point of wondering "Wow, do I see cops EVERY day?". So piqued, I spent most of January keeping a notebook in the car, and every time I saw I cop, I wrote it down (once I had reached a safe and convenient spot) where I had seen the officer, what branch the officer belonged to, and what he or she was doing at the time.

I quickly found I had to develop a bunch of ground rules:

• I would count by instances, not numbers of police vehicles. Four cops responding to a call in the International District would count as one, not four.
• I would only count vehicles, not officers. Foot patrolmen got a pass. Motorcycles, police vans, and those dinky little parking vehicles the Seattle cops used all counted.
• No fair counting cops parked at police stations. Ditto fire stations and city halls. That's just cheating.
• Similarly, no counting officers in my living room or at my dining room table (Hi, Dave!). That's cheaty as well.
• Wreckers, fire trucks, emergency vehicles and anything else that has bubble dome lights is a count for another day. 
• Only count as IDed it you can figure out what branch they belong to. Most of my unidentifieds are motorcycles, since they are hard to pull out affiliation as you drive past them.

I ran this for the first four weeks of January. My normal commute is down Benson and Talbot to Renton, then north to Bellevue either by I 405 or back roads, depending on crowds. Once a week I would drive to Federal Way for comics, and once a week I would drive downtown to the ID for Tai Chi. Upon looking at the notes, I saw that I rarely traveled on weekends, staying home to work, and though I would get out to play games with friends, I did not rack up enough instances to really rate them, so I'm taking Sunday and Saturday off the table.

So what did I end up with? Here's the summary - 47 sightings over 20 days. That's over two, nearly two and half police encounters a day. Let me did into the tables a bit:

Day	Numbers
Monday	04
Tuesday	08
Wednesday	17
Thursday	06
Friday	12

Note - Wednesday gets the big number here, but that makes sense because it is the day I'm doing Tai Chi downtown and getting comics. More travel = more sightings. But Friday is not out of the ordinary as far as travel but gets a higher number, while Monday is the slowest day. So if you're going to violate traffic laws in the Renton and Bellevue areas (which this blog does NOT endorse), Monday is your best day.

Location	Numbers
I-405	14
Bellevue	09
Downtown	06
Benson/Talbot	10
I-5	03
Lake Washington Blvd	03
Auburn Way	02

There is a surprise there, but one I did not expect. Lake Washington Blvd. is a noted speed trap for drivers who are avoiding I-405, the main artery between Renton and Bellevue, but it pales compared to local cops in Bellevue proper, or along Benson and Talbot, which seems to be a new hotspot in the evenings for squad cars.

Affiliation	Numbers
State Police	06
Bellevue Police	09
Seattle Police	05
King County Police	03
Renton Police	11
Other	03
Unidentified	10

So we have here an embarrassment of riches for the various departments keeping an eye on the streets. Renton and Bellevue have the lion's share, which is to be expected. Most of the Unknowns are, as noted, motorcycles. The others are New Castle, Redmond, and Auburn, but oddly enough, nothing from Kent, where I currently live.

Activity	Numbers
Patrol	29
Responding	05
Ticketing	07
Parked	02
Accident	02
Breakdown	01
Unoccupied	01

The vast majority of the cops were in motion from one place to another for reasons unshared with me (my lone Redmond cop I picked up in Bellevue and followed all the way to Federal Way). Responding was in motion with the lights flashing. Tickets, Accidents, and Breakdowns were all pretty obvious. Parked is a none-of-the-above situation, where they COULD be waiting for the unwary, but I have no proof that they were not reporting in, doing paperwork, or just keeping the speed limit down by their presence.

So did I learn anything (besides the fact that there is probably a better way to do tables on Blogger)? Just a bit. The sample size is still pretty small, but it shows that there are likely heavy and light days in rotation, that the bulk of the police seen are in motion, and that supposed legendary speed traps were not, and new ones may be opening up. If anything, this type of activity needs more spotters and a more cohesive way to manipulate the data. In short, enough with the long-hand calculations - there's gotta be an app for all this.

Next up? Sketchy research on why there's never an officer when you need one.

More later,

On The Road Again: Wilburton Redux

So long ago and far away, I talked about the demise of the Wilburton Tunnel in Bellevue, just north of the concrete tangle where I-405 meets I-90. The reason for the removal was more lanes and better traffic flow, but it hasn't worked out that way.

Let me lay out the current situation. If you're coming southbound on I-405, you have for a brief stretch six lanes of traffic. Left to right, they are:
 - Lane 1: An HOV lane continuing south on 405
 - Lanes 2 and 3: Regular occupancy lanes continuing south on 405
 - Lane 4: Regular occupancy lane that becomes an exit to I-90 East (towards Spokane and, legends have it, Chicago).
 - Lane 5: Regular occupancy lane that becomes an exit to I-90 West (towards Seattle), And ...
 - Lane 6: An HOV lane that joins the HOV lane on I-90 West.

Got that in your mind? Good. Now, getting on the highway from 8th, the southernmost of the Bellevue exits, after you merge, you're in Lane 5. If you want to head south to, say, Renton, you have to get to Lane 3. And with all these lanes, you should be able to easily, right?

But, ah, there's the rub. There is apparently something wrong with the entrance on I-90 East, where Lane 4 enters onto the highway. Something so wrong that the traffic backs up onto I-405 South, and forms a Wall of Internal Combustion (which is an old Magic: The Gathering card) between Lanes 3 and 5. Which means that everyone has to negotiate the changeovers between the lanes, slowing down traffic in those adjacent lanes as well. Add to that people from lanes 2 and 3 trying to get over to lanes 4 and 5, and the HOVs in Lane 1 trying to exit, and you have an unholy mess, as nasty as it was when we had only four lanes and a big concrete tunnel in the way.

Yeah, they will have to address this one, but it reminds me that working on highways is like doing the plumbing in an old house. Yeah, you may replace the leaky pipes in one area, but the change in pressure will spring the seams in a dozen more places.

More later,

On The Road Again: The Ticket II

Heckuva a way to start a week.

I got a ticket this morning. Let me spare you the drama by saying I was, um, guilty of the charge (more on that later). But what cheeses me off is not the fact that the officer was professional, personable, and younger than me, but that it blows my regular rhythm of a ticket every four years or so. Worse yet, it happens in the same neck of the woods as my LAST ticket.

OK, I've mentioned that I often use Lake Washington Blvd instead of I-5 heading north. It is calmer, more scenic, and often faster than the main drag. And, according to the highway department, perfectly cool, as long as you obey local laws. So I keep my speed down, my eyes open, and, after my previous experience, make full stops.

But Lake Washington Blvd parallels the rail line, and trains have right of way. So when a train carrying at least three airplane fuselages pulls into the crossing, I come to a stop and wait for it to pass.

And then the train stops in the crossing, blocking traffic.

I'm sitting there, and a number of cars start pulling to the left, using the Gene Coulon Park access roads as a way to get around the train. I wait for maybe thirty seconds, then follow them.

This, it turns out, is illegal - the official term is "Avoiding an Intersection". The roads in Gene Coulon are not real roads (that is, public thoroughfares) but rather access to the park, and using them to get around an obstruction is like cutting through a corner gas station to avoid a light.

Anyway, the people who cut AHEAD of me got away with it, but by the time I got around the blockage, there was a motorcycle officer who pulled me and another car off to the side. And I had to do the parking perp walk, though he gave me a municipal citation as opposed to something that would ding my insurance (which, I suppose, is something). And the fine, which stings enough to make me think twice about pulling this type of stunt again, is not excessive.

But it does leave me cranky this fine Monday morning.

More later,

The Viaduct Monologues

I think I mentioned that I’ve mellowed on the Seattle Viaduct. Yeah, the relic of the 50s has to be replaced, if for no other reason than a portion may come down in a heavy shake, but I have a hard time rustling up the venom against it. I don’t think its particularly ugly, nor does it block much of the waterfront (the hills rise right behind it). In its time, Seattle has moved from a working waterfront in that patch to more of a tourists digs - aquarium, restaurants, nice shops, and the parking beneath the viaduct made those locations more accessible.

So it was a shrug and a nod that I heard that the various ideas being pitched were reduced to two – a surface street option and new elevated structure. Either one works, but they do two different things, and that’s what the battle has really been about.

The surface street option is all about moving traffic inside the city. A lot of intersections, a lot of choices, but not a lot of speed. Mind you, I’ve driven through downtown Seattle, particularly when my goal is the Seattle Center and the Mercer Mess has I-5 tied up in knots. And while the lights are nicely timed, the continual traffic from all sides (people turning off side streets, street parking, pedestrians, driveways, all manner of drop-offs and pick-ups) makes the experience a cross between a highway safety film and the car chase from Bullitt.

The elevated idea is all getting traffic PAST Seattle. The city itself is located on a thin neck of land between Lake Washington and the Sound, and the two main thoroughfares through are SR-99 (The viaduct) and I-90 (which for reasons known but to the gods goes from 5 lanes to 1 ½ at one point). If I’m going north of the city, I’d prefer to use the viaduct as opposed to slogging through the street grid.

So suddenly the city, county, and state have announced a compromise – a tunnel. Whathehey? How is a tunnel a compromise between a street and an elevated? Well, it’s a compromise in that it does both things. The viaduct is replaced with the surface street option, while the tunnel takes the traffic intended to go THROUGH the city and pitching it cleanly out the other side. So the plan is really doing both.

And the current design answers my main concern about a waterfront tunnel (namely, that the land there is mostly fill to begin with, and any shake good enough to bring down the present viaduct would play hobbs with an underground. The tunnel concept sweeps inward to (slightly) more stable soil.

And it is not like we should be allergic to tunnels – we punched one through for the Light Rail System without a lot of hand-wringing or supplemental damage. Though I am leery of the idea that a tunnel should be easier since tunnel tech has improved in the ten years they’ve been arguing about it. With that logic, we should argue about viaduct replacement for another ten, because by that time the stargate tech should be coming on line (And here’s my thought on that – not going to happen).

No, the final argument will be the price, and while they’ve already got some funding lined up and good arguments for public works projects to patch the economy, I’m a little unclear on the idea of who’s going to pay for the durned thing. Seattlites will balk because the line will go through Seattle without even touching the sides. King County and State folk might bridle at the idea of funding a excavation with no immediate use for clearing THEIR streets. And tolls? Well, that may be a good, solid idea, but might shift some of your traffic right back onto the I-90 that is overloaded.

As for me? I’m back to being a bit mixed about the whole thing. A tunnel sounds like an awful lot of cash at a time when we’re trying to keep schools open, but something’s gotta happen before viaduct itself comes down and forces our hands. I’m dubious about the rah-rah state of the times in supporting it, and similarly doubtful about the claims from the anti-camp. So color me mixed, but I know I’m going to miss the old girl when they finally take her down.

More later,

On the Road Again: Carmas

Ah, it is the end of Carmas, and with tomorrow, things get back to normal.

Carmas, also called Komuterwanza or Traffichaunaka, is a the longest traffic holiday of the year. It consists of removing drivers from the roads during peak hours by the fact that many people take a few days off around the holidays between Christmas and New Years. This is particularly true when those holidays fall mid-week, so there are bits of the work week left over at either end. Nothing is really going to get anyway, since other people will be out anyway.

The result is fewer cars on the road, a gift to everyone who showed up for work anyway. The trip to Bellevue, normally a half-hour to forty minute slog, comes out to a twenty minute jaunt. And I can use the highway! I'm just amazed. Plus, with the recent inclement weather, it extended far beyond the normal two weeks, edging into mid-December and now into the first week of January.

Tomorrow everything gets back to normal, and everything slips back into the normal grind until Easter or so. But for the moment, it was a brilliant, shiny gift.

More later,

Whither, Viaduct?

So, if you like traffic porn, here is the site for you - Eight different scenarios under consideration for replacement of the SR 99 Viaduct and Seawall along the Seattle waterfront.

I've mellowed about the viaduct over the past few years. In the wake of the Nisqually Quake, my attitude was we need to replace it now, darn it, and with something that won't fall over! Since them (with a fortunate lack of calamities (touch wood)), I have moderated my view.

First off, I don't think that the current viaduct is an eyesore. No, I'm serious. From out on the sound, coming in by ferry, it has a model-car track feels. And it keeps the city from spilling all the way to the shore. It doesn't block a whole bunch of "sound views" since the city climbs up the hill from that point, giving great views ABOVE the road line. In fact, if we build more structures on the remains of Alaskan Way, then more views will be lost that are currently there.

Plus some of the best views in the city come from the viaduct itself, which actually encourages me to use it. Just saying.

The current elevated structure also provides a needed commodity downtown - parking. Not only does the shadow of the viaduct provide (relatively)cheap parking, but also the location for small retailers that would have no place in a heavily mauled/malled main street. Small art galleries and places that sell Doc Martens and real grinding skate stuff. I'm just surprised that there isn't a comic book shop down there. All of that - small shops and warehouses and parking, all go away (And may go away regardless of the choices - sigh - but whatever choice is made needs to replace lost public parking).

And looking at these proposals, I think that the big question in my mind is - what is the purpose of the SR 99 corridor? If it is to feed the downtown district, a surface street option makes sense, with the note that this will increase traffic flow through not only these streets but the other north/south roads as well.

I, at the moment, favor the idea that the purpose of the viaduct is not to get people INTO Seattle, but rather to get the PAST Seattle. To facilitate the northern suburbs to get to SeaTac and the southern ones to get to Everett. The exit off the current viaduct in midtown just drives me crazy, and I don't feel we should keep that particular error should we decide that the viaduct is to get us past the city.

So I can grove behind an elevated replacement, with a lidded trench as a second choice. The surface street options make me raise an eyebrow, and I think that full-bore (heh) tunnel may be a bit risky below the water level (remember, this area is mostly fill over the years - the fact that it is a structural nightmare is born out by the state of the current viaduct).

But it does look like a cool gathering of options (and includes changes to I-5 and the Mercer Mess, so take a look.

More later,

Placemat Maze in My Mind

Q: Jeff lives in Renton and works in Bellevue. Can you get him to work without hitting a mind-numbing Construction Jam?

A: NO, you can't!

Wilburton

I interrupt our death-march through the Voter's Guide (up next! Attorney General!) to sadly report that the the Internet, it has failed me.

This weekend, and for the next two weekends, southbound 405 will be completely shut down as they demolish the Wilburton Tunnel.

I know what you're thinking - 405 has a tunnel? Well, its more of a train overpass for the the old Burlington Northern/Santa Fe line which hugs the eastern edge of Lake Washington, crosses the highway over this bunkerish tunnel, then passes underneath the northbound lane, then flies across a valley on the Wilburton Trestle, a beautiful, almost model-railroad sort of bridge.

But I can't find out when the Wilburton Tunnel was built, from sources on the net, nor much about the history of this vital artery. I THINK the original 405 passed through the Wilburton tunnel both ways, then the northbound lane was added later, but I can't find out when this happened.

I CAN find out that the Wilburton Trestle was first built to cross an arm of Lake Washington over a hundred years ago, a reminder that the lake was once eight feet higher before the ship canal was punched through, and that the land my office stands on was once underwater.

But on the tunnel itself? Nothing on the net other than numerous reminders that no one should head south out of Bellevue for the rest of August. And nothing about who Wilburton was in the first place.

The edge of the Internet. I have found it at last.

More later,

Update: The net may fail, but netizens are always on alert. In this case Stan! came through with some bits a pieces. this article says the tunnel is 36 years old, which puts its construction in 1972 (the closest I found was a Bellevue history site that only alluded to the idea that I-405 started to "take shape" in 1962).

Stan! also found that the Wilberton trestle and tunnel shared a name with a lumber mill, and that trestle, tunnel, mill and surrounding community took the name from the Wilbur and England logging camp, a boomtown established in 1900. The mill closed in 1918 in part due to the fact that Lake Washington had receded.

Thanks, Stan!

Road Trip

If I am ever kidnapped, I want you to know that this is how it would happen:

A couple days ago, I was leaving the house for a small errand - buying my mother a birthday card. I get in the car and pull out to the end of my driveway and wait for an oncoming car to pass.

But the oncoming car does not pass. Instead it pulls over right in front of me, and an elderly Asian man jumps out, with a piece of paper in his hand.

Not knowing any better, I get out of my car.

He's lost. He's looking for an address. I look at the address - it is one street north of here, but in the 5600 block, about five miles to the west (Much of Seattle is laid out in a reasonably-understood grid). I inform him that he has to go west, down off the hill, across the highway, and maybe across the Green River.

"You show me, please," he says, giving me an appreciative squeeze on the shoulder, and runs back to his vehicle.

Mind you, my original intent was to drive the four blocks to a card shop, not to drive five miles through traffic to look for a mysterious address. And yet I do it. It makes more sense to help than to come up with a lame excuse not to.

At the first light, the guy (his name is Mr. Cho) jumps out of his vehicle again and gives me the note so I know the exact address. I come down off the hill, cross the highway, and almost reach the Green River. The address is in the light industrial area of northern Kent, a maze of tangled streets. I get lost. I have to ask for directions. Mr Cho follows, his faith in my ability unaltered. At last I find it.

Mr Cho is happy, though place is closed, "I need to know where it is," he says, "I live about three blocks that way" he adds with a smile. And he leaves and I am left to find my way back to the card store. He was a nice guy, and he took me on a little adventure.

Now, I have noted before that I have the words "Talk to Me" written on my forehead, and have been hit up for directions and aid at odd moments by a variety of people. I also know that these words are readable in French and German. But for the first time, I found out that they were also carved there in Chinese, and can be seen from a distance of a quarter mile while sitting in my car. Such seems to be my fate.

But if I ever go mysteriously missing, it's because someone asked me to find an address for them in Australia, and asked if I would take them there. And I didn't think twice before saying yes.

More later.

More from the Flood

Yeah, I'm going to keep coming back to this. As well as back to the writer's strike as well. It is one of the strengths of blogging is that you can pick your subjects and stay with them as long as you choose to. Me, I'm still concerned about the effects Katrina has had on the Gulf Coast, including such locations as Biloxi, which has pretty much slid off the radar while New Orleans, hardly in a better position, gets the media attention (if not much in the way of better treatment).

Anyway, the flood from a few weeks back. While I noted that we were pretty safe up on the hill, down in the Renton Valley things were a tad bit dicier. Most of the localized flooding we got was the result of storm sewers being clogged up by debris and massive rains, but it was still pretty impressive. These filmmakers got some good shots outside of the local IKEA, where the road was overwhelmed (and the businesses were slightly higher up. (And here's a clip of Snoqualmie Falls - known best for the site of the hotel in "Twin Peaks").

Also, down in the Chehalis area, the Seattle Times is reporting that Weyerhauser, the big lumber operation, is re-examining its policies, seeing how it clearcut a bunch of hillsides that were officially too steep, but for which they got permission after a company geologist vouched that they was safe. Now that a good chunk of those hillsides have washed into downtown Centralia, they're having second thoughts about the wisdom of that move (and the geologist who gave the thumb's-up should be relocated to Phoenix by now).

And lastly, the flood did have an effect on my local commute. Part of I-405, the chunk between routes 167 and 169, was severely undercut by a sinkhole (yeah,, you heard right, a sinkhole and requires emergency repairs. Said repairs involve lane closures and are definitely screwing up the daily transportation, mainly because travel options are relatively infinite for the chunk of land between the foothills and the lake. The Times takes due notice, then goes back to campaigning for more coolness for I-520. Ah, well.

More later,


More later,

On The Road Again: Scramble

Shorter Danny Westneat:

"I don't live in Renton, and neither should you."

Watching the local political and media landscape heave and buckle in the wake of the defeat of the unified road/transit proposition has been illuminating and educational, if nothing else. It seems to have broken down into "Never mind the bollocks, fix my roads first". The rail folk are convinced that a rail-only proposal will sail past the electorate without problems, while the pave-to-the-grave crowd is banging the drum loudly about how everything is going to hell unless we replace everything, immediately, and damned to the consequences.

Case in point, the Seattle Times, which used its bully pulpit to campaign longly and loudly against Prop 1, but upon its defeat has been whining equally loudly about the dire state of the 520 bridge and how (horrors!) it might become a toll bridge in order to pay for its replacement. Surely there must be an easier solution that doesn't involve people using the service paying for it, isn't there?

Hence the Westneat column. Why, there's money right OVER THERE, being used for widening the I-405 (which, as readers know, is stressed out for most of the day, and with the growing success of Renton and Bellvue, is only going to get worse). We approved that cash five years ago, and now we're in desperate danger of actually DOING something with it. Quick! Let's rob from the South to fix our immediate problem!

The funny thing is, that Westneat leads off the column with a note about how no one thinks about the (more dangerous of falling down) viaduct anymore, and then proceeds to (you guessed it) ignore the viaduct in order to push the absolute necessity of replacing and upgrading this critical link for the North-of-Seattle to North-of-Belluve commute.

Sorry, Times. Go find your own revenue stream. The 405 expansion is necessary for the very growth that your Business section rah-rahs about (you guys should chat). Maybe you should embrace the idea of tolls, or (shudder) actually man up and raise licensing fees in order to pay for necessary repairs delayed by a penny-wise, pound-foolish approach to taxation.

Not to say that the 520 is not in need. It is, but ripping off Peter to pay Paul is not the way to do it, and fragments the taxpaying public further in what they consider to be "necessary repairs"

More later,

Update: It turns out (thank you Wikipedia) that the 520 WAS originally a toll bridge (those wide areas at the ends used as bus stops were originally where the toll booths were). Gee, I wonder why we moved away from THAT idea.

Update Update: Long-time Seattle resident Larry writes: "520's toll was IIRC, 35 cents, and once the bridge was paid for, it went down to 10 cents! Shortly after I started to drive, they took it down since it cost more to collect the toll, than the amount they were bringing in. The toll booths used to back up quite a ways during rush hour. Of course, it probably backs up much longer now! :)"

On The Road Again: The Ticket

On a Monday, I was arrested
On a Tuesday, I was locked up in jail
On a Wednesday, my trial was attested
On a Thursday, nobody would go my bail
-- Huddie (Leadbelly) Ledbetter

So I've been a little miserable for the past 24 hours, because I got a massive ticket. But I'm much better now.

Here's the story - the Renton police are heavily patrolling Kennydale neighborhood along Lake Washington Boulevard, which is a common alternate route because 405, as readers of this blog know, is an absolute crapfest. And yesterday morning, I saw a cop in a prowl car pull over a driver going the other direction.

And feeling glad that it wasn't me, I proceeded to California Stop the next stop sign, and the cop on the motor scooter wheeled out behind him and pulled me over. Busted.

(California Stop is also called a rolling stop . Yeah, you do it. You slow at the intersection, look both ways, and the gun it, the sudden speed making it feel like, in comparison, you made a real stop. Well, I did that, but did not happen to see the cop on the motor scooter, which sort of points out the weakness of this tactic).

And the cop pulls me over and is firm but friendly and asks me what I was thinking when I obviously violated the law and could I hand over my license, proof of ownership, and most current proof of insurance. I gave him the info and he went back to his scooter to check me out.

He came back much firmer and a little less friendly. The insurance card was expired. I said "no problem, I probably have the right one here," He stopped me and informed me that he had already written out the citation, which was an OFFICIAL COURT DOCUMENT (he said that a couple times, so it stuck), for me driving without insurance, but pointed out the number and the address on the form for the local traffic court and that I could get it knocked down if I presented proper documentation to THEM.

And through it all, I was in that creepy, kafkaesque limbo along the side of the road. The parking perp walk, where YOU are hauled off to the side, and all the OTHER traffic is moving past you, smirking that its not THEM. And you're stuck watching them, and seeing them do the self-same California Stop you were busted for.

Anyway, the moving violation was waived for the lack of insurance charge, and to prove otherwise I had to go to the court building sometime in the next 15 days to clear things up. So I'm not feeling my best, and when I see that the fine is listed a "550" I'm thinking the officer has bad handwriting, and meant to write
"$55.00", which is a bit much, but makes it worthwhile to go in and get reduced.

So I get the office (fully stopping at all stop signs)and call the number, and a cheerful young woman says, yes, you can get it knocked down if you bring in the right insurance document (which I had but failed to present when asked for) and pay a fee (not a fine) of $25. Oh, and the officer didn't have bad handwriting - the fine for driving without insurance was $550.

$550.

Which of course makes it well worth coming in. So I went down immediately, only to discover that "next fifteen days" meant "next fifteen days, but AFTER the paperwork cleared". So with dejection I spent most of the day is a cranky mood with a $550 bill hanging over my head.

And while I would love to spin this into a long story showing the horrible nature of bureaucracy and the poor common man caught in its vicelike grip, here's what really happened: On Tuesday I stopped in and paid the fee and got it cleared up. So the end result is that I spent a bit more time, but ducked a moving violation, and paid a small fee for doing not one but TWO stupid things in quick succession. Which really isn't that bad, justice-wise.

So the moral here?
- Make complete stops.
- Have your insurance Info handy.
- Make sure it is the right stuff. The officer stressed he wanted the most up-to-date info, and was in a "no-take-backs" mood. And I really can't get too hett up about that.

And when I drove up Lake Washington Blvd this morning, the same cop was there on his same scooter with ANOTHER car pulled over. And I drove carefully around them, but the officer didn't wave. But I was glad that it wasn't me.

Of course, I made a complete and full stop at the next stop sign.

More later,

Local Politics: Vox Populi

So, how'd it all turn out?

Proposition 1 (Roads and Transit) was voted down. Commuters celebrated this morning by a bumper-to-bumper parade along Northbound 405 between Renton and Bellevue. If you missed it, don't sweat - they'll be holding it tomorrow as well.

The various anti-factions are declaring that they love a unified transit measure, but not just THIS measure, and as soon as a plan is put forward that meets their needs (more concrete, no concrete, rails-only, busses-only, no taxes, everyone gets a pony), then they will gladly vote for it. Here's the story on that: 2009 at the very earliest before anyone sticks their political neck out for a comprehensive plan.

R-67 (Insurance company accountability) passed neatly, though, despite a huge ($11 million+) campaign from the insurance companies to defeat it. This just in: your rates are going up, because all the money to run that campaign had to come from SOMEWHERE.

I-960 (Supermajority taxes) passed, in the traditional tax rebellion of the season. Court case to show that it is unconstitutional begins in three...two...one...

ESSJR 8206 (Supermajority Rainy Day Fund) also passed, which is not horrible, but the language is so fuzzy I'm interested in seeing how it gets enacted.

SJR 8212 (Prison Labor for Profit) passed. Now the next step - prison terms for jaywalking! Gotta keep those profits up!

EHJR 4204 (REMOVE Supermajority for school funds) failed. Alas, this is the only one where I can truly say that the voters are dumber than a box of rocks. Must have been their schooling, which no one would pay for.

SHJR-4215 (University plays the Stock Market) passes. UW Chancellor seen checking out the tote board at Evergreen Downs.

King County Initiative 25 (Make the County Director of Electors a political race) passes. OK, just remember that you asked for it.

King County Proposition No. 1 (Medic One): Passes by a wide margin.

King County Prosecutor: Non-partisan Republican Dan Satterberg. It would be such irony that after the GOP put so much money into the race, that Mr. Satterberg turns out to really BE non-partisan. Local daily papers realize that there may have been actual money-laundering in this race in three....two...one....

Port of Seattle: Despite some of the most amusing political maneuvering I have seen this election, the reformers took it: Gael Tarleton and Alec Fisken.

King County Assessor: Brand confusion did not work - incumbent Scott Noble won.

Public Hospital District #1 - Wonder of wonders, the voters split the ticket. Incumbent Carole Anderson and newcomer Sue Bowman. Those on the board need to think of this as a shot across the bow, though - it is time to clean up.

King County Commissioner District Six: Jane Hague over Richard Pope, who made a very strong showing. Also, an extremely high number of write-ins.

Renton Annexation: Passes nicely. Now, when is Kent to going to get its act together?

So that's it - some wins, some losses, and the Republic moves on. I think I'm more steamed about the school funding supermajority hanging around than I am about the roads. But that's the problem is democracy - they let anyone in the door.

We now return to our regularly scheduled lunacy.

More later

Local Politics: Stragglers

So Washington State has been very successful with vote-by-mail, and will go to that fully next year. I'm a traditionalist, and will mourn the passing of the old-fashioned voting booth, but so it goes. What this means, though, is that a lot of people have already voted, while others are still thinking about it/putting it off. For them we put up the lists of Voting Suggestions and advice on how to figure out how to vote without slashing your own electoral throat.

Because the campaigns, even at this late date, are not going to be particularly helpful.

Example is a late mailer here from the Bill Bryant (Port Commissioner) campaign. It is pretty well-done, showing his opponent Alec FIsken on one side is scary b/w photo, and pull quotes about how the port is disfunctional from the PI and the online Crosscut. Now, the PI reference doesn't reference Fisken at all (talking actually about Bryant's allies), while the Crosscut piece actually holds opponent Fisken up as being one of the voices of reform for the port ("a very interesting new political phenom who might be a harbinger of Seattle politics to come"), but don't expect Bryant's mailer to say that - instead, among the charges leveled is that Fisken has spent four years on the job without breaking the stranglehold of the big business interests - oh, the horror!

The flip side is just as charming and disingenuous. It's time to clean up the port, says candidate and International Trade Negotiator Bill Bryant. And he is shown in a turtleneck! With a beard and aviator frames! And hiking boots! AND he has an orca on his brochure and his yard signs! He looks like he's from Seattle! He must be a good guy!

And Bryant may well be a good person and love marine mammals, but he is also the big business candidate who will more likely support the shennanigans going on in the Port at the moment, like big-ticket golden parachutes for former CEOs. So file this one definitely as "Flying under false colors" and vote for Alec Fisken.

Secondly, we have the King County Prosecutor race between interim incumbent Dan Satterberg and challenger Bill Sherman. Satterberg has made a big play for how the KC Prosecutor's office must be non-partisan, while running as a partisan candidate. The lib blogs and weeklies have been reporting on this, and the dailies are just catching up with the sudden cash dump from the Washington State Republican Party into the campaign, some of it little more than money laundering from big-ticket donors. Satterberg is apparently shocked, simply shocked, that all the people giving money to his non-partisan campaign are the usual GOP suspects. As a reminder, vote Bill Sherman.

And then we have ST/RTID Proposition 1, which, as you know, I think is a balanced, well-explained compromise in addressing Seattle's #1 headache - traffic. (so Vote Yes - it ain't sexy, but it works). But I did get a cute recorded message yesterday morning from some anti-folks. Which anti-folks, I can't tell, and I don't remember it exactly, but I think went something like this:

MUSIC: "Leave It To Beaver" theme song,
SFX: Funky old car horn
SAM (Folksy Vote): Hey, Mona, we've got an election coming up.
MONA (equally Folksy): Do we, Sam?
SAM: Yeah, and those scoundrels in charge of our government is trying to pull a fast one on us just plain folks.
MONA: Really?
SAM: Yeppers, with Proposition 1, which will raise our taxes more than our taxes have ever been raised before!
MONA: Really?
SAM: Sure Enough, and despite all that, it won't do a thing to making the highways less congested, because people will keep moving in unless we let our roads collapse.
MONA: Well, I don't like that! Bad roads are the only thing keeping all those Californians out.
SAM: That's right. And I understand that those supporting this measure are puppy-kickers!
MONA: Puppy-kickers?
SAM: Yep, they love to pour concrete and kick puppies! And raise our taxes!
MONA: Well, I'd never vote for concrete-pouring, tax-raising puppy-kickers!
SAM: Neither would I, and neither should you, person-we've-never-met-because-we're-recording-this-in-Chicago.
MONA: So vote no! Or else evil people are going to come over and kick your puppies!

Then again, I may have missed the exact quotes.

So hang on, there's some life in this election yet.

More later,

Local Politics: Road Work

So, the mark of a good compromise is that it cheeses off all sides equally. For that reason, Sound Transit/RTID Proposition 1, also called the Roads and Sound Transit Initiative, is a good compromise, because it is taking (and shrugging off) hits from all sides. The Proposal in short says we want to raise a lot of money to build more light rail and road improvements. You want 'em? Pony up.

Actually, it is a pretty crafty bit of legislation, in that it lays out in detail a lot of its plan, which is usually the first thing that everyone attacks a transit plan for. It also neatly divides its most vocal opponents into two mutually antagonistic groups. Big D Developers hate the plan because it gives a LOT of money to Mass Transit, in the form of expanding the Light Rail system. Enviros like the Sierra Club hate the plan because its gives a LOT of money to congestion-fueling highways which will fill up immediately. Each is convinced that, if they shoot down the plan, THEIR part of it will pass easily next year (Here's the story on that: It wont' happen).

But that division of foes leaves a lot of people in the center, who are good with the ideas presented, can live with the price being paid, and willing to go forward. I'm in that category.

No, I'm a little more passionate than that. I think we need MORE Roads and MORE mass transit. Both, together, working in a coherent plan. Each one alone won't do the job. Go to this site, between 6 and 10 AM or between 3 and 7 PM, and look at the lower right-hand corner, between Bellevue and Renton along 405. That's my commute. You've got congestion - either a staccato of red and black blockages or a solid line, dark as a shrimp's intestine. Even when the rest of the system is green this chunk of road is still cycling from yellow to red to outer space vacuum. So I'm good for this BECAUSE of both the improved mass transit (which would be nice to come down my way sometime) as well as increasing road capacity.

Now, being even handed here, there IS another option here to reduce congestion that does not need any more construction, and we won't have to raise any taxes.

A recession. A nice, long one. No, I'm serious - when I started working up in Bellevue with the WizKids, the traffic was light(er), and heck, even small game companies could get good office space in Bellevue. So if we don't want to pay for better transportation options, a recession will solve the problem for us. Fewer jobs mean fewer commuters which mean fewer vehicles on the road. Problem solved!

In the meantime, we are already at the straining point, with these repairs still years away. Now is the time - vote YES on Proposition One.

More later,