RSS is now available on 98122.net

For those of you waiting for RSS on 98122.net to keep up on the happenings of crazy coyotes, location of the new firestation and the potential water taxi to bellevue from Leschi Marina, head on down to 98122.net.

Or just find the RSS here
http://www.myzip.net/outside/rss/98122

[where: 98122]

I'm Moving! (Web sites, that is) To 98122.net

I'm not leaving the neighborhood, just blogspot, to the neighborhood blog network at MyZip.net. You can claim your neighborhood there as well, it's organized by zip code... although if you're reading this you probably live near me!

Anyway, if you thought my rants on transportation and other musings weren't complete drivel... or if you did and just simply read this blog so you'd have someone to laugh at...

Check it out at http://www.98122.net/

Now in bigger font, find me here!

First frost of the year -- in November?!

In Seattle, I'm used to wearing my paper-thin jacket through Christmas -- but I stepped outside to this:

And thusly donned my heaviest Seattle jacket, which would not last for a second back in the Midwest. Strange weather all around the country. It was in the 60's in Columbus, OH yesterday where my sister lives and is supposed to snow in Chicago in the next few days.

Prop 1 Blog Roundup

Before turning out the lights on Prop 1, I thought I'd share some interesting blog posts I've found on the subject after its defeat in the recent election:

What's next: new legislation to select tolling

Seattle: Say Goodbye to Prop 1

Communication_issues for Prop 1

Prop-1 post-mortem

Response to Prop-1 post-mortem

Sneak Peek of a Green Building

I've been interested in touring a green building for a while now, and I recently had the chance to poke around the county building at 5th and Jefferson.


My favorite feature? Try to guess what it is:




These are two options for flushing a toilet. The wavy-lined button on the left is meant for "liquid only" and the button on the right is industrial-sized flushing. Notice the background tile is a soothing green. Ahhhhhhh. The bathroom also had aerated faucets (which reduce water use by 70% over non-aerated) and a few other features.


The building had useful, descriptive recycling.

And the magnetic key card readers were not made of black plastic with a blinking red light, but an earth-toned picture of a tree. Happiness.

Wednesday Waste-o-Meter Week 3

Quick tally:

A. How many bags of non-recycling garbage did I throw away last week? Two.

B. How many plastic water bottles this week? Three -- major backslide here after two straight weeks of zero water bottles.

C. How many styrofoam containers? Two -- another backlisde after one straight zero water bottle days.

D. How many plastic bags? Zero.

E. How many paper cups? Seven.

F. How many pieces of plastic silverware? -- Four. I only remembered to bring silverware one day.

See all the waste-o-meters.

Give it a Whrrl

I just signed up for a Facebook-like application called Whrrl. What makes the site unique is that it's more about connecting users locally than virtually. It is centered around a map and your mobile phone -- so (for example) it makes it easy to ask your network to meet up at a certain place and time and the meeting details are distributed to your friends' phones.

Whrrl has a feature for rating and reviewing restaurants. On the heels of my post Friday that Leschi, Madrona & Madison Park residents aren't as likely to connect locally online as Cap Hill residents, Whrrl confirms this trend.

Although there are 1,000 Seattle residents using this site and dozens (probably hundreds -- I didn't count) of businesses rated there was only one rated in any of those neighborhoods -- the tasty Meskel -- of which I wrote one of my only restaurant reviews.

New Real Estate Site suggests 98122 booming

A new site, CyberHomes, shows 98122 homes have steadily risen in average value over the last three years.

It's a pretty useful site, with information on demographics, schools, weather, etc. and has inforamtion on every homes as Zillow does. One graph I liked was house sales by age of home.

Some of the math is dubious. A house purchased in 2003 purchased for $400K near me is estimated at nearly $1.1 million, and the house has has little to no improvement. The house will not sell for that, so clearly they have some work to do.

Which Seattle Neighborhood Most Uses Facebook?

Facebook has a number of interesting widgets designed to help you connect with neighbors. One is the aptly named "Neighborhoods Widget".

Declaring myself a Leschi resident, I find 26 other residents who have downloaded the neighborhoods widget and declared themselves from Leschi.

By neighborhood:
Capitol Hill - 601
Leschi - 26
Madrona - 50
Madison Park - 57
Squire Park - 6

The far and away winner in 98122? No surprise, it's hipster mecca Capitol Hill. (New fun game -- HIPSTER BINGO.)

The Robots will make Seattle Beautiful

Just when you thought Seattle was getting too dirty, the friendly cordless robots will save us. Meet "Bobby" -- the Big Belly Solar Compactor

Here's the story on how I meet Bobby.

I was riding the 27 Monday morning, minding my own business, listening to my antique iPod mini until I arrived at my destination on 3rd and Pike.

I stepped off the bus, only to be confronted by a giant solar-powered, garbage eating robot: The Big Belly Solar Compactor, or as I like to call my new pal, Bobby. Here is a picture of Bobby.

Like an orchid, just give it sunlight (and instead of water, garbage) and Billy will be happy as a clam. If you want to see Bobby in action, here is a link to a Video Demonstration of Bobby in action. I HEART BOBBY.

Wednesday Waste-o-Meter -- Week 2

Joanna Cosgrove's prose in a 2005 article in Private Label Buyer crackles like a white-knuckle sea adventure when gushing over the potential of the private-label plastic cutlery business (emphasis mine):



Plastic cutlery profits enjoyed a 3.2 percent increase to $54 million [in 2004].... In an environment where cost rules the day for private label tabletop goods, Aspen Products' Schaefer challenges the private label tableware industry to remember the value of innovation.

"Absolutely there is a need to buy right, however over time the significant returns of driving out cost diminish and we must refocus on creative ways to grow the top and bottom line," he says.



"New products have always been the life blood of retailing. Don't let new ideas and innovation get lost in ongoing cost-cutting efforts. Without change and innovation in our category we become susceptible solely to price comparisons when the consumer makes the buying decision."



This out-of-the box thinking by the top minds in plastic cutlery has allowed consumers like me the option to now buy plastic cutlery in lavender!!! Thank you!!!

What is scary is how much plastic cutlery one must sell in order to make $54 million in profit, especially when one considers that private-label plastic cutlery is a subset of the overall market.

Albertson's sells plastic cutlery for $2.29 for 50 forks. Assuming 10% margin on the plastic cutlery business and extrapolating fork data, the plastic cutlery business alone creates 12 billion pieces of plastic ware a year. Ok, that is utterly insane.

I've been doing my part to fill the piggy banks of Mr. Plastic's grandkids, mowing through a couple a day while eating my lunch at work so I don't have to lug a reusable eating utensil around with me. Ok, no more.

Without further ado, the weekly tally:

A. How many bags of non-recycling garbage did I throw away last week? Just one. Not bad, but potentially untenable.

B. How many plastic water bottles this week? Zero, although a caveat which I will address in later weeks: I've been using gallon jugs at home instead of tap for some time. A subject for later, but assume I'm leaving these out for now.

C. How many styrofoam containers? Zero. Hooray for me! Last week I had two and I've been eating lunch at a few styrofoam friendly places over the last year.

D. How many plastic bags? Zero here as well, although I've forgotten to bring bags with me a few places and look like an idiot trying to carry 4 wine bottles by hand as I did last night.

E. How many paper cups? 7 -- No improvement here. Still going through one a day with my morning Americano.

F. (New Category) How many pieces of plastic silverware? -- About 10 million. I didn't count, but clearly too many and it I'm going to try and remember to bring steelware with me to work.

G. How much does my garbage weigh? Leaving this off the list from here on out. Too much of a PITA.

Delicious Planet -- Much Much Much Better than Papa John's

In two months, my life will become a lot busier.

And as such, I've been looking for delivery services -- for fruit, dinners, etc. -- to ease up on the significant amount of cooking that goes on in the Leschi Manor kitchen.

I had been thinking about trying out Delicious Planet for some time, the founder was in the same Master's program at Bastyr as my wife, and took the plunge last night. Here's the skinny:

-- DP delivers on Fridays and Mondays, you place your order online the week before.

-- Food is delivered in pre-packaged containers in a cooler at your front door.

-- All food is organic, whole-foods based.

-- All packaging is resuable or compostible.

-- Their menu isn't just for veggie-freaks like me, they have organic beef & chicken, wild salmon, etc.

-- Tip: No need to order the "small" portions, just order the "large" much better value.

In other delivery news, Tiny's Organic stopped delivering this summer which threw us for a loop. Any suggestions for new delivery services that focus on local?

Getting Ready for Election Day

As I am getting prepared to vote against Prop 1 (here's why), I stumbled up an interesting site on Washington State History -- HistoryLink.org

Bunch of cool stuff here, and it jumped out at me that 129 years ago today Washington residents voted for statehood.

And in 1999 on this day Microsoft was declared a monopoly. Now that seems like a long time ago. Here are links to a couple of interesting articles that describe the stock market and the case.

Wikimapia-ing 98122

Wikimapia is a place where users can define locations by interacting with a satellite image map of the world. It's unrelated to wikipedia as far as I can tell except for riding the coattails of its name.

So far there isn't much tagged in my neighborhood, except for a few parks, the Shangri-La Apartments and a couple of businesses like All-Purpose Pizza, which is described as follows:

All Purpose Pizza
Great Sourdough Pizza. Friendly atmosphere. And basically everyone who works there is totally hot.

Well then. Maybe not the same editorial standards as Wikipedia, but at least I know where to send my single friends to grab a slice.

Where Have All the Trick-or-Treaters Gone?

Maybe the neighborhood was too scary...




But last night there were only 6 children... and 8 adults (?!) that stopped by the Leschi Manor for Hot Tamales and Nestle Crunch, a large drop from last year. Perhaps the apple juice in '06 (after running out of candy) wasn't such a hot idea after all. Or maybe it's all these steep hills around our house.

At least we recieved a visit from Spider-Man and from Yoda, who in this photo is conjuring Halloween spirits while uttering: "Halloween, is it? What know you of Halloween? For 800 years have I tricked and treated."

Wednesday Waste-o-Meter -- Week 1

I was a plastic water bottle junkie. More on that later.


Apparently, I am also a plastic-bag junkie. Witness a picture of my office desk drawer:




Although I bring my lunch to work quite a bit (today -- Katie's outstanding Pancit), there are many days when I head out for lunch and receive a bag exclusively for carrying said lunch back to my desk. Over the last year, I have probably thrown away more than 100 of these bags just so I have the convenience of carrying my falafel salad back to my desk.


Back to plastic water bottles... my office provides free water in the form of filtered or bottles and I used to be the guy that would take a case of water back to my desk and proceed to destroy it in a couple of days. I was a serious junkie.

Since then I decided to buy a Klean Kanteen for a number of reasons -- I'm a little freaked out about plastic leaching from bottles, filtered water is probably better than bottled water from a health standpoint, and I was getting a serious case of the guilties through all my bottled water drinking. I haven't sworn it off entirely... I went through about three litres of bottled water last time I was on a plane, and I drink some carbonated stuff, etc. etc. So instead of a junkie I'm more like a functioning plastic user.


Ok... onto the weekly tallies.


A. How many bags of non-recycling garbage did I throw away last week? 1 -- although it is full right now so far all intents and purposes it should be 2.


B. How many plastic water bottles this week? 0!!!!


C. How many styrofoam containers? 2 -- This one is tough... I love the meze trio at Mediterranean Kitchen at Westlake Center, which comes in styrofoam. (Yes, I'm a foodie of the highest order.)


D. How many plastic bags.? 0!!! I brought a plastic bag with me to Mediterranean Kitchen and took it out of my pocket when they were about to put my styrofoam container in it. I felt like a hobo -- so the next time I just asked for it without a bag. And carrying it without a bag seemed to work just fine.


E. How many paper cups? 8 -- Yikes! I get coffee everyday and I need to get a mug or container. Monorail Espresso and Cupcake Royale single-cup but the "Best" double-cups, hence the 8th, you can read about the "Best" here.


F. How much does my garbage weigh? Didn't get to this one.


New fun fact... I go through a LOT of plastic silverware I realized... need to think this one through. Until next week...

Eating Local in Leschi

This spring Katie and I, on vacation in Manhattan, were very interested in a restaurant which bragged about how everything on the menu was local. They went out of there way to say how local they were. So my wife and I went because we are a little nuts about that stuff -- and we have a high bar.

Some things on the menu were from a nearby farm but the first thing I noticed on the menu was Florida Grouper, which struck me as decidedly non-local and I couldn't take the restaurant's marketing seriously after that.

If I wanted to eat only local in Leschi, that would be impossible (I think) because my garden isn't large enough, there isn't any farmland and there may be a pea-patch or two but not enough for the whole community... so I started to research a few organizations which could help me think about a sustainable Seattle, and here are a few sites to check out.

Institute for Local Self-Reliance -- with an interesting climate change article that says Seattle is a good city WRT carbon footprint per capita -- more on this later b/c I'm either not buying it or I wonder what the hell is going on in other cities if Seattle is an example for the world.

Sustainable Seattle -- unfortunately, it looks like their homepage post is 2 years old... not sure yet, need to read more

Slow Food Seattle -- I dig it -- unique foods -- but the first one I saw them promote is a Peruvian potato... so not indigenous but am not sure that's their focus.

interested in your links/comments if you know of other good ideas...

I Cheated on Monorail Espresso

On the weekends, in the 98122, I buy coffee at the Madrona location of Cupcake Royale, on the weekdays I buy coffee at Monorail Espresso.


On Thursday, though, running late for a meeting in another office and heading in on a bus from Interbay (don't ask), I grabbed a coffee from Seattle's "Best" Coffee on 4th & Pine.


I felt pretty guilty about it, which is strange because I only started going to Monorail this April when I changed offices and was previously drinking the "Best" or going where the stars go for coffee. I actually hid my finished coffee cup as I walked by the Monorail that morning and refused to give the espresso stand, the line, the baristas any eye contact.


I'm reformed with respect to my coffee drinking habits.... unless I'm in a hurry I guess... or an airport... or Lebanon.


Which brings me to the purpose of this post... the Americano Conundrum... which was part of the reason I switched to the Royale and something I forgot about the "Best".


The Americano Conundrum is when a barista asks if you would like "room for cream" with your Americano. If you say "no", as I do, then at the "Best" often times you will get a completely full cup of coffee that will severely burn your hands if you tilt the cup at even a 1 degree angle or if you try to put on a plastic lid. If you say "yes" (to avoid the burns) you may get a lot of room or a little room -- there is no standard. In this case I become worried that the barista thinks I don't know how to order coffee ("This guy wanted room for cream, but didn't put cream in his coffee".) If you try to avoid the conundrum and specify the amount of room ("I'd like walking room", "I'd like 3/4 inch room", "I'd like 3 fingers of room") then you just sound ridiculous.

At Cupcake Royale or Monorail, there is always a consistent amount of room. Enough that you can put cream in if you like and still not burn your hands.

There you go -- the Americano Conundrum.

Click-It or Ticket -- Leschi Style

I'm sure everyone reading this knows what "clickit or ticket" is -- the catchy slogan designed to get you to wear your seat-belt -- although my wife prefers to say "clickit or get a ticket" which she insists is far more catchy.


What really gets you to obey the traffic lights or safety ordinances, though, is a police presence. I immediately tense up when I see an patrol vehicle, its almost instinctual, probably some kind of subconscious reaction to some of my childhood antics, where I would egg the school or move "for sale" signs to different houses or rearrange neighbors' outdoor patio equipment in the middle of the night.


For instance, it doesn't matter what I'm doing I will never commit any sort of traffic violation outside of 12th and Pine/Pike. It's not because that's where the police station is... for many years I didn't even know that's where the East Precinct was located. It is because there is nearly always a police car parked at one of those intersections.


All of this is a lead-in to why I've been thrilled to see a clear increased presence of patrol cars around the corner of 32nd and Yesler, in part due to the efforts of the Leschi Community Council and some of my calls to the local precinct about unsafe driving practices outside of Leschi Elementary.


I saw a car on Thursday evening parked on the south side of 31st and Yesler, and have heard several reports of patrols nabbing speeders and stop-sign blowers over the past month or so.


I'm not in favor of tickets, or anything like that, but if this gets people to instinctively be more careful around the elementary school, I'm all for it!

Wednesday Waste-o-Meter

In the 1920's, Seattle garbage was still collected by horse-drawn garbage wagon and started moving to garbage trucks.

Today, it's collected in state of the art garbage collection trucks, and in Leschi it's collected on Wednesday mornings.

According to King County, in 1999 residents threw away about four pounds of garbage per person per day. The City of Seattle recycles about 44% of its garbage today, and is putting together measures and plans to increase this to 72% by 2025 and somewhere around 55% by 2010.

There is also a movement in many parts of the world to simply reduce the amount of plastic used. When I was Ireland this summer, I was shocked (in a good way) to find out that all of Ireland, or at least the county that I was in, had banned plastic bags. We found this out the hard way when checking out of a grocery store to find (horror!) that the store wasn't giving us a free one-time-use bag to carry our items to the car. So we bought a grocery bag for the week, which my parents brought back with them to the States. I was surprised to find that Ireland is more progressive than my all-organic food co-op on Capitol Hill, but I have my head in the sand half the time. In San Francisco, plastic bag bans are starting up and the mayor is front & center of the debate.

So I started thinking... how much garbage do I haul off each Wednesday? And what kind of plastic do I go through on a weekly basis.

So I'm going to count. And post it here, at least for a few weeks.

Think of it as the Wednesday Waste-o-Meter

Specifically:

- how many bags of garbage (non-recycling) per week
- how many plastic water bottles per week
- how many styrofoam containers per week
- how many plastic bags per week
- how many paper cups per week
- maybe I'll figure out how much my garbage weighs, although no promises.

Seattle Times Prop 1 Shocker

The Seattle Times had a shocking revelation in today's paper -- interest groups are distorting facts about Proposition 1!!! Tomorrow's hard-hitting investigative piece: Seahawks fans prefer wins over losses, especially during the playoffs.

For me, each side loses credibility when it goes out of its way to demonize their opponents views or attempts to mislead. Some recent examples in Prop 1:

1. I received one of those recorded messages on my answering machine last week from a local mother of two who urged me to vote for Proposition 1 because it would save the environment. She mentioned the light rail, but not the highway expansion, and did not provide any facts, figures or arguments, but asked me to lock arms with one of my own.

2. The Sierra Club sent me an oversized post-card with a picture of a polar bear cavorting with another polar bear friend on a giant sheet of ice and then proceeded to slam the highway expansion while de-emphasizing the public transportation initiatives. I didn't check if the postcard was made using recycled materials or soy-based ink.

What I've tried to answer for myself on Prop 1 is:

1. Do I agree with what Prop 1 is trying to solve for?
2. Do I believe it will work?
3. Is it worth the cost?

I think Proposition 1 is trying to solve for travel in, out and around Seattle.... making it safer, making it faster, making it more efficient. I agree with that goal.

Do I think it will work? I don't. I think more highway lanes encourage more driving and also make places like downtown Seattle that can't expand it's car capacity worse. Chicago has expanded its highway lanes in the last 40 years while population growth is under 5% over that time, and traffic is terrible there. (I grant that is a broad generalization that includes many factors but interesting to note.) Seattle population today is basically flat with what it was in 1960. 1970, 1980 and 1990 actually had less Seattle residents than in 1960, where it eclipsed 1960 with the 2000 census. And the downtown is the same size... so why would we increase car capacity to downtown?

And I don't think it's worth the cost in increased taxes and pollution. I think we should focus on making our roads and bridges safe and making public transportation a realistic and practical choice for consumers.

[where: 98122]

Meskel -- Darn Tasty Ethiopian Food

I have eaten Meskel's veggie combo at least twenty times in the last year.

Dear readers, Meskel is on 26th and E Cherry in Leschi, and if you'd like to dip your toes in the water with Ethiopian cuisine or even if you've tried a number of them on E. Cherry and E. John streets you won't be disappointed.

I love the concept of the veggie combo... you get a little bit of everything. Before I extol the virtues of each part of the veggie combo, I must note that there are plenty of delightful meat options for my omniverous friends.

Now, let us proceed with the goods -- here is a picture of the Veggie Combo in all its glory.

Going around the dish counterclockwise (starting at 11:45) are the lentils. These are like a spicy, thick lentil soup, and you scoop it up with the injira, which (according to Mr. Wiki) is a pancake-like bread made out of teff flour. There are also lentils in the center in the picture.

The mixed salad has onions, tomatoes, lettuce and a light dressing and is a good complement to the spice of the beans.

Then we have the tomato fitfit, which is like injira and tomatoes mashed together and is one of the highlights. A friend of ours will often order a side of fitfit in addition to a veggie combo b/c she is fitfit crazy.

Then there is the cheese which is like a dry cottage cheese and is homemade.

The split peas(?), the yellow piece is not as spicy as the lentils and is very hearty.

The greens are cooked chard finely chopped, and they remind me a bit of what Popeye would eat and probably explain my ripped physique. No, that's not me, the bicep is far too small.

Finally, the warm potato and cabbage(?) salad with baby carrots. I must admin I pick out the baby carrots. Don't like 'em.

There you go. And it's $10. Wow. Go eat it.

Their web site is also very detailed. Despite what the home page says, you will not need reservations. Meskel can be pretty full, but I would not expect you to ever be turned away. There is outdoor dining in the summer.

Also there is apparently a wine bar downstairs? Wine bar may be stretching it, but it always seemed like there was a party going on down there and I 've never checked it out. Based on the picture, I think I may need to have a pre-dinner beverage down there sometime (and Meskel has a nice selection of Ethiopian beers plus Red Hook and I think Bud Heavy.)

[where: 98122]

Leaning Against Proposition 1

I received an overview of Proposition 1 in the mail yesterday, which King County residents will be voting on November 6th. Seattle PI has a decent overview here.

As of this writing I'm voting against it, mainly because of the significant new highway construction that is part of the legislation.

The mailing says it will save drivers time from Bellevue to Renton on 405 (15 min), Mill Creek to Lake Stevens on SR9 (15 min) and Auburn to Renton on SR167 (8 min). There will also be HOV lanes added to 520 plus a light rail track. Then, the mailing says that it will increase Sound Transit ridership by 170,000 people daily because it will save people time.

This is the major disconnect for me. An increase in Sound Transit ridership means that people who currently drive to Seattle will need to switch to public transportation. But why would people change from driving to riding if their driving commute times drop because we have more roads? When I-5 had its month-long constuction this summer, Metro ridership jumped double digits. It's not because folks suddenly became environmentally-conscious or suddenly liked the bus, it's because it became more convenient. And if we make driving more convenient I simply don't buy that people will make the switch to Sound Transit anyway.

About 48,000 people ride Sound Transit daily and about 350,000 ride Metro. This plan assumes that there is a 50% ridership increase over 25 years when Prop 1 construction of light rail happens.

I'm going to go back to the simple idea of simply increasing bus service. Make the buses more convenient by having them run more often. Upgrade them with wireless access and/or TVs. I think people will use them. And the great thing? You don't need to wait 25 years to see if this plan works. Buy a couple of buses and modernize a single route. Take mine. Please take mine, the 27, and upgrade service to every 10 minutes and see how much ridership increases. The great thing???? If you're wrong go to plan B.

BTW -- I'm not against everything in Prop 1, I'm for the safety improvements to roads and whatnot but as a whole I say no to Prop 1.

Interested in your comments... and BTW this is a good blog.

[where: 98122]

How much Hazardous Waste in your Community?

Here is a map of all businesses approved for handling hazardous waste in 98122. This map actually goes beyond 98122, I found it interesting how many were directly around Cal Anderson Park, which currently has a reservoir under reconstruction.

It's pretty hard to tell exactly what is being regulated here, but there are 81 total businesses in this zip code that are hazardous waste handlers, one with toxic releases and one with air releases reported. Type in your zip code to see yours.

[where: 98122]

Enjoying Licorous from the Hallway

Quick departure from my endless rants on transportation to discuss an enjoyable evening at Licorous, the restaurant owned by and adjacent to Lark in the good old 98122 near Seattle U.

The two restaurants are next door, but do not share a kitchen... separated by a driveway/alleyway. This is not a fine dining / white tablecloth establishment, but I would call it upscale bar/lounge food and if you're going to go there understand that you'll be lounging on low-chairs or sitting at the bar. No plush booths and first-class legroom.

The meal was pescatarian-friendly, -- I enjoyed as small plates
- Tuna Crudo
- Lobster Mushroom Crudo
- Cheese Plate
- Heirloom Tomato Salad

And then had Seared Scallops as an entree.

They have a nice, reasonably-priced wine list. We shared a bottle of Pinot, a cocktail and a dessert wine with a friend... which brings me to the hallway.

We sat at the bar, and I sort of didn't realize all of the small courses and glasses of wine I was consuming, and ate like it was going out of style and when I got home decided it might be nice to curl up in the hallway, which I did, and thought about tuna crudo and lamented the upcoming Sonics season and wondered why on earth I decided on the dessert wine and promptly napped until waking up later that evening for a proper night's sleep.

Bravo Licorous, hope to see you soon.

[where: 98122]

27 Reasons to Increase Leschi Bus Service

Ok, I only have three reasons but I'm talking about the 27 route. Remember... earlier this month a Metro representative said that with ridership at only 1,500/day they would not increase service on the 27 route over the next five years.

My intrepid reporting proves otherwise. Last Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday I took three different buses... the one that gets downtown at 7:45, 8:10 and 8:30AM. They are all standing room only by 16th & Yesler (about 1/2 way through the route)... with about ten stops to go before 4th and Pine. The pictures are grainy from my sub-par cellphone, but what they all "show" is that if you're going to be on a full bus and probably standing if you want to ride.

Monday -- 8:10










Tuesday -- 7:45










Wednesday -- 8:30











So what is going to get someone new to ride the bus that can drive a car for not much more cost... you know the discretionary riders.... by increasing service.

[where: 98122]

Metro Bus News from Leschi CC

A King County Metro representative attended the October Leschi Community Council meeting last Wednesday. Some enlightening news.

On the subject of increasing bus route coverage.

1. Metro has a shortage of operators. Apparently, they're only hiring part-time drivers from what I can tell, maybe I'm not looking in the right place.

2. According to King County, they are in the middle of the largest expansion in history, announcing a purchase of 500 new buses over five years. However, it only appears that 22 of these buses are coming in 2008 and 100 2009. And the representative said a new bus basically requires a three-year lead time. Yikes.

3. The Metro rep said they are planning on increasing service to the 8 and 14 in the next five years because they're ridership has about 3,000, but they are not increasing service to the 27, which is how I get to work, because ridership is only 1,500.

To me, this last point is the fundamental problem.

If we want bus ridership to increase to reduce global warming or congestion or whatever, bus supply needs to increase ahead of demand.

The 14 Route has eleven buses between 6:30 AM and 9:30 AM to downtown from Jackson. The 27 only has seven. Is the reason that there is less ridership on the 27 because there are fewer interested commuters or because there are fewer buses and it is less convenient?

For those people that can choose to ride the bus or drive, I argue that frequency is the primary variable. So if you're waiting for ridership to increase before increasing bus frequency, it's never going to happen.

4. Metro is under a 20/40/40 plan, which means that 20% of all new bus service is for Seattle, 40% for the Eastside and 40% for South King County. Don't really know what this means, but I'm all for more more more.

[where: 98122]

More Buses = Best way to reduce pollution?

Ok. I have drunk the Kool-Aid and am in total support of the idea I threw out yesterday that dramatically increasing bus service is the best way to reduce congestion, improve global warming and reduce air pollution. Screw Light Rail and forget building roads as solutions. Here's why:

1. The Light Rail plan doesn't have enough track or enough stations. Chicago's elevated train has over 250 miles of track with 144 stations. It runs all the time. If you're in the Loop a train comes every freaking 2 minutes. Seattle's Light Rail plan will have 1/5th of the track, far fewer stations and will take a long long time to build. I just don't think it's going to have the dramatic increase in ridership that increasing the number of buses would.

2. Frequency -- Many people that do not commute to work on the bus will take buses up and down the north-south streets of downtown Seattle. It's free, so that's part of it but I would argue it's mostly because the buses come by every minute or two. These same people would not take the bus if it came every 30 minutes even if it was free. In my opinion, that's why the L or Manhattan's subway system is used by so many people -- because you don't have to wait! It's simply faster and more convenient.

3. Increasing the number of roads may reduce congestion, or may not, but it will obviously not reduce pollution.

4. The City of Seattle can test my theory -- We do not have to build a Light Rail system for 10 years or expand 520. Just take 2-3 bus routes... I'd suggest the 14 (Jackson/Mt.Baker), 27 (Yesler/Leschi) and 3 (Cherry/Madrona) and run them all every 10 minutes. The City of Seattle ALREADY tests how many cars go down these streets. At the end of three months test the number of cars again. If it doesn't increase ridership or decrease cars to make a positive effect on pollution, fine. You've learned a ton without spending much.

Would this reduce global warming? If every bus had more than six passengers that would otherwise drive, then yes. Good discussion here. (Note: this figure is not accounting for the upgraded hybrid-diesel buses starting to be in use since 2004, but uses older '90's style buses.)

Quick math -- There are 70 buses on Yesler/day and 8700 cars. To get to global warming parity, if you increases buses to 220/day as I suggested yesterday, you only need to reduce the number of cars to 7800, or roughly 10%.

My biggest question... what is the particulate effect (non-global-warming causing pollution). I'll examine this later.

[where: 98122]

Prop 1, More Buses & A Suggested Experiment for SDOT

In today's PI, Ron Sims announced that he opposed the road-building initiatives in Proposition 1 because "this plan continues the national policy of ignoring our impacts upon global warming".

In short, Prop 1 adds 50 miles of light rail and a bunch of roads including a six-lane 520 at a total cost of $150 billion.

Those that oppose the proposition say it's really expensive (the largest tax bump in state history according to them) and more roads will double the amount of congestion in the next 20 years. They also claim that ridership will only be about 1% of overall trips to Seattle on the light rail side.

It's this last fact that is most shocking to me coupled with my research showing that for every bus that goes down Yesler Avenue towards downtown, there are 124 cars that travel the same route (70 buses per day, 8700 cars per day). So why do so few people ride the bus down Yesler compared to driving?

It's not cost -- a round trip on the bus is $3, parking downtown is about $10 these days if you're lucky plus gas.

It's not commute time I don't think -- when I park downtown and go to my car and go up the elevator and go down and wait for the guy in front of me to give the attendent their credit card, and then I pay the ticket and wait for the change blah blah blah it eats up about the same 10 minutes as waiting for people to get on and off the bus at the various stops between my house and downtown.

It's possible that it's other people -- I mean... who wants to sit next to the smelly guy, but I encounter road rage guy on the roads much more often then smelly guy on the bus.

I really think the issue though is frequency. Bus service downtown in the morning on Yesler is every 30 minutes. Bus service back home to Yesler after 7:00 pm looks like this.

7:05pm
7:55pm
9:05pm

Ridiculous.

I drive to work downtown sometimes because in the morning I miss the bus and don't want to get to work 30 minutes later or I don't want to be stuck waiting an hour for a bus on the way home at night. I have the same deal this evening... I'm going to the Mariners game, and I'll probably take a cab home because I don't want to sit waiting for the 27 for an hour to get home... and it's impossible to tell if I just missed it because it was early or it's coming in a few because it was late.

My wife and I went to NYC for a week in April, and didn't take a cab once. It's a pretty typical experience, you just go down to the subway look at a map, figure out which one you want to take it comes in a few minutes and you go. Nothing to worry about.

So what would happen if Seattle simply experimented with bus service to and from Yesler every ten minutes from 6:30am to 10pm for six months and saw how traffic flow was affected? I'd increase my bus ridership from probably 10 days a month to 20 days a month, and I bet you'd have a big increase in ridership across the board because you never have to worry if one is coming or not (a big ridership issue on the 48, or as an annoyed fellow resident once opined "the forty-late".)

I can't prove this... but it would be a low-cost experiment for the city. Double buses on Yesler from 70 (35 round trips) to 220 (10-minute service 6:30AM - 10PM , 30-minute service overnight), and see how much you reduce car traffic from 8,700/day.

[where: 98122]

Which Neighborhood Has Most Traffic Congestion?

Every year the city conducts a traffic flow study, which measures the number of cars that go down a particular street during a typical day.

Some interesting stats from 2006:
Cars per day that drive through Ranier & Jackson -- 30,900
Cars per day that drive over the Montlake Bridge -- 56,800
Cars per day that drive through Queen Anne Ave N. -- 11,900

Car Traffic vs. Bus Traffic:
Cars per day that drive on E Yesler between 14th and 23rd -- 8,700
Number of 27 buses per day that travel that same route -- 70 (35 each way)

Cars vs. Population :
Cars per day that drive over the West Seattle bridge -- 109,900
Number of people that live in West Seattle -- 102,761
(Defined as the four WS zips 98106,116,126,136 + WhiteCenter 98146 -- 2000 Census)

Clearly this last stat is mind-blowing. More to come.

Check out the traffic flow stats yourself.

And see this interesting article suggesting why Vancouver has more public trans usage than Seattle or Portland.

[where: 98122]

The Police Call Back, Part 1

I've been playing phone tag with SPD for the past few weeks regarding my complaints / observations on driving violations outside Leschi Elementary School.

This morning I received a call back, and had a very good conversation with the officer, who listened patiently to be babble and ramble on about driving through stop signs. I get the sense I'm not the only person who calls about these types of issues, and I must say that I was impressed by the professionalism/demeanor of the call.

So be careful all you drivers, there will be traffic enforcement stepped up at the intersection and I will report back when I get details.

[where: 98122]

Four and a Half Million Bucks

The City of Seattle is spending that much money on neighborhood-proposed street improvement projects.

The Central Sector, which looks like it is defined as between the 520 and 90 bridges from the Sound to the Lake, has about 20 projects proposed ranging in cost from a few hundred grand to five million bucks, which would get you a wider road, retaining wall, improved storm/sewer infrastructure from 11th Ave E & Delmar to E Lynn & Boyer.

One of the proposed improvements near where I live is traffic calming near Jackson Place, which would be to install curb bulbs or chicanes at various places on arterials getting onto Ranier Ave S and S. Jackson. I had to look up what chicanes were... they're the S-shaped roads you see up North in a few places such as NE 98th street. There is a study which does show reduced speeds on these streets.

Citizens are asked to vote for the projects they like the best and consider them based on a number of criteria. Two of the criteria are broad public support and whether the proposal is included in a neighborhood plan as measured by SDOT.

I like this overall idea very much, but the voting and decisionmaking does not seem to be data-driven or the biggest bang for the buck. From what I can tell, it seems more like the neighborhoods that are most organized will be most successful at getting capital improvements done.

If anyone has more insight into how the City is going to make a decision, please comment.

[where: 98122]

Leschi CC - Tree Trimming

On September 5th, the Leschi Community Council had its monthly meeting with the focus being creating a neighborhood plan. Here's a little history.

After the meeting was called to order, we split into five groups to brainstorm about the needs in the following areas:
- Traffic/Pedestrian Safety
- Land Use
- Parks/Green Space
- Economic Development
- Transportation

In the next few posts, I'll be covering the outcome of these brainstorms.

Traffic/Pedestrian Safety
You can probably guess that I joined this group. We had five recommendations, and I'll cover the first in this post.

1. Increase Tree Trimming -- We discussed that some street lights were blocked by overgrown tree branches, and these should be trimmed by the city or property owners so that community streets are well-lit. Related was that we felt property owners generally didn't know what their responsibilities were with respect to trees, and after some research I can see why.

As far as I can tell, here's the (confusing) deal:

When it comes to trimming, you need a permit from the Arborist's Office. Specifically, Seattle City Ordinance #90047 requires that all persons who prune and/or remove privately maintained trees within the public right-of-way area obtain a street use permit.

I also found evidence, though, that if the tree was planted by the city it is to be maintained by the city.

However, if a tree is near power lines or blocking street lights, it is the responsibility of City Light as found here. Call 386-1663 and they will make a determination if there is indeed a safety issue and they will take care of it.

My recommendations:
- Notify property owners of their rights and responsibilities with respect to trees.
- Understand from Seattle City Light what constitutes a safety risk.
- Do a neighborhood audit and have City Light handle those trees.

Some more interesting facts related to trees on city streets. There are roughly 130,000 trees, 15,000 of which have planted since 1989. In 1994, the City did a study of the health of trees and found these sobering statistics.

Over half dead - 3% - 2,214
1/4 to 1/2 dead - 8% - 6,927
Poor - 31% - 26,211
Good - 34% - 28,860
Great - 25% - 19,704

More info here.

[where: 98122]

Carbon Footprint Smackdown

Who is more worthy of riding the carbon-footprint high horse?

In one corner... meat-loving walkers. (No car, loves a nice filet mignon.)
In the other corner... veggie-loving drivers? (Car, fruits and nuts only please.)

On the heels of my post yesterday on walkability, I went off to a carbon-offset calculator and decided to see how many tons of CO2 could be reduced by a Leschi resident going from driving downtown each workday to never driving. It's about 6 miles round trip, so 6 x 250 work days = 1,500 miles. Let's plug in my 1998 mid-size car and go to town.... no pun intended.

According to this calculator, if one were to reduce their driving to 1,000-3,000 miles from 3,000-6000 miles, they would reduce their carbon footprint by 0.9 tons.

I was pretty surprised when the same calculator said an individual moving their diet from omnivorous to vegetarian would reduce their carbon footprint by 1.1 tons. (Omnivorous to mostly vegetarian about .8 tons.)

Among many reasons, such as the amount of calories it takes to produce one calorie of meat one of the biggest reasons is simply cow farts.

Nearly full disclosure -- I'm in a car nearly half the time to work (carpool + driving), my car only gets avg. MPG (~25 Hwy) have a pescatarian diet (meat no, gelatin/stock no, fish yes, eggs/dairy yes).

[where: 98122]

Which Neighborhood is most Walkable?

Now that Leschi has been defined as walkable and a neighborhood where one does not need a car, let's check the data.

First, which of the neighborhoods is most walkable in 98122?
Leschi -- 31st & Yesler... 71 of 100.
Squire Park -- 18th & Yesler... 83 of 100.
Capitol Hill -- 12th & Denny... 95 of 100.
Madrona -- 33rd & Cherry... 62 of 100.

How many residents of 98122 actually walk to work (from city-data.com)?
Means of transportation to work
Drove a car alone: 6,464 (39%)
Carpooled: 1,539 (9%)
Bus or trolley bus: 3,648 (22%)
Streetcar or trolley car: 21 (0%)
Railroad: 4 (0%)
Ferryboat: 10 (0%)
Taxi: 79 (0%)
Motorcycle: 109 (1%)
Bicycle: 477 (3%)
Walked: 3,187 (19%)
Other means: 78 (0%)
Worked at home: 779 (5%)

Number of Households in 98122 -- Roughly 24,000
Number of Households without Vehicles -- Roughly 4,400 (18%)

Let's compare this data back to my original findings that City of Seattle estimates that there are 4K-8K biker commuters. So roughly 10% of those are from 98122.

Disclosure -- my household owns two cars. I take the bus maybe 50%, carpool 30%, drive 15%, Walk/Cab 5%. My commute is 3 miles Leschi to downtown.

[where: 98122]

How Walkable is Leschi?

According to WalkScore.com -- somewhere in the middle, and according to their definitions you could get by without owning a car.

A flaw with the site is that it doesn't take into consideration bus lines and also if you type in an address just one block away you get different answers.

I walk downtown and back frequently enough that I would consider Leschi pretty darn walkable. Of course, I may have a slightly different definition of walkable than the average American.

[where: 98122]

More on the Central Area Neighborhood Plan

Interesting anecdote from the 1992 Central Area Neighborhood Plan:

As if Seattle doesn't need another reminder of the snail's pace at which it is dealing with transportation issues. Excerpt from the Transportation section

UNRESOLVED/PENDING ISSUES
The primary transportation issues that have not been adequatly addressed in the transportation plan is how Central Area residents, employees end [sic] students will be served by the Regionef[sic] Transit Authority and potentially by the proposed Monorail expansion. Resolution of where these systems will be located is outside the scop of this plan, but the intent remains to ensure that there be excellent connection" from the Central Area to any futhre stations of these high capacity systems.

Um...

I'm still getting up to speed on this neighborhood planing initiative. On Thursday I was complaining about Leschi being ignored as a separate city area and also that the plan was 15 years old. Well, upon doing some research from what I can tell it was supposed to be a 20-year plan. Oh well... I should learn to read someone their miranda rights before shooting.

More to come as I get through the entire neighborhood plan and get going on writing down my observations from the Leschi Community Council meeting earlier this week.

[where: 98122]

Leschi Neighborhood Plan

In 1993, the Leschi neighborhood submitted a neighborhood plan to the City of Seattle, only to have it rejected as Leschi was considered at that time to be within the "Central Area" neighborhood plan.

I found this out last night as I attended my first Leschi Community Council meeting at the Senior Center on 30th Ave S, which by the way has one of the best views of Lake Washington I have ever seen.

I'm going to be writing about this over the next few weeks because there were a lot of subjects brought up that are critically important to the community and I'm curious about each of these things and what we can do about them.

I guess before I get into the specific items covered, I wanted to understand what a neighborhood plan was. Here's what I could find:

According to the city, a neighborhood plan is approved by the city and passed as law and actually includes a detailed workplan... intended to serve as the primary tool to help the City implement the neighborhood plan.

I looked at all of the neighborhood plans and in particular the Central Area plan and one big thing jumped out at me.

This was completed in 1992. Dennis Eckersley won the MVP that year, Johnny Carson was still the host of the Tonight Show and Amy Fisher shot Mary Jo Buttafucco. My younger sister had braces. Dude. This was a long time ago. Seattle didn't have Internet millionaires and probably only had 30 or 40 Starbuck's at the time.

And this plan doesn't really cover much of Leschi in its emphasis.

So I don't know yet how much these plans really mean, but I feel some righteous indignation at the very least that Leschi wasn't considered it's own community at the time.

So now that I know a bit about this, I'm going to post some thoughts on the topics discussed in upcoming posts.

I Call the Police, Part 3

Success!!! I guess all you need is the right phone number...

After I submitted my e-mail yesterday, the resulting web page thanked me for my comments and provided me with a number I had not seen before. (It is not any of the numbers provided in the "contact us" page.)

I dialed it this morning, had a friendly conversation with the officer on the other end and she transferred me to the administrative office for the Traffic Enforcement Division. After listening patiently to my description of the intersection and my observations, the officer indicated they would both look into enforcement and give me a call back.

Faithful readers, I will follow-up as details unfold...

I Call the Police, Part 2

Tough day. I tried the local precinct again, and was given a number. I called it -- it was Rhonda in the budget office and I was put to voice mail. I didn't leave a message.

Then I called the non-emergency number, and selected the option to talk to an officer. I was directed to a message that said there were no operators standing by.

I'm resorting to e-mail. Here is what I sent:

-------------------------
Hi --

I'm trying to reach an officer in the Seattle Police Traffic Unit, and was hoping you could call me or respond with a phone number that I could call.

I live outside of an elementary school at a 4-way stop, and during school days and weekends (usually when it is a little less busy than rush hour), cars very frequently blow through the stop sign in a very unsafe manner.

Reading the SP Traffic Unit web site, I found that they focus on violations outside of schools, and I was hoping I could detail what I have seen to an officer and see if someone could place an enforcement officer at this intersection in the next month at some point.

There would certainly be a number of traffic violations and hopefully the prescence of an officer would remind drivers to obey the stop sign, especially in front of a school (and bus stop).

Sincerely,
John
-------------------------

That's it for now...

I call the Police, Part 1

The Leschi, Madrona and Capitol Hill neighborhoods are entirely covered by the East Precinct of the Seattle Police, which has five precincts. The station is at 12th and Pine.

I called the precinct on Tuesday morning to ask how to formally file a statement regarding the number of cars that blow through the 4-way intersection at 32nd and Yesler outside of an elementary school and bus stop.

The officer listened patiently, and I was referred to the Traffic Unit, and was provided a number which I called... it had been disconnected. Great.

I went back online to research further. I'm glad I did because I found that the SPD Traffic Unit has three squads... the DUI squad, the PM enforcement squad and the AM Enforcement Squad which has "the primary emphasis being traffic violations that occur in school zones". Sounds like they should be receptive to what I have to say.

Unfortunately, this web page did not list a phone number, so in my next post, I'll tell you how I got the number and also detail my call to the Traffic Unit.

Objective Labor Day Study of Bicycle and Auto Traffic on Yesler

Following on the heels of yesterday's post, where my investigation of Mayor Nickels "Bicycle Master Plan" uncovered that it is relying on bicycle advocacy groups to collect data on bike usage in the city of Seattle, I decided to conduct a little informal poll of my own on bike traffic.

At first, I was planning on simply counting the number of bicycles that passed in a 10-minute period. Then, after approximately 45 seconds of sample data, I witnessed such brazen displays of lawlessness that I decided to expand the parameters of my study.

Data to be collected:
1. How many bicyclists came to the intersection?
2. How many bicyclists made a valid and legal stop at the stop sign?
3. How many cars came to the intersection?
4. How many cars made a valid and legal stop at the stop sign?

I very quickly had to amend the data collected as it became clear that not a single car or cyclist was going to actually come to a full and complete stop before the stop sign. Without further ado, here is the outcome of the study:

The location: A four-way stop on Yesler.
Time: 2:43 - 2:50 PM, Labor Day, September 3rd

Number of cars passed: 15
Number of cars that made a full & complete stop: 1
Number of cars that sort of stopped legally: 8
Number of cars that blew the stop sign: 6

Number of cyclists passed: 4
Number of cyclists that made a full & complete stop: 1
Number of cyclists that sort of stopped legally: 2
Number of cyclists that blew the stop sign: 1
Number of mind-blowing spandex outfits w/ matching helmet: Sadly, just 1

This data was fairly shocking to me, especially the number of cars that made no attempt whatsoever to slowdown except for whatever deceleration was required to stop the tires from skidding prior to making a right turn.

Mind you... this intersection is directly in front of an elementary school -- and a bus stop -- and is on a hill.

If I was a police officer looking to make quota on traffic violations -- based on my small sample size of data -- this intersection is the motherlode.

My next action is to contact the local police precinct to ask them to crackdown on cars that don't stop... I'm not exactly a McGruff the Crime Dog sort of person... but this was over the top. I'm also going to consider collecting more data on a weekday morning before going to work to catch up on a more typical day.

To be continued...

Bicycle Master Plan -- Yesler... Priority #9

According to the City of Seattle Department of Transportation between 4,000 and 8,000 residents commute by bicycle. I decided to look this up as I saw a city employee marking up the sidewalk and street outside my house with white spray paint, and saw what appeared to be bike lanes outlined further west on Yesler.

Adding a bike lane to Yesler Ave is apparently is the 9th priority in Mayor Nickels Top 9 South Priorities to incorporate into the Bicycle Master Plan. 9th Priority out of 9???? Mayor Nickels must not live in my neighborhood because I see large volumes of spandex cruising by my kitchen window every day.

The goals of this plan are to triple the amount of bicycling in Seattle in the next 10 years while at the same time reducing the rate of crashes by one-third. I believe the lanes can encourage more bikers, but I have a hard time believing Seattle will reduce the rate of crashes. Given that Yesler allows street parking on both sides, is on a major bus route and is going to add space for biking, I don't think that crashes will be reduced by much unless this plan is accompanied by driver education on how to look for bikers and factor them into driving.

The performance measures are comedic... performance target for tripling the number of bicyclists until 2017 will be collected in part by bicycle advocacy groups who will count the number of bikers that go by various locations. Hmmmm... I suppose I'm being unnecessarily cynical since I'm completely in support of this plan, but I would suggest that data collection & statistical analysis is a little more impartial.