West Seattle, Washington
02 Wednesday
Speaking of driving … We seem to spend more and more time stuck in the right lane on The Bridge in the mornings, sludging along to get to the viaduct, then in the right lane on the viaduct in the evenings, sludging along to get to The Bridge. Problem is, more and more of us are pouring into those funnels, now that the city is granting new teardown-to-townhome permits almost daily (putting a dozen or more households where just one once sat). I totally admit to being part of the problem, in my single-occupant (albeit little) vehicle. The bus would cost me 3 hours a day roundtrip right now — 3 hours I can’t spare — and I don’t think Ron Sims’ bus tax is going to make things any better. Laugh at me if you want, but I still mourn the monorail. (I’d settle for a year-round Water Taxi.) See you in the funnel …
Four weeks till Election Day, maybe less time till “voting day” for you if you use absentee ballots, so it’s never too soon for a reminder that there’s a lot more at stake this time around than just the big statewide races. For one, there’s Seattle Proposition 1, a tax levy for various transportation projects (NOT including the viaduct). Here’s the official city page with the ballot language; here’s how the city council summarized it when they approved it for the ballot; to find some West Seattle specifics, you have to read this and skim ahead to page 5 and beyond. Worth a look before you make a gut decision on “$365 million in taxes, or not?”.
-The latest incarnation of the school-closure hearing roadshow is in West Seattle this week. As I write, the Roxhill hearing is under way; tomorrow night, I wouldn’t be surprised to see fireworks at the Pathfinder/Cooper hearing. You can track the developments more closely at the Save Seattle Public Schools blog (run by a Pathfinder mom).
-Speaking of closures, the viaduct will be out of commission 6 am-6 pm both days this weekend for its twice-yearly “is it REALLY still safe to drive on this thing?” checkup. And in The Junction, a closure related to the Cali Ave repaving is scheduled to continue for a few more days.
-Now, an opening: Sometime in the past few days, the GRAND OPENING banner went up at Kokoras Greek Grill in Morgan Junction, on the east side of Cali Ave, just north of Fauntleroy. We’ll run by in person as soon as we get a chance and report back on the menu offerings.
Someone on the P-I editorial board must be a kindred spirit. In tomorrow’s paper, they ask, why is the Water Taxi nothing more than a “seasonal oddity”? Why aren’t our waterways jumping with little ferryboats that can get people downtown without putting down one single solitary additional ribbon of concrete?
Heck, if we get just a few thousand more people from the relentless wave of teardowns-to-townhomes, the bridge backups will force some of us to consider swimming.
-A visitor wrote to tell us that Swee Swee Paperie (just east of Cupcake Royale) is now open in The Junction (though its website is lagging; what is it with new businesses and site lag, like the Talarico’s site advertised in the Hi-Yu booklet two months ago, but as of this am still not up?).
-Reminder, tomorrow’s the last day for the ’06 Water Taxi as well as Rainier Roaster (future site of the first WS drive-thru SBUX).
P-I says there’ll be one for the West Seattle bicycle-crash victim tonight, after a tribute that apparently will be part of the monthly Critical Mass bike ride.
The governor gets the final say on tunnel vs. new viaduct vs. neither. Here’s a link to tell her what you think she should do. And if you are honked off about city leaders deciding we shouldn’t have a direct say in it, here’s how to e-mail Hizzoner; links to city council members’ e-mail addresses can be found here.
As expected, the city council says “Go, tunnel, go.” However, note paragraph number three … can’t wait to see what the council’s definition of “infeasible” is.
Somebody pulled out the calculator one more time — and now it seems we can’t afford the only two viaduct options the Powers That Be have been willing to consider. According to the almost-amusing update on The Stranger’s blog, Hizzoner, aka Top Tunnel Pusher, is all atizzy. And the real topline on all this seems to be, uh, never mind about that advisory vote, us council guys will just make the decision, hold our nose, jump in, and hope we’ll hit Mega Millions to raise a few more Big Dig Big Bucks. But why not use this as an excuse to save face and join the folks backing The Third Option after all? We can have a heck of an implosion party, round up some work crews to sweep up the debris, and get back to business.
New city update out tonight on the road work in The Junction. Bottom line is that it sounds like every repair project ever undertaken on our little old house … “turns out things were worse than we thought, till we went in.” Hope the businesses aren’t suffering too badly … remember, both sides of the street have a fair amount of rear parking!
Have had this link sitting around a couple days, waiting for a chance to use it … so here goes.
Many mornings, if I leave too late, I am part of the sludging slough of cars oozing out of West Seattle toward downtown. I dutifully wait until the precise start of the broken lines on the bus lane before making my move to get into the queue for the 99 North exit. I predictably fume at those who abuse the lane, getting into it much sooner, or looking for their merging moment much further up the line.
Now the link … a Seattle Times column suggesting law enforcers still do keep an eye on that lane. Gotta keep gridlock from devolving into anarchy …
OUT: Just yesterday, the city issued a demolition permit for the old “West Fuel” place on 35th south of Legends. Drove by the site tonight — it’s already rubble. No indication yet what’ll replace it. (Three guesses?)
IN: Next to Pagliacci, the lights were on tonight inside the new little shop “Clementine” next door. As promised on the original butcher paper, it’s displaying purses and shoes. Likely to be a huge hit with all those trendy young ladies we see milling about the hot new Junction nightlife.
OUT: More and more of the pavement in the middle of Cali Ave in The Junction’s south block, scooped away, leaving quite the deep trench in spots. We’re thinking it might be fun to see this filled up a la the canals of Venice. Imagine navigating from Admiral Junction to Morgan Junction in a gondola. Also note, contrary to our observation from last week, in the heart of the construction zone, the NO PARKING rule is in effect around the clock TFN … makes sense since now there’s only one passable lane in each direction, fully utilizing the space all the way to the curbs.
IN: A bigger sign on the window of the forthcoming “Swee Swee Paperie,” just east of Cupcake Royale. It promises offerings including “corporate gifting.” I’m sure it’ll be a swell store, but it’s a shame SSP is participating in the verbing of nouns …
From this morning’s coverage of yesterday’s City Council hearing, seems like the Third Option for viaduct (non)replacement is truly on life support, if it’s even still breathing at all. If you have anything to say about it, OR the tunnel, OR the replacement viaduct (thanks to FoS for the direct video links), tonight’s your chance to do it without leaving West Seattle — 5-8 pm, Madison Middle School.
Two things:
-The Tunnel Tussle has finally hit the Fauntleroy Walkover. Big bold banner hanging where downtown-bound traffic will see it: NO BIG DIG/VOTE NO TUNNEL.COM (which actually is a URL for the “No Tunnel Alliance,” minus the spaces).
-In actual road-construction work going on right now — the Junction has a lot more torn-up turf tonight than last week. In the southernmost block (between Ovio and Super Sup), most of the center of the road is ripped out or blocked with heavy equipment (and, when I passed through, an enterprisingly parked car). Definitely passable, but be ready for slow going.
Big Dig or Big New Viaduct — the folks working on Alaskan Way 2.0 continue to exclude all forms of The Third Option out of the dialogue — but whichever you favor, time’s running out to pipe up before the next stage of the game. And you’ve got a chance in just a few days: The roadshow’s coming back to our side of the bay next week — Tuesday night, 5-8 pm, at Madison Middle School.
Our trek around The Junction tonight revealed that city crews have done a pretty job roughing up the street surface already. Getting a parking spot along the newly grooved pavement was a cinch — most people don’t seem to realize yet that the NO PARKING signs are posted for DAYTIME only — it’s OK to park at night. (Though a few spaces are out of commission in front of Taqueria Guaymas & Poggie, taken up by monster-sized pieces of city equipment.) Also seen in The Junction tonight: The “for lease” sign is down and the liquor-license-app posting is up at the future home of Garlic Jim’s Pizza.
If you haven’t noticed already — the slightly delayed road work through The Junction has begun. Here are more details from the city. And check out the changes we apparently will find, once the work’s done.
Despite not being boat owners, we managed to get out on the water anyway — started the day with a ferry ride, ended it with a Water Taxi trip.
Inbetween, some snags and some sightings:
SNAG: Wanted to have lunch at the new Cactus on Alki. We even called — twice — to make sure it would be open for lunch. We were assured yes, it would be. Then we showed up … nope, not open. Through the open roller doors, workers told us, no, it would only be open tonight for dinner. Bummer. We proceeded to Bamboo, which we’d never tried, believe it or not. (Having now tried it, I don’t believe we were missing anything. The sand under the outdoor tables is a nice touch, but the food was meh.)
SNAG: Since we planned to be downtown a few hours, we were glad to hear the Water Taxi was running into the evening. Unfortunately, we discovered belatedly that its transit connections did NOT run into the evening — the shuttle to the Junction stopped about half an hour before we returned, and no regular Metro buses were running past Seacrest. If we hadn’t had someone to call for a ride home, we’d still be walking.
SIGHTING: Still not entirely sure what kind of store “Divina” (north of Hotwire & its adjoining dentists) is meant to be, but it’s now posted as opening tomorrow.
SIGHTING: Interesting things tacked to the front glass of Liberty Bell Printing — a frantic note pleading for the new Homestead menus not to be printed because of some kind of error — and a month-old “lost bird” flyer that says the bird FLEW THE COUP. (Which coup was that, I wonder — have to go catch up on my international news.)
SIGHTING: Dall’s porpoises from the ferry, jumping fish from the Water Taxi. What a cool life.
Steer clear of 35th & Morgan tomorrow, warns the city.
(And if you want to know more about the cool center that’s going up there, here’s info.)
Just read that the man who helped morph our state’s elections into California-style initiativefests is getting involved in the road tax vote this fall — even though he doesn’t live in Seattle. I personally am no fan of his. But I haven’t made up my mind about this tax yet and whether it seems like it will really help. If you haven’t looked too closely at it yet either, here’s a page that might help us both — although since it’s a city page, there’s no independent analysis.
The latest in the what-will-replace-a-viaduct vying: The pro-tunnel drums grow louder (though this Times columnist manages to hear right through them). But there’s good news for us viaduct drivers: sixth line from the bottom in this story says it’s at least not in imminent danger of collapsing under its own weight! Whew!
But reading between the lines … it seems less likely by the second that if we do all vote this fall, we won’t even get the chance to voice our views on The Third Option. And that, according to an allegedly secret study we paid for, would be a mistake.
Transportation votes we’re facing in November:
—Tax to fix up roads (Fauntleroy didn’t make the Dirty Dozen but would THIS smooth it out?)
–Tunnel vs. no tunnel, unless council members decide to just be the deciders, which is what today’s P-I recommends
The first and third ones might be a nearly moot point, though, given that driving is getting less affordable by the second. Perhaps time for Councilguy Dow to propose keeping the Water Taxi in service TFN, instead of sailing on toward the usual September shutdown. (Not like Elliott Bay freezes over or anything, though the dock at Seacrest could use a little salt at times.)
Yet another viaduct report is out. This one apparently says, reinforcing the existing viaduct doesn’t seem to be the solution.
Seems like every viaduct report has the same theme. “Give me tunnel, or give me (death?).”
Reminds me of the ’90s animated series “Dinosaurs” — the Baby Dinosaur character kept rejecting the Dad Dinosaur by referring to him, in a high shrieky little voice, as “NOT the mama! NOT the mama! NOT the mama!” I imagine Mayor Nickels throwing similar tantrums, looking at each and every viaduct option (other than his oft-voiced preference) and shriekingly describing them as “NOT the tunnel! NOT the tunnel! NOT the tunnel!”
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