West Seattle, Washington
15 Friday
The city has announced a public memorial service at Seattle Center this Saturday for Tatsuo Nakata, the man hit and killed at 47th/Admiral earlier this week. Meantime, the P-I takes on pedestrian safety in a Friday editorial. Certainly a touchy topic, as evidenced by the discussion here and on other blogs, like this one.
The Times writes up the city announcements we mentioned last night; the P-I focuses on Tatsuo Nakata’s short but full life in one story, then gets into the new pedestrian-safety emphasis in another.
The city now says it’s putting up a “mobile radar station” and warning signs near the 47th/Admiral crosswalk where Tatsuo Nakata was hit and killed. (Nothing there yet when I drove by a little while ago.) Is that enough? In a comment on our original post below, site visitor Kate invites us all to join her in a push for more. Here’s part of what she wrote:
If you would like to join me, I will be at the Alki Mail and Dispatch tomorrow, 11/16, at 7AM to once again march with signs up and down Admiral Way. I was out there today with a concerned citizen from 7:30AM-11AM raising awareness about driving behavior and pedestrian safety. I would also like to organize a vigil for Mr. Nakata. I did not know him, but as far as I am concerned, we are all Mr. Nakata, every time we walk down the street and cross at the marked crosswalks.
Somebody at the pro-Seattle Prop 1 HQ must have thought it would impress us in West Seattle if they mailed us a big glossy color pamphlet telling us where in WS we might see benefits if the Prop 1 property tax passes. Just one little problem. If you got this pamphlet, take a look at the left side of the map inside — it suggests that Prop 1 will provide $ to “repaint crosswalks at the California/Alaskan Way Junction.” Hellooooooo? Alaskan Way is the street that runs along the foot of that viaduct thingy that is NOT included in Prop 1 (as the back of the flyer seeks to reassure us); at The Junction, Cali intersects with ALASKA STREET. The pro-Prop 1 website is a little odd too. Check out this page … did they simply run out of space at the bottom when it came time to talk about trees?
Signed up for the e-mail updates on the Cali Ave paving/crosswalk project, so we seem to have received this before it turned up on the city news release site:
Work on the east half of the mid-block crosswalk between SW Edmunds and SW Alaska has been completed. This entire mid-block crosswalk should be completed within the next two weeks.Read More
… the city road-work crews, that is. (Perhaps even including the lady with the My Little Pony backpack.) The latest official update says work in The Junction could take up to three more weeks, now that crews have moved on to the “raised crosswalks” (aka mega-speed bumps).
… any time soon, anyway … The Viaduct. The state’s done analyzing results from the inspection during last weekend’s shutdown; they say it “settled” just a little teeny tiny itsy bit since last checkup, and it’s still, like, kind of OK for us to drive on, but they promise to fix it if it settles just a little teeny tiny itsy bit more. Uh, guys and gals, any reason not to just put it up on the rack now and get goin’ with that? Given that the looming Greg vs. Chris Deathmatch over Tunnel Of No Love may leave us stuck with it for a long time …
Couldn’t let this go unremarked … Mayor “No Monorail Because The Voters Have Spoken” sticking to his tunnel-or-else guns in today’s Times, despite the paper’s poll showing 75% of respondents want something other than the insanely expensive tunnel:
“I’ve gone through the peaks and valleys of building a light-rail system in this city, and there were times in 2000 and 2001 where it was about as popular as Prohibition,” said Nickels, a Sound Transit board member. “We stuck it out and in 2009 we’re going to open light rail to the airport, and today if you took a poll there would be consensus that it was the right thing to do.”
And yet the monorail deserved to die after losing one of five votes? … leaving our side of the city completely and utterly without non-bus mass transit.
West Seattle’s Most Famous Politician may well be cursing into his coffee this morning. Since no voter verdict is pending, a paper & pollster decided to take The Pulse of the People another way regarding Viaduct Vs. Tunnel Vs. Neither. The best stuff is in the middle of the story — the Guv says she’s glad to have SOME kind of public feedback; Hizzoner says, in effect, never mind the people, he’s got the back of future generations; West Seattle respondents say (60%-40%) JUST REPLACE THE DAMN THING AND BE DONE WITH IT, ‘KAY? One thing about the story bugs me, though. It mentions that the first round of questioning to poll respondents included asking them about The Third Option. However, the story never gets around to mentioning exactly how many preferred it. (Maybe there’s a breakdown in the “dead tree” version of the paper? Speaking of dead trees, that’s one of our next topics.)
Forgot to mention one last time, a BIG reason to stay on this side of the bay this weekend — the viaduct’s closing, 6 am-6 pm, both days. (And if you want to feel even better about driving less, “An Inconvenient Truth” is still at the Admiral.) Plus, in addition to the events mentioned in the post below, Chas writes to tell us it’s the last Music Nights @ White Center event tonight (seven participating venues).
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 …
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