Comments on: News Round-Up: Heat on R8A

By: Spencer Agnew

Spencer Agnew — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 00:00:18 +0000

Thanks for the shout-out. Nevertheless, its Spencer, not Spender. :-)

By: hans

hans — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 23:55:56 +0000

That Minneapolis blog has been updated with comparisons by ridership.

By: alexjonlin

alexjonlin — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 01:08:38 +0000

And the pretty damn successful Market down at the other end of Pike.

By: joshuadf

joshuadf — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 20:19:34 +0000

You mean the JPMorgan Chase parking lot? :0

By: joshuadf

joshuadf — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 20:17:50 +0000

Pike Place has a sort of co-op set up to keep the stall rents low and local producers.

There are a lot of ways to provide variety to keep a covered market busy all the time, for example Old Spitalfields Market in London has mini restaurants and shops all the time, and follows the following schedule for market stalls:
Thu: Antiques & vintage Fri: Fashion & art Sat: All shops & no stalls Sun: Busiest day - all shops & all stalls

Additionally there are special events like concerts and festivals that would make a year-round covered space a major community resource.

By: Chris Stefan

Chris Stefan — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 20:08:49 +0000

Given the severity of the cuts required, Metro needs the flexibility to make service cuts in the most sensible way possible. Furthermore once funding is available to add service hours back those hours need to go back to where they were cut from.

As it stands now Seattle loses 20% of its service hours and doesn’t get them back until both South King and East King have nearly double the number of service hours they have today.

By: John Jensen

John Jensen — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 19:22:31 +0000

Are there going to be many parking lots left for a farmer’s market?

I don’t think it’s imperative to the future of the region that we have a daily or otherwise year-around farmer’s market in capitol hill, but I think that’d be a cool/community-oriented use of some space in projects that are certainly almost all going to be out of most of our price ranges.

More flimsy things like “community space for meeting” doesn’t sound that appealing to me. Seattle Central has space for meetings, as do coffee shops, etc, you know? But I’m a big foodie and I go to the Broadway farmer’s market every week when it’s open, so I definitely have a horse in this race.

By: AJ

AJ — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 17:57:25 +0000

Remember, too, that the funding for Farmer’s Markets is mostly dedicated to local products. I don’t know if making too nice a market would be good since it’d lay unused most of the year OR they’d end up having to charge high rents because funding was shuffled downward since it’s non-local foods. The Locavores would bite and bite hard.

I think keeping it in a parking lot would be perfect. Just don’t say “the old KFC across from Cal Anderson” too loud or ECB will come and say, “Hey, that’s next to the Stranger offices… BEST IDEA EVER” and get Sloggers to agitate for that!

By: AJ

AJ — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 17:54:34 +0000

The alternative is the staggeringly successful market in VancWa. They have an outdoor element toward Esther Short, but they have a large portion of it below condos indoors and I believe most of the year it’s open.

By: Ben Schiendelman

Ben Schiendelman — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 17:47:01 +0000

Yeah, it seems like there are other places for it. The Washington Mutual parking lot, for instance, or hell, the middle of the street!

Just thinking about it more, there’s that lot next to Taco Del Mar, the lot by the KFC, lots of places. I just want the Wamu lot because I live on the corner of Harvard and Thomas. :)

By: Ben Schiendelman

Ben Schiendelman — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 17:41:21 +0000

Thanks, I didn’t know that, and I hadn’t sent her anything yet.

By: Zed

Zed — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 17:37:46 +0000

Think we could do without the name calling? This is a transit blog, not the comments section of the Seattle Times.

By: John Jensen

John Jensen — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 17:20:44 +0000

I’m thinking the first floor of a condo/apartment project. Some portion will be an in-door farmer’s market and the rest retail. Yeah, I think a parking lot/flat, exposed market would be a tremendous waste of space.

By: AJ

AJ — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 16:24:18 +0000

Also, for what it’s worth, the Governor’s e-mail form regarding the budget (http://governor.wa.gov) sends e-mails that are high priority, meaning it’s a good way to get attention to R8A if you get enough people e-mailing her about it. She’s the main executive, so in this case, her one vote counts a lot.

By: AJ

AJ — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 15:52:59 +0000

I’m still wary of the Farmers Market idea since Milwaukie, OR got one that seems to be a parking lot covered over with concrete and benches and little white lines to put up stalls.

By: Brian Bundridge

Brian Bundridge — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 13:37:15 +0000

The Senate (Haugen) killed all rail projects in Washington. Yes, all, including Point Defiance.

By: Paul

Paul — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 13:10:54 +0000

Anyone tracking the SR 520 tolling bills? Last time I checked, neither made any provision for funding transit operations with toll revenue. Those new buses Metro is planning to buy with their part of the Urban Partnership grant funds won’t add any new service on SR 520 without additional operating revenue from somewhere.

By: Andrew Smith

Andrew Smith — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 13:02:41 +0000

Nickels did make a mistake on this one. From what I understand, he had an agreement with Gov. Gregoire – ostensibly the democratic party leader in Washington – but that was not what the legislature wanted. Gregoire has twice now had the Seattle area to thank for her election, but the democratic majority in Olympia has to win their battles in the individual districts.

By: Douglas Tooley

Douglas Tooley — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 12:53:54 +0000

The correct way to cut bus service hours is on the basis of subsidy dollar not service hours. Seattle routes are more efficient and would therefore receive fewer cuts.

The subject of increasing transit service, and useage, is a tougher one. The 40/40/20 was a compromise on that subject which was appropriate for its time and may need to be revisted.

Do be aware though that if you seek to cut transit service to the Eastside and South King you are either directly arguing for more road funding for those areas or engaging in criminal extortion via the tax system. (That whole taxation without representation thing, if you will recall)

Phillips is pandering to you, not leading you. He should be ashamed of his punk politics. We need true leaders not ignorant spoiled punks cum tyrants.

By: Douglas Tooley

Douglas Tooley — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 12:47:00 +0000

It’s always silly season.