Photo by Oran
The memorial procession for murdered police officer Tim Brenton is going to close a bunch of streets between 8am and 1pm Friday. Map of the Route (pdf):
On Friday, Nov 6, between approximately 8:00 AM and
approximately 1:00 PM, a Seattle Police memorial procession
between Husky Stadium and Key Arena will significantly
impact all traffic and travel – including Metro service on
many bus routes – in the following areas:* University of Washington / Husky Stadium
* Montlake / 24th Av E & 23rd Av E
* Capitol Hill / E Madison St, Pine St & Broadway
* North of Downtown Seattle / Denny Way & Mercer St
* Queen Anne / 1st Av N & Seattle Center
In somewhat related news, “unpaid intern” on SLOG offers up a fine whine about Route 8, which degenerates into an epic comment thread complaining about Metro’s worst routes. A followup anecdote makes a compelling argument for the 150.
Of course, a “bad route” actually has three components: (lack of) speed, unreliability, and unpleasant fellow riders. Unfortunately, Metro doesn’t make data about on-time performance and incidents per revenue hour easily accessible, so it’s hard to inform these discussions with actual data. I happen to know that Metro switched the 8 for the 48 in the Rainier Valley largely because the data showed the 8 to be more reliable.
Being more reliable than the 48 is like being less evil than Hitler.
Regarding the photo (of what I assume is the Mount Baker Transit Center), what would it take to get some potted plants in that center? Is there a fund that I can donate to? While functional, it’s a barren array of concrete right now, and it could certainly use some beautifying with a little foliage.
I fail to understand WHY Metro can’t do an overlay of the route map AND a tranist map to show impacted routes.
Being a LONG time bus rider I see the affected routes as:
for sure – 1,2,3,4,5,8,13,15,16,24,33, and I think 358….all cross Denny at some point.
Others that come to mind for capitol hill might be the 10, 12….I forget which ones operate up on the hill.
Not to mention ANYTHING on the route from Husky stadium…..like the 43/44.
As I said, being a LONG time bus rider (since age 8 and I’m 51 now so you do the mat!) I see this as a major impact on getting around. This is NOT a complaint, but just merely a statement of fact. If it were me, and I work or have to travel in the impacted area, I’d A: go to work VERY early, or B: take the day off and be a part of the community as a whole an honor this devoted policeman.
I’m sure someone at Metro will tell me I’m wrong, that’s OK…cuz I’m only doing this to get the word out that this will be a long drawn out morning and why go out and get stuck trying to get around on what surely will be gridlocked bus service.
Regarding the 8, I ride that route twice a day and I actually think it’s one of the better routes. Great on-time performance, absolutely no “incidents,” and it’s just a 15 minute ride from Queen Anne to the Hill. I honestly have no clue what the unpaid intern is talking about. It sounds like he’s a casual rider who had a few bad experiences.
I don’t ride it often, but the only times I’ve had issues were when there were Sonics games, and thankfully that problem has been solved.
A nice thing about the 8 is that it can make Ballard to Capitol Hill surprisingly quick when you transfer from a 15 or 18 at Kidd Valley. Without the 8, the only options are transfers Downtown or in the U District, both of which are slow and invariably involve far more wretched routes.
I think it is horrible that a police officer was shot but I think this memorial procession is way over the top. 5 hours of major disruptions for a 1,000 to 5,000 vehicle procession from UW to Key Arena, and vehicles will not be allowed to cross the path of the procession for three hours.
While I certainly think respects should be made for a fallen officer, this just comes across as an egotistical display by the police force and a waste of taxpayer money in a time when many government agencies are facing budget issues. Sorry for the rant, but people die tragic deaths all the time, particularly in the military, and very few get this kind of treatment.
The same kind of thing was done for Mark McLaughlin back in 1998:
http://www.busdude.com/HTML/KCM_MML_Index.htm
You die in the line of public service, you get a prime-minister’s funeral, that’s the deal. On the flipside, those who would qualify are held to a higher standard in many matters.
I really don’t think it’s “egotistical” and I think your tone is a pretty harsh one…
Sorry, John, I completely disagree. I think that Squints went out of his/her way not to come across as harsh toward the memory of Officer Timothy Brenton. I do think he/she was appropriate in chastising the police force for planning a huge disruption of traffic – something any other day they would be tasked with clearing up as quickly as possible.
I completely agree. Having a memorial procession is a great way of paying tribute but prohibiting traffic, or even transit, to cross a procession route that nearly bisects the city for a three hour window is highly inappropriate. It should be blocked off no more than 5 or 10 minutes before the procession arrives at any given point and opened back up moments after it passes.
I’d agree with Squints, Erik and Winchester – this is really a bit much on a Friday (or any other day). And MissBeth is absolutely correct the map should have shown each and every impacted route on it.
Who else but a cop gets this kind of procession? Even the President wouldn’t get to tie up the city for hours on end. I’ld not get even 15 seconds.
I also find it aggravating that any funeral procession get to tie up traffic anyhwhere. The person is dead, why do they get to aggravate everybody one more time?
For me, instructions are to dump my ashes in an octopus pot and throw it in the Sound, then let the party begin. Good riddance!
Not to minimize the police, but what if we did this for every fallen soldier, sailor, marine or airman killed in Iraq or Afghanistan? Sorry, forgot. Bush didn’t allow public recognition of military deaths. Nor the thousands of wounded.
Those comments are over the line.
The procession had 1500 police and fire vehicles, it took that long for them to all get from Husky Stadium to Key Arena.
5 hours for a slain police officer vs 4 days of willful disruption for the blue angels? vs game-day delays and reroutes for ball games? i think we can deal. if we can’t, then our society has some pretty sick priorities.
I agree, the Blue Angels are a sick priority.
Why not have it on Saturday or Sunday? It will be quite an inconvenience to our elderly and infirm patients who need to access First Hill for medical care. I think the police actually want to make lots of people stop and pay attention for a few hours, and don’t much care about these kinds of consequences.
Metro only has a bit of information online (I see reroutes posted for the 24/33, 30, 271) – does anyone know if the trolleys will be running on Queen Anne Hill tomorrow in the peak AM commute? I would think not – the schedules would get messed up and some buses could get stuck north of Denny.
Does Metro even have enough diesel buses to run some sort of Queen Anne Shuttle in peak hours? Even if it does, there are only a couple of ways off the hill that won’t be blocked – the 1 route, but that is not convenient for most QA people, or past SPU on the 13 and then west on Nickerson to 15th and then back towards downtown.
Walking to work is not bad for me (3 miles), but even that will be an adventure with so many streets closed. For people who live in Capitol Hill and don’t have a car, there’s basically no way out!