Month: July 2008

This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.

Seattle will soon close part of three streets for a few hours, for exactly one day per street this summer. This is not a big deal for many cities, and the town where I went to college would do this once a month on their main street throughout the summer. But can this be the beginning of a positive change?

I’ve long thought that a great idea for a city of any size is to have a few car-free streets. If you build narrow streets this allows for Europe-style density, and if you leave them wide then you have potential for public meeting areas. Noise is dramatically reduced, safety is increased, and the neighborhood becomes much more walkable.

Car-free streets generally have tables set up for outside dining, served by nearby restaurants. You’ll see children playing, and people promenading – window shopping, people watching, eating ice cream. The street becomes a destination, not something in your way to a destination.

But how does car-fixated Seattle react to this small step toward something beautiful? Well, read the comments yourself.

This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.

It’s been argued that rail is a “19th century technology” out of place in 21st century cities. While I find this argument absurd on its face (walking and bicycling are also “old technologies,” but still quite useful), it may not even make sense on its own absurd terms.

Consider this article in The New Republic on how big American cities like Chicago are looking more and more like 19th century Paris and Vienna:

What would a post-inversion American city look like? In the most extreme scenario, it would look like many of the European capitals of the 1890s. Take Vienna, for example. In the mid-nineteenth century, the medieval wall that had surrounded the city’s central core for hundreds of years was torn down. In its place there appeared the Ringstrasse, the circle of fashionable boulevards where opera was sung and plays performed, where rich merchants and minor noblemen lived in spacious apartments, where gentlemen and ladies promenaded in the evening under the gaslights, where Freud, Mahler, and their friends held long conversations about death over coffee and pastry in sidewalk cafes. By contrast, if you were part of the servant class, odds were you lived far beyond the center, in a neighborhood called Ottakring, a concentration of more than 30, 000 cramped one- and two-bedroom apartments, whose residents–largely immigrant Czechs, Slovaks, and Slovenes–endured a long horse-car ride to get to work in the heart of the city.

I do believe that, in a large sense, many people who are leaving Seattle’s “inner city” (i.e. the Central District and the Rainier Valley) to move out to, say, Renton, Tukwila, or Federal Way are moving up, and doing so intentionally and in search of a better life.

By way of comparison, 100 years ago, Seattle’s Jewish community was centered around 14th and Yesler (IIRC, the Langston Hughes Arts Center at 17th and Yesler was originally built as a synagogue). Over time, that community left the Central District and moved South and East towards Seward Park and Mercer Island. Today’s Vietnamese and African-American communities are treading much the same path.

But, of course, the big difference here is $4/gallon gas. “Moving on out” doesn’t have quite the same appeal. So, we have to be creative about giving people the opportunity to live the American dream, while at the same time making sure no one gets “stranded in suburbia.”

This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.

After work the other day I walked over to the SLU trolley to meet family at the Center for Wooden Boats. If you know how to sail, I highly recommend renting a boat for an hour on a sunny day. The streetcar was just about to leave as I made it to the stop, so I hopped on expecting to pay onboard.

I knew I only had $1 in my wallet, and also knew that they only take credit cards at the kiosk outside the streetcar. However, I have $1.75 tickets in my wallet that I keep for use on the bus. Also I remembered that their website lists a good dozen forms of payment you can use on the streetcar*, so I wasn’t worried.

But… apparently Metro cash tickets aren’t on the list. This means that I owe the streetcar $1.75, and that I will have to start carrying a pocket full of quarters (6 for a round trip) if I ever want to ride it again. Man do I wish they’d start the Orca pass.

* “The following forms of payment are also accepted to ride the Seattle Streetcar; Metro Pass, Puget Pass, Flexpass, GO Pass, U-Pass, Visitor Pass, Regional Reduced Fare Permit (with monthly or annual sticker), and active Metro bus transfer slips.”

This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.

Clark Williams-Derry notes that total vehicle miles traveled (VMT) is declining nationwide. The US DOT frets that this will be the end of the highway trust fund, but I say, fear not! After all, WSDOT thinks that fuel economy will inexplicably rise starting next year. Maybe they should loan some of their analysts to the other Washington.

(yes, yes, per-capita VMT is not the same as total VMT.)

This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.

Jim Horn edition:

State Treasurer Mike Murphy has said both the 520 and I-90 bridges should be tolled in order to keep financing viable for a new 520 Bridge, but one transportation activist predicted a backlash if tolls are charged for both bridges and imposed before the new 520 Bridge is completed as some propose.

“I just think the public reaction to that is going to be very bad,” said Jim Horn, former state senator and president of the Eastside Transportation Association, a pro-highway and bus group.

If the ETA is indeed a “pro-bus group,” it should be thrilled about charging tolls on both bridges and before the new 520 span is completed. After all, tolls are the only plausible way to keep buses moving during rush hour. Especially on the existing 520, where there’s no dedicated HOV lane.

But, of course, ETA just says it’s “pro-bus” and we’re supposed to take them at their word.