Osaka Metro shows you how to open the window for fresh air on their various train models.

51 Replies to “Sunday Open Thread: Open Subway Windows”

  1. When I visited Osaka as part of a quarter at sea trip in college, we went to one of those all-you-can-drink nightclubs and had a great time. Those operable windows came in handy for a couple classmates who couldn’t hold their liquor.

    1. That’s really cute. It would be cool if it floated, that way it could replace the Ride the Ducks tour. Just run the rails down to the water. A little tricky getting it back on track …

  3. Oran and Al S., wonderful links. One difference really shows about Japanese law and culture. It’s doubtful any attorney could even afford to advertise for clients suing transit over the results of leaning out the window at top ventilation speed.

    But the F-line F-ootage speaks powerfully to me and says: The new economy our COVIDIAL little friends are opening the way for….those attractive and maintenance-easy streetcars, with and without roofs, will provide both a lot of employment building, and a lot of community college curriculum on our region’s (including Seattle’s) transit routes.

    Light-rail history-wise, I’m told the 737’s quality as an aircraft deserves Boeing management’s full attention. Since both cities start with an “S”, doubt St. Louis will mind if we take the “Car Company” part. Product with a terrific world-wide record.

    PCC presidential derivation could be tricky. Does Siemens even have one? Since Elon Musk will have to wait ’til there’s a Spoiled Petulant Anti-Union Autocrat Committee (SPAUAC) to offer his signature interplanetary automobile handling robots at lunar going-wages, we might have to settle for WOCC (Worker-Owned-Co-op Chairmen).

    But GREATEST REVELATION OF ALL: We can kick off Police-Defunding that Chief Carmen and Sheriff Mitzi will be pepper-spraying each other to take credit for! Not only will those giant yellow arrows following crosswalk-violators around make all culprits’ mask-hating friends give ’em intergalatic DISTANCE. But in addition to being FREE, QANON will see to it not a pizza parlor in New York will even let them in to point their finger and go bang.

    Mark Dublin

  4. Head a rumor that sound Transit may eliminate weekend link light rail service this fall, in order to integrate northgate link with the system and facilitate testing. The decision is being considered, given the low ridership trends. Hoping the rumor is false. Saw it recently on one of the Reddit boards.

    1. The tunnel is finished so there’s no track to connect at UW. There’s a temporary wall to remove but that should take just a day or two. Testing can be done by kicking everybody off at UW; that’s how U-Link, SeaTac, and Angle Lake testing was done. The ST Board has gotten so inexplicably ho-hum about weekend Link that I wouldn’t be surprised if it suspends it. On the other hand, you can’t believe everything you read in chat forums; there have been other rumors of deep cuts to Link and Metro that have turned out to be false.

      If they suspend it for low ridership, that will be ironic, because it’s the 30-minute infrequency that’s driving the low ridership. I want to go to Seward Park today, and I’m faced with a 30-minute Link + 30-minute 50, or a 10-minute 7 that’s often overcrowded and may turn me away. With 30-minute service you have to write down the schedule before you leave and give plenty of time so you don’t miss the train, otherwise you’ll be waiting half an hour for the next one. That’s one of the main reasons people are avoiding Link.

      1. Mike, given its capacity, its service area including Sea-Tac Airport, and its reserved right-of-way, it’s the definition of wrong for ST to consider it just another alternative bus-line to the Route 7.

        Do we really have proof that ST is deliberately leaving service lame to take the heat off by discouraging ridership, or are they just doing their best with the money they have? My usual pointers about saving money by improving performance…STB-memorized.

        jeanne.kohl-welles@kingcounty.gov
        206-477-1004

        Because, while I’m working on Thurston’s ST membership, what should the voter who’s now got my own trolley-wired and maybe someday Link- served Ballard address be telling her? And if they’re not, why not?

        I’ve also been told there are also orders in place to seriously lower train speed on MLK as a safety measure. Anybody know details or veracity? And do the numbers prove or refute?

        Mark Dublin

      2. King County Metro has made multiple bus restructures to funnel people on to Link. If weekend Link service were to disappear, all those restructures would have to be undone. It would be a horrible mess, which would result in across the board loss of frequency, on top of whatever else might be in store.

        Anecdotally, I’ve ridden Link a couple times since the pandemic, both on weekends and weekdays and the ridership level isn’t *that* different.

        It is possible that we may see an isolated weekend or two with no Link service at UW Station. But, it would be very temporary, and Sound Transit would have to provide shuttle buses to fill in the gap.

        If anything, Sound Transit should be prioritizing continuing as close to normal Link service as possible and, if necessary, making cuts to ST Express to pay for it. The 545 and 550 each have a ton of rush hour trips that aren’t needed until offices start to reopen again. If Link ran more often, maybe the 542 would be sufficient for current ridership and we wouldn’t even need a 545 at all.

      3. King County Metro has made multiple bus restructures to funnel people on to Link.
        Yes, but that was based on the idea that frequent Link service made the transfer penalty less painful. With Link running less frequently than some of the bus routes a re-restructure might be cheaper and better. Of course then you’ve got to get ST to kick in some of their pot of gold to provide the service.

        I’ve ridden Link a couple times since the pandemic, both on weekends and weekdays and the ridership level isn’t *that* different.
        Yeah, but on the weekend there’s 1/3 less trains so if you’re seeing the same number of people on the train…

      4. Transit will suck until we get a handle on the pandemic. The same is true for various activities, like sporting events, live music, bars, restaurants, and even outdoor playgrounds. To be clear, transit is essential. But it isn’t clear whether good transit is essential. Seattle didn’t have good transit until recently — it can live without good transit a bit longer. It sucks, but most things suck right now.

        Truncations save money. If you truncate to a crowded bus, though, you often don’t gain anything; you end up running the crowded bus more often. That is why they never tried truncating before. They could run the Kirkland buses to the U-District, and tie into the 49, 70, and 71/72/73/74. But then those buses would be crowded, and you are running more of them, and you’ve saved nothing (while inconveniencing those Kirkland riders).

        Except that isn’t the case right now. The 49 runs every 12 minutes, and it isn’t crowded. Same with the 70. So riders from Kirkland can time a connection with Link, or take a more frequent (and slower) bus. That means that folks from Kirkland at least have better frequency than they would otherwise, even if their trip takes a while. It isn’t clear to me that things are actually worse than they would be if they abandoned the truncations. They are definitely worse than planned, but that is true for everyone. Someone who takes a bus from say, West Seattle, and commutes to the University of Washington, has a much worse commute right now. Right in the middle of the pandemic, when we need those medical folks more than ever, their commute sucks. We all have to deal with suckage right now — I’m not sure things would suck worse if we went back to the old system.

      5. Someone who takes a bus from say, West Seattle, and commutes to the University of Washington, has a much worse commute right now. Right in the middle of the pandemic, when we need those medical folks more than ever,

        True, but coming from the eastside said “medical folk” has a much better commute than if the 255 continued to DT. But for people that need to get to DT, say to get to their health care job on Pill Hill, it sucks. It’s a difficult balance but if Link service on weekends is going to be 1/2 hr at best I’m thinking dollar for dollar; parking trains the service might be better with buses. Not a no brainier but certainly worth discussion; especially when one of the justifications for weekend Link is serving the airport. It’s not like cheap rental cars and many other alternatives aren’t available there for people that can afford to fly.

      6. I don’t think it’s a good idea to make huge service restructures right now, only to revert them in a few years. Whatever service restructures we do make should be moving the transit system closer to our long term goals.

        Obviously, some temporary level of service adjustment is in order (reducing rush hour service to preserve all-day service). But, undoing the 2016 service restructure would be a big step backwards, not to mention creating a lot of confusion for people that have gotten used to the transit system the new way, and don’t want to switch from a 65 that runs every 15 minutes to a 72 that runs only once or twice per hour.

        I personally think a lot of the problem is that Sound Transit should be aware that lots of bus routes funnel into Link and should be prioritizing it accordingly for maintaining frequency. Whatever temporary service cuts they need to make should be coming from ST Express, which is much more commuter-focused than Link is.

        For instance, do we really need commuter route running like the 532 right now? Even if the 545, I would argue, is superfluous, as the entire passenger volume could probably fit on the 542. The 545 just feels necessary because people don’t want to wait 20-30 minutes for a Link train.

        Sound Transit has the resources to run Link at 10-minute frequency, or at least 12-15 minutes. They simply choose to not do so, and spend the money running empty buses instead.

      7. I went to Seward Park. Link came at a fortunate time, and the 50 left Othello a reasonable 15 minutes after Link arrived. I decided to walk instead. It too 50 minutes from Othello to the park, on Myrtle Street, the north-south greenway, Rainier for one block, and Orcas Street. The park was busy but not crowded. The perimeter road is pedestrian-only, which is good because the pedestrian trail is too narrow for everyone.

        Afterward I took the 50 to Genesee Street, 7 to Mt Baker TC, and 8 to Capitol Hill. The 50 had 3 people. The 7 was surprisingly light too, the oposite of my previous experience the past couple months. The 8 was its usual weekend lightness, around 15 people total, but only a few at any one time, with people getting on and off all along the route like on the E. The emptiest part was, as usual, between Yesler and Cherry Streets. Everybody wore masks on all routes. I should also say congratulations to 131 riders, who a week ago all wore masks, the opposite of their previous trend.

        We don’t know why ST is running Link so infrequently. The last we heard was several weeks ago when it started the recovery fare; it reduced Link to the current level citing the security costs of cleaning up unsanitary incidents and vandalism. Since then it has started charging full fare and fare inspectors have returned, although they may not be scanning ORCA cards yet or issuing citations, at least they didn’t at first. So ST really needs to give us an updated explanation of why Link is so infrequent, and when or under what criteria it will restore frequency. It’s gone on for so long without explanation that I’m beginning to worry ST may be planning to keep 30-minute weekend/evening service permanently. If so, that would be a complete change in direction for Link, so we need an explanation.

      8. “I’ve also been told there are also orders in place to seriously lower train speed on MLK as a safety measure. Anybody know details or veracity? And do the numbers prove or refute?”

        It seemed slow today. I don’t have a portable speedometer but it was slower than the cars and it felt like it may be 25 mph. Vision Zero directs that arterials should be lowered from 30 mph to 25, and many Seattle arterials have already done so, so maybe MLK was next in line. Cars were driving faster, but cars always speed.

        Some have reported increased stopping at stoplights on MLK. That didn’t happen this time, but the previous time a few weeks ago it stopped at Orcas Street for a light.

        Link’s seat closures are somewhat relaxed. The last time I rode it, in the upper end section only the four corner seats were open. Today half the seats were open. The signs were a bit ambiguous: they may have meant to block off entire pairs of seats, but the signs were only on the aisle seats, arguably implying the window seats are open. Likewise, the seats near the doors in the lower section (not the ADA seats), some of them were blocked off. ST may have intended to block of the entire seat-pair or two rows next to the doors, but the signs only covered some of those seats, implying the others were open.

      9. It’s futile to consider temporary bus restructures. Metro is either reluctant to restructure, or if it does it wants to keep it. The only temporary restructures it does are things forced on it like street closures. And even then, it doesn’t truncate/untruncate a route to downtown; it tries to keep mostly the same stops. If the 255 is reverted to downtown, it may never go back to UW.

        Likewise with ST and the 255. It may make sense to suspend the 545 in favor of the 522, but right now the 545 is in the position the 255 was before the 255 was truncated. Clamors to truncate it fall on deaf ears.

  5. I just did some Pulitzer Prize-worthy investigative reporting, and found out the Metro bus shield delay is not financial, it’s due to the redesign of their first attempt at a shield, and they are or were waiting on some pneumatic parts for the redesigned shield door before they begin installing them. King County operated ST buses will get the shields first, Metro second. It will all be done in-house at some place called the Component Supply Center located at the South Base campus.

  6. How come I never hear airlines talk about equity when it comes to where they will allocate their service?

      1. There is a government program known as the Essential Air Service, in which the federal government pays private airlines money to provide at least some service to small airports that would otherwise have no service. In some locations, the service prevents people from having to drive for several hours to get to an airport. In Alaska, there are several small towns that don’t even have a road connection to the rest of the country, so without the Essential Air Service, people living there would have no way to get in or out.

        The equity discussions, I’m sure do come up, with air travel, when the government is paying for it.

      2. There is a government program known as the Essential Air Service
        I’m trying to think of an economic justification for this. Best I can come up with is everyone who pays federal taxes is supporting the FAA and the air traffic control system. Therefore they should get some benefit even if they live in flyover country. It’s not a great argument and the reality probably has more to do with States like AK and ND having just as many Senators as NY and CA.

      3. One economic justification, at least for Alaska, is that it may very well be cheaper than building a road to every town it serves. But, I agree with you, that much of is likely little more than old-fashioned pork.

    2. Airlines should base their service on cities that are lower income, on recent immigrants, and people of color, just like KC Metro does, and not base where they fly to and from on where most people want to travel, correct? Airlines should base where they fly mainly on equity, right?

      1. Your posts are amusing, Sam, but less so when you write something that isn’t true. KC Metro does not base their service on whether the riders are lower income, recent immigrants, or people of color. It may be a factor, but it isn’t the basis of their network — not by a long shot. Metro focuses more on general coverage — minimizing the walking distance for riders (regardless of their ethnic or economic situation) — than they do the factors you mentioned.

        If you want to make the case that Metro should abandon such expensive policies, and focus only on ridership, be my guest. That means that if Metro was operating like airlines, we would have a lot more buses in the city, and a lot fewer in the suburbs (especially outside of rush hour). That is clear from the data: https://kingcounty.gov/~/media/depts/transportation/metro/accountability/pdf/2018/system-evaluation.pdf.

      2. Executive summary: “Metro currently operates about 4.1 million annual hours of Metro service. Making the investments identified in this report would reduce crowding, improve reliability, and grow our service network. To achieve our METRO CONNECTS long-range vision and meet the demands of the Puget Sound Regional Council’s Transportation 2040 plan, we will need to provide about two million more annual hours of service.” So Metro needs 50% more service hours in twenty years. And it’s about to reduce hours, the next Seattle TBD will be smaller, and the county may or may not have some proposal of unknown size in 2024.

        Peak Analysis: Interesting metrics for peak-only routes.

        Metro Connects Progress Report: How Metro thinks it’s performing in the run-up to 2040. It’s peak ridership mode share (compared to other transportation modes) in 2017 was 13.1%; its 2040 goal is 23%. There have been news reports that it’s much higher in downtown Seattle, but countywide is a different story.

        Appendix C: Route productivity data. Not so good in half the Eastside. Strong ridership on the 164-181, B, F, and after 7pm on the A. In Seattle, not so good off-peak for the 4, 12, 27, 31, 78. Applauds to the 40, 41, 49, 57, 70, 101, and 120. Peak-only route analysis: weak justification for the 5X, 9, 18, 116 (Fauntleroy-downtown express), 154, 177, 214, 355.

        Corridor Changes: Black Diamond-Enumclaw route replaced by demand-response service. “Daily ridership on this segment more than doubled.”

  7. Why is East Link’s 124th and 130th stations so close together? Or, another way of putting it, why is East Link’s 130th Station and Overlake Village Station so far apart? There should be a station near Fred Meyer!

    1. “Why is East Link’s 124th and 130th stations so close together?”

      I’ve often wondered that. It’s 120th, not 124th, so not quite as close, but still close. I asked an ST rep at a Link open house in Bellevue why a 130th station, and he said it’s for future growth and a small P&R in the meantime. I didn’t like the surface lot and said it will create a constituency to keep parking there permanently. He said the surface lot is only until development spreads from the Spring District and reaches 130th.

      1. Surface lot is much better than a garage. Will be much easier to convert to TOD in the future. Of all the ‘permanent’ parking owned by ST, I’d wager this is the one most likely to be converted into TOD in the near-ish future.

        The lot is small enough the ‘mitigation’ for existing drivers can probably be covered by a modest investment in station access, like some bike lanes and a public bike garage in the new TOD.

    2. I tend to agree at NE 20th St would seem better. I suspect the NE 130th Ave choice is based on some Bellevue development ideas at the time. I think the intent is to have Link almost appear to be running through a transit mall environment for a few blocks so it might as well stop because it must be operated slowly no matter what. I think the area can have up to 150 ft buildings.

    3. Neither of these “stations” are big investments that couldn’t “disappear” if travel time became an issue. 120th is currently the nexus of the “Spring District”. 130th was a place where ST could by a large parcel relatively cheap for staging and provide the much needed P&R (basically for free) necessary to get suburban votes. They couldn’t have built a station closer to my house and free parking so what’s not to like? The 130th area is prime for upscale dense development in the next 10-20 years. That said, 120th is an easy walk to Bel-Red and has really good bike/ped connection to the Medical Mile and beyond. It’s going to be a long time before the 130th station has any meaningful ridership.

    4. “Neither of these “stations” are big investments that couldn’t “disappear” if travel time became an issue.”

      Travel time would only be an issue because ST chose a surface alignment to squeeze money for the downtown Bellevue tunnel the city council begged for. I asked the same ST rep about the level crossings, and he said they’re low-volume streets so disruptions should be minimal.

    5. For TOD, BelRed is at an angle & there’s a large park east of 140th, so as you move further east than 132th, your 10 minute walkshed might decrease as BelRed and 520 converge. Even with less overlap with the 120th station, I’m not sure a station on 136th Place would be much better. Placing the station at 20th is no good because 520 is a hard wall for development in that area, unlike in Redmond where the two freeway stations can serve dense development on both sides of 520.

    6. Why is East Link’s 124th and 130th stations so close together?

      They’re not, really. The 124th station is west of 124th, while the 130th station is east of 130th. I’m sure there are better maps, but I can’t seem to find them on the Sound Transit website (which seems very coy with regards to information like that) but this should do: https://bettertransport.info/pitf/images/eastli4.jpg. The stations could be slid a bit further apart, but my guess that wouldn’t have added much ridership. There isn’t that much overlap, since they are already over a half mile apart (from what I can tell).

      Or, another way of putting it, why is East Link’s 130th Station and Overlake Village Station so far apart?

      The railway heads northeast right after serving the 130th station. It then hugs the freeway. In doing so, there is little point in adding a station between the two. It would be too close to the freeway or too close to the 130th station.

      It could have cut over on 20th. If they had, then a station at 148th and 20th (Fred Meyer) would have made sense. So basically the issue was going next to the freeway (likely to save a few bucks). I don’t know if anyone argued for using 20th because it could have resulted in an additional station (it is certainly not on the map). Ridership does not seem to be a priority for ST.

      2. I guess the name is insignificant since it’s above both 120th and 124th and will probably have entrances on both. I’m actually going to 124th and I’ve been fretting about it being between two stations, and I thought both 120th entrances will be further west. But if there’s an entrance on 124th then that will be convenient for me. Still, I’ve never seen the station called 124th until now.

      3. Official name is still Spring District/120th. Here’s a good diagram, which shows the east facing station entrance will be to 122th (which doesn’t yet exist), not 124th. So should have easy access to 124th, but the station is definitely adjacent to 120th rather than 124th, which is likely why the name evolved vs the alternative analysis Ross shared.

        Page 14:
        https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/project-documents/east-link-central-bellevue-open-house-display-boards-06062017.pdf

    1. Sam, are you saying a barely-existent mental health system left transit assault-free before the pandemic hit? Look up “Jeremy Christian”, except not on a full stomach and without something to throw up into. As a death penalty opponent, if I had jury duty, I’d a get a cop who killed him the Congressional.

      ‘Nother thing I’m curious about: “Transit’s” got a lot of heads and politicians. Would you recognize any of them if they were sitting next to you? But main thing is that by my count, you’ve only got nine days left ’til the election. You need to be twittering with one hand and dialing with the other to make sure all their constituents know they don’t ride transit.

      Anybody gets beaten up on transit from this “click” on….your fault. Click.

      Mark Dublin

      1. I’m not saying anything. I’m providing a link to a story that shows health care worker being terrorized and attacked on public transit.

    2. That’s one nurse and one assailant among tens of thousands of passengers on hundreds of routes in Chicago, and ten times more passengers on routes throughout the US. The story didn’t say “Hundreds of nurses are being assaulted on Chicago buses”, or “A nurse is assaulted every day on a CTA bus somewhere”, it reported this as a one-time unusual occurrence. Local politicians probably don’t watch Chicago TV and don’t even know about this incident. As to why they don’t ride transit, do you know they don’t? Have you surveyed all local politicians on their commute mode? Do you stand outside the parking garage watching to see if they drive in? If they don’t ride transit it’s probably because they’re average Americans who see transit as something for other people. The only way to solve it is to vote in people who do commute via transit.

      1. From transit’s point of view, could really be in its own coldest interest to adjust fares, and general welcome, to cultivate familiarity with people within four years of being able to both vote and serve in the Washington State Legislature.

        Information that the transit system should really be “tagging” its own walls with, with volunteer donors seeing to it there’s a big supply of markers that are easy to wash off. But come to think of it, that’s probably so 2016 I’ll get canceled in my tracks. Mass revelations like this are what make tweets so sweet!

        Pairing also with the fact that from their first train ride south of Boeing Access, kids will be used to be putting nose-prints on train windows making fun of traffic moving fifty nine miles an hour less than their “ride” is moving. And when confined to a car, with constantly reminding Daddy how fast they were going when last they took this stretch on Link.

        Reason I won’t back off from thanking the car industry for a steadily increasing rise in ridership: Sheer number of cars will finally render reserved ROW transit the only thing in sight that’s moving at all. Let alone just plain fast.

        Mark Dublin

  9. Work from home & increasing lawlessness are changing the Seattle real estate dynamic. People have been leaving Seattle in large numbers for most of the last decade. But the number one reason has been Genrification, they simple get priced out. That’s because more people want to move here for high paying jobs than are leaving. The shift to work from home has increased the number of people looking to leave.

    The report, by Seattle-based online residential real estate company Redfin, found that the number of home sellers looking to leave the Seattle metro area has jumped to 13.7%, compared with 11.2% at the same time last year.

    Meanwhile, the net outflow of homeowners from Seattle has soared from 363 in the second quarter of last year to 6,007 in the second quarter of this year

    No doubt the West Seattle bridge issue is also “driving” some of this. But now real estate agents are telling us out of town buyers are starting to shy away based on the Mad Max scenes they’ve been seeing on the national news.

    For transit I think the ability to work from home will mean a shift away from peak demand as people start to come into DT for meetings or on an even more flexible schedule. Probably also a drop in total ridership since it’s likely there will be fewer people commuting on any give day but also because the flattened traffic patterns and less demand for parking mean more people will just drive. High capacity frequent service to the suburbs (Link) may prove to be much more popular than forecast.

    1. Increased lawlessness? Mad Max scenes? Got a report to back up that hyperbole somewhere to the left of “Seattle is Dying” Fisher Broadcasting?

      1. @AJoy, I must apologized for a previous ad hominem attack. Unwarranted and inexcusable. I provided a link based on anecdotal evidence from real estate agents. It’s a point for discussion. I’ve heard other stories on both KOMO and KIRO as I work from home. What sources do you suggest?

        Seattle is not dying. It’s not turning into Detroit. It does appear that the overheated real estate market is cooling off. As I noted some of this is the West Seattle Bridge. Maybe it’s a good thing that prices are moderating in Seattle?

      2. Bernie, apology readily accepted. I understand that the report is anecdotal, and it is a relevant area for discussion. It just looked like a cherry picking of sources when you used a source that linked back to KOMO. KIRO is a little better, as most of their biased right wing reporting is isolated to their news radio channel. If I am not providing sources, I certainly don’t have much room to complain about yours. That’s probably a lesson I should take to heart more often.

    2. “Leaving the metro area” means moving out of Pugetopolis. That’s different from moving from Seattle to the suburbs. Being priced out is leaving involuntarily, so it’s different from leaving because you don’t want to live in Seattle. If out-of-town buyers are staying away because of Mad Max propaganda about anarchy and carnage, good, that will lessen the pressure on housing prices. Seattle has mismanaged its growth, and if it can’t get its act together to keep prices from skyrocketing and people from being displaced, then maybe we need fewer people moving here as a stopgap.

      Everybody including Metro is assuming peak surges will be lower than in the past. Flattened demand would be better because it’s less costly to provide. Peak surges require purchasing additional buses and losing service hours to congestion. If all-day frequent ridership to the suburbs is expecte, then all-day frequent ridership within Seattle should be expected too.

      1. “Leaving the metro area” means moving out of Pugetopolis. That’s different from moving from Seattle to the suburbs.

        True but the net result is pretty much the same regarding pricing in the city. Here’s another link to Who’s Moving Out of Town. A little hard to read but interesting is SF is in a class by itself regarding housing prices. Easy for rich white folk to complain . Seattle is tied with LA which is a little surprising that we are/were ahead of Boston in cost of housing. You can actually cash in from Seattle and move to NY NYC. But based on the outflow it’s retired people moving to better climates. Which begs the question, as we spend more on “homelessness” why is Seattle a magnet for said population?

      2. That has been the trend for fifteen years more or less. San Francisco is highest. Silicon Valley is close to it or sometimes higher. Seattle and LA are close; sometimes one is slightly higher, sometimes the other. NYC is no longer the highest, and sometimes it’s the same or lower than Seattle. I’ve never been to Boston and don’t know much about it.

  10. Mild climate, beautiful scenery. Education-friendly. Government where the 1950’s Chicago Mayor Richard Daley would feel his collar start to chafe. Strong Pacific Ocean trade. None of that’s going anywhere.

    Even at my age it’s hearsay, but truly recall mention of at least one other time when people suddenly started having a hard time affording a house for lack of a way to earn enough money to buy one.

    Remedy that proved successful for decades started with a US Federal Government that would employ people to build an operate things that created many times more wealth than they cost. When President Franklin Roosevelt said “Free”, he meant the liberty earned by ones labor.

    Just sayin’ there’s a precedent. But easy to remember scholastic formula: “History: Absolute Graduation Requirement. Calculus: Learn it in Machine Shop.”

    Mark Dublin

      1. In my experience, which is hopefully long out of date, math has often been used as a means of weeding students out. Academic version of using fares to free trains of homeless people.

        Common failing is also to force students to learn mathematics in the abstract, which some people can do easily, but is counterproductive and unnecessary to impose on everybody.

        I started my adult life in 1964, in the tv “lounge” of my college student union, watching Lyndon Johnson lie us into a literal lifetime of wars every one of which we could’ve avoided had we known what happened to every single self-styled “power” that got involved.

        Would also simplify our understanding of what’s really at stake this election if we’d realize that when in 1877 the North decided it’d lost enough soldiers getting blacks out of slavery that it didn’t need to lose anymore getting them voting rights, the South immediately brought back slavery called it the Department of Corrections, and made it worse. To this day.

        And want to know what a certain Chief of State’s “Base” means by “Freedom?” Has to be to do something, right?

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave_breeding_in_the_United_States

        Don’t tell me you want to keep anybody’s proud history buried!

        Mark Dublin

  11. I don’t know why. But I have always been intrested in city infostructure projects. But recently only when the horizontal bridge portions are set.
    Mid 90’s. Northgate Way gets a new I -5 entrance at 103rd. New horizontal bridge over Northgate Way Cool.
    2006. False work made for Link over Airport Way. When they took all the lumber away. I was excited.
    Then they added an off ramp at Edagar Martinez Way. Car oriented but still cool.
    I have seen more examples. But now. 2019. Watching Northgate Link with online cameras. Cool. For what ever reason. I was excited when they filled the horizontal gaps near Macy’s.
    Also when they filled the gap going over 405 near Downtoemwn Bellevue.
    Now 2020 you can see the horizontal sections getting laid between Northgate Way and Lynwood. It is fun to see every few days.
    I guess horizontal equals new light rail tracks. Fun to watch.
    Oh. And the pedestrian overpass by Northgate is going in fast. Horizontal girders went in this week.

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