Most read posts of 2021

71 Replies to “Most read posts of 2021”

1. Here is hoping for a downtown recovery in 2022. There is so much empty ground level retail space. Hoping there is an increase draw for people to return to downtown and more transit ridership.

   1. Downtown will recover when the Pointy Haired Bosses finally accept that employees are never going to be in the office M-F 8-5 again. When that happens, we can talk about repurposing and revitalizing downtown.

      Until then, it’s just going to be empty offices and empty storefronts.

2. We’ve made great strides in transit in the past decade in spite of the setbacks. The transit network is like night-and-day better than it was in 2011.

   * Link expanded from Westlake-SeaTac to Northgate-Angle Lake.

   * RapidRide C, D, E, and F started, bringing full-time frequent service to the western half of Seattle and the 154th corridor.

   * Routes 40, 50, and 62 created innovative new corridors.

   * South King County restructures brought half-hourly Sunday service to eastern Kent and Maple Valley, and the first Sunday service to northeast Auburn.

   * Seattle’s Transit Benefit District brought 15-minute evenings to many Seattle routes (5, 10, 49, 65/67, etc), 10-minute daytimes to a few routes (45, 65/67), somewhat more frequency on other routes (8, 11), and mitigation service for the West Seattle Bridge closure weekdays. Some of these were lost in the 2020 recession and TBD reduction, but some remain, and Metro and Seattle have a general commitment to them.

   * The Seattle night owls were rationalized, and brought long-awaited service to Northgate, Lake City, and Aurora Village.

   * South King County’s night owls are no slouch either, with various service between 2-5am on the 120, 124, 150, 160 (Auburn-Kent part), 165, A, and 574.

   * Northeast King County has more frequent service on the 255 and north of downtown Kirkland.

   * The 512 has become surprisingly frequent, with 10-minute weekdays and Saturdays, 20-minute evenings and Sundays. It overtook the 550 as the most-frequent and most-ridden route, and is busy all day and evenings.

   * The STB community, which started in 2007, continued to grow and establish itself as the voice of middle-class choice transit riders. It’s quoted by several politicians, transit agencies, and real newspapers. So politicians know what we say, even if they don’t often do it. But knowing is a start, and it gives the public greater awareness on transit issues, which is one of our goals.

   * RapidRide G and I, three Stride lines, and Link extensions to Lynnwood, Redmond, and Federal Way are under construction and are all expected to open you 2028 — six years from now.

   There are probably other things too.

   1. “It overtook the 550 as the most-frequent and most-ridden [ST Express] route”

   2. * Seattle, Bellevue, and Marysville produced excellent Transit Master Plans. Renton and other cities also produced pretty good plans. Finally the cities articulated a vision for transit that would help their residents get around, rather than being entirely passive.

      * Metro, Community Transit, and Pierce Transit all produced good long-range plans.

      * Community Transit launched a second Swift line, a third is under construction, and one or two more are nearing construction.

      “These are a few of my favorite things.”

      1. One minor correction:
         The CT Orange Line kicks off construction in 2022. The financing is in place and, assuming that the city of Lynnwood is able to complete its 196th St project on schedule, should be ready to launch in early 2024.

   3. * Everett Transit, after long refusing, is now considering merging with Community Transit. This would give Everett residents more mobility options, and erase some of the inefficiencies of CT mostly bypassing Everett.

   4. “The STB community … continued to grow and establish itself as the voice of middle-class choice transit riders.”

      *waves from lower class, non-choice section*

      Why the unwarranted classist jab? It seems both a very odd and very intentional inclusion.

      1. It’s accurate. STB has a voice quite distinct from most other online publications following transit news in greater Seattle, which tend to take a generically progressive take on transit priorities and therefore seek to elevate the voice of lower-class rider, or the Seattle Times which has a more ‘upper class,’ non-rider perspective on transit.

         And it’s not odd; it’s an important perspective to include in the broader conversation. STB is much more self-aware of its typical perspective, mostly because it is at odds with the progressive echo chamber.

      2. STB is no more self aware than The Stranger, let’s be honest here.

         Mike Orr’s post is about the STB community, not the political leanings of the blog itself. To declare all of “us” middle class is needless class warfare, unnecessarily dismissive of those of us who are not middle class, and frankly just mean spirited. Taking pride in excluding people’s voices is an important perspective *not* to have.

      3. I didn’t mean to exclude or disrespect anyone. We need voices from all kinds of backgrounds to make sure our ideas are accurate and we’re not missing something. What I meant is, most of the authors and commentators as a whole represent a middle-class, choice-rider background. Several of them are in tech. Some are in other professional fields, some have been bus drivers, and some are with private railroad or bus companies and may be in roles considered blue-collar. But on average I think most STBers are middle-class commuters.

         The Transit Riders Union has positioned itself as the voice of lower-income, transit-dependent riders. Other organizations tend toward that, or focus on a wider set of issues than just transit and transit-related land use (Transportation Choices Coalition, Sightline, etc), or have a narrow specialized focus (Seattle Subway). STB is the only one that represents choice riders and transit amateurs first, which is a unique voice. And that voice tends to be predominantly middle-class if I’m not mistaken. But we still need members who bring a working-class perspective and other perspectives, and may have different trip patterns or concerns that we’d otherwise miss.

      4. I think some people get offended by the term “choice rider” because they interpret “choice” as an adjective describing the rider, like how you would talk about “a choice cut of meat.”

         What “choice” really means in this context is that the person has the ability to choose between different modes of transit, and chooses transit over driving/rideshare/etc.

         People in the transit field know that this is not intended to be a classist term and don’t intend to use it that way, but I see this misinterpreted by the general public all the time.

      5. Here is an interesting discussion on the terminology, as well as the futility of breaking things into two categories (https://humantransit.org/2010/01/unhelpful-word-watch-captive-rider.html).

         The way I look at is that transit effects some people more than others. Some aren’t bothered at all if transit sucks — they were going to drive anyway. Others are devastated — getting to a job interview, a medical appointment, or a school meeting can take up much of the day, and set up a cycle of daily misfortune, or automobile reliance — neither of which they can afford. A lot of people are somewhere in between. A transit trip may save them money, and cost them very little time.

      6. People are certainly more complex, but I still find it a helpful heuristic when trying to articulated the “why” of a specific transit service.

         In recent decades, lower transit user by lower income Americans has been closely associated with higher car ownership rates among lower income households, which I think underscores how the term ‘choice rider’ is not a reference to any specific class, plus it illustrates that whether or not a rider is ‘dependent’ on transit can vary depending on the time scale.

   5. My impression is that STB has been dedicatedly critical of routing decisions favored by the mysterious non-self-aware group we have dubbed “choice riders”. Heck, we even had a ride-in to celebrate the last run of route 42.

      As for class warfare, my impression is that the ORCA LIFT program — copied from Kitsap Transit, and espoused here by Martin while the transit left and right were still busy warning us that the card had microchips the government would use to track us and that ORCA would hurt poor riders — has been an amazing success both at speeding up transit and making it accessible to a lot more riders who could otherwise not afford the fares. LIFT started with Metro but spread quickly to all ST services, ET, CT, and the monorail (with a push from this blog).

      ORCA also became a tool to get free passes into the hands of more groups, like Seattle Public Schools students and residents of various affordable housing sites.

      Every time you get off the train and hear a double-beep, remember that someone had to whine about getting the boring details right. ST got the message loud and clear that center platforms were the obvious choice for accessibility, and they got it from this blog (though it should have been obvious to anyone who has ever ridden an urban passenger train). They still haven’t really gotten it on vertical conveyance redundancy, but the presence of the ret-conned spiral stairwell in U-District Station suggests they are getting part of the message, and they do listen to us.

      A lot of this is owed to the commentariat. Other blogs make it really difficult to hear from the general public, or keep them from getting drowned out by the malicious spambots. I came here first as a frequent commenter until Martin decided I had some useful things to write about. Thank you, Martin, for your years of labor of love, and for giving the unorganized a voice! And thank you to Frank for your behind-the-scenes labor of love keeping the blog afloat and functioning!

      1. Yes, STB has catalyzed smaller good things that aren’t just about lines. We asked for a double-beep for years, and 130th Station, and escalator fallback at UW Station (which led to ST creating a walkway between the mezzanines, and converting the stairs from emergency-only to full-time). Persistent pressure sometimes works, but it might take several years.

3. I find it interesting that these two lists differ so much. Why is that?

   Perhaps some posts are popular places for regulars to restate usual points and others get read by interested parties who care about the specific topic?

   Whatever the reason, I view the most read as the most impactful. I would be curious to know if the metrics can report the types of devices (desktop/laptop or phone) or even whether the most read are from homes or offices.

   1. Yeah the ferry article apparently tapped into a huge audience that doesn’t typically read or comment on STB. 95% of the STB comments are from 20 or so folks, so I’m not surprised that articles that grab a fresh, one-off audience don’t pull many new commenters. Though I do think the ferry article did bring in a few first timers, IIRC!

   2. I think one also needs to keep in mind the impact of the blog’s partial hiatus and limited content for a period of time during the past year. I would hazard to guess that this most likely skewed the “number of comments” figure for multiple blog pieces.

      1. Yeah. There were definitely a couple stretches this year where the same post was at the top of the front page for a 10+ days. That’ll drive a lot of comments.

      2. Yep, comments hit the max number on some posts that weren’t really hot topics but there was nadda for weeks. Meanwhile, page two submissions seem to be completely ignored. The “blog” is pretty much an open thread comment wall.

      3. I would add that most major 2021 decisions were about bus restructuring and not rail. The major rail investment decisions were pretty much set in 2020 or earlier.

         Other major transit changes were implemented but those were mostly already finalized before 2021.

   3. For me, a lot of the most-read articles I agreed 100% with, and I didn’t feel like I had anything more to add.

4. Interesting that not a single article about housing is in either list, although debates about housing and density are often the most heated on this blog. I don’t think many feel “threatened” by better transit like they do upzoning, although the cost is high, but they do about their neighborhoods which are visceral for them, and a big reason Harrell is mayor.

   Personally I think the nexus between housing density/TOD and transit ridership misses the point. If we are spending over $100 billion on light rail to areas that don’t have the ridership today to support the cost building more apartments — often next to a freeway — to meet inflated future ridership estimates suggests we shouldn’t have built the line in the first place, at least until bus ridership along the same routes supported light rail. The deurbanization we have seen during the pandemic does not lessen the need for good transit, but does undermine some of the future population and ridership estimates used to support light rail to areas outside Seattle.

   Also interesting that articles about global warming or carbon emissions are not in either list. I think the majority of readers see transit and global warming separately, although some transit advocates want to connect the two, except EV’s defeat that argument, and IMO prematurely accelerated Metro’s electrification. But again EV’s don’t lessen the need for better transit as a mode of transportation, even if transit won’t save the world.

   If I had to select just one article it would be ““West Seattle-Ballard Link costs revised more than $4 billion higher (1/7, 207 comments) Dan discusses the worst local transit news to emerge in several years.”

   I think these revelations cost Rogoff his job, and badly eroded any credibility ST has when estimating project costs, farebox recovery, general tax revenue, and future ridership even before the pandemic.

   This erosion of trust is going to be a real problem in the EIS for WSBLE because of the massive price tag, very complex projects, and the fact all five subareas are contributing to the costs of DSTT2 although their maximum exposure to project cost overruns is not very well spelled out. It also will make any future levies very difficult.

   The eastside subarea already had several park and rides and other projects — including the Issaquah to S. Kirkland line — extended for WSBLE when that subarea has the funding for those promised projects to be completed on time. I still think there is insufficient funding in the N. King Co. subarea for WSBLE even with elevated lines and stations in West Seattle and Ballard, and for DSTT2 as designed. I have always questioned the wild fluctuations in ST’s deficit estimates, swinging from $11.5 billion to $6 billion in a matter of months when none of the underlying data in the assumptions had changed, and it was in the middle of pandemic.

   I think the four other subareas will balk at contributing more to DSTT2 or WSBLE than $276 million each, especially since we now know DSTT2 is not necessary for capacity for lines 1 and 2, despite ST’s inflated ridership and claims DSTT2 was necessary for East Link capacity. I wish the eastside had someone representing them other than Balducci, but if the deal on DSTT2 or WSBLE is again “renegotiated” by the Board I think Pierce Co. will withdraw, and East King Co. should withdraw.

   So next year the main article will be N. King Co. better be honest with itself about the ultimate cost of WSBLE — which was always predicated on a sub rosa ST 4 that is unlikely today — before it begins to dig DSTT2 or WSBLE. That honesty can be summed up with three words: “project cost contingencies”, something ST has always lowballed which is why every project has come in way over estimated budget.

   1. These lists are done every December, and usually Link route planning and ST 2/3 top the list by far. It’s surprising to see a ferry or e-bike article in the top 10, but I think what happened is those articles got linked in places that don’t usually link to STB (ferry and bike forums?), and that brought a large number of one-time or new commentators. As to why housing isn’t in the top 10, I think it’s because the Link articles overwhelm it, because everybody wants to talk about where Link’s stations should be and what lines it should have. And people who care just about housing don’t read STB so they don’t see the articles. The cost issues are unique this year. The closest previous financial shortfall was in 2000 before STB existed.

      The EIS has nothing to do with financing, subarea contributions, or P&R equity. It’s about the physical environment: whether a project might bother the neighbors or kill fish. It’s not what ST must build, it’s only what it can build. ST can choose to build any combination of alternatives, regardless of whether they’re marked “preferred” in the EIS. The “locally-preferred alternative” is just the technical structure of EISes: the zero point against which other alternatives are compared. The point of the EIS is to determine whether the “preferred alternative” selected at the beginning really is the best environmentally and is environmentally permissible. After the EIS is finished, ST will choose an alignment for construction, which may or may not be fully the “preferred alternative”, and that’s what the feds will consider for grants using the EIS. What ST can’t do is build something not in the EIS, unless it makes a supplemental EIS to study it.

      If subareas or people want to object to ST3’s current direction, now’s probably as good a time as any to bring that up with ST and your city/county government to try to get it changed. I haven’t seen any effective uprisings in the subareas. Pierce has talked about seceding for a few years now, but so far it hasn’t pursued it, and no large organized group has emerged for it.

      1. Just a footnote that the New Starts competitive grant process is a whole other step that is rigorous. A project can’t receive FTA funding for construction without an EIS, but having a final EIS (and ST is just now releasing the Draft for public comment) does not guarantee funding from FTA.

         Another footnote: my understanding is that the EIS is not intensely assessed by a separate review agency in Washington. While there are guidelines established by Federal law and other jurisdictions affected by the project, ST ultimately gets to “grade” the EIS itself. That’s why third parties often sue on the EIS if a mitigation is inadequately addressed.

   2. Contrary to what many progressives argue, I don’t think transit was ever really about reducing carbon emissions. If transit were really about reducing carbon emissions, we would see a much smaller network, by and large running only the most popular routes at the most popular times. Between the carbon footprint of a bus itself, and the opportunity cost of what carbon-reduction efforts the monetary cost of running the bus could have funded, unrelated to transit, the minimum ridership threshold for a transit network focused purely on climate change prevention, I think, would be much higher than many people would feel comfortable admitting.

      Rather, I believe the real purpose of transit is some combination of the following:
      1) Allowing people to participate in society without the financial burdens associated with car ownership (or excessive use of ride-hailing services such as Uber or Lyft).
      2) Supporting land uses that involve concentration of people to a level where everyone driving and parking would have significant negative consequences, for example, traffic congestion, excessive road space to carry all the cars, excessively large parking lots to store all of those cars, local air pollution from all of those idling engines, etc. (Situations where this falls under includes downtown office workers, Mariners games, folklife festival, airport trips, etc.)
      3) To support walkability – people will walk further if they have the option to ride a bus back, in case it’s raining, they get tired, etc. This not only means more eyes on the street, but also more sales in business districts, since it’s much easier for people walking to spontaneously hop into a store and buy something than people driving by in a car.
      4) To prevent drunk driving accidents by providing alternative options for people to get home after going out drinking (and without the cost burden of an Uber/Lyft ride, which might induce a cost-conscious person to take their chances driving instead, and hope nothing happens).

      With 1) in particular, it also bears mentioning that, unlike nearly all other government benefits, transit can be used without friction. There are no applications, processing delay, or paperwork to prove that you’re low-income in order to ride the bus (at least for those willing to pay full fare, as opposed to Orca Lift). Even middle-class people are welcome to ride also, and can do so without guilt of taking up taxpayer resources meant for poorer folk.

      As an analogy, imagine a hypothetical transportation program where, instead of running buses, the city simply offered car leases to low-income individuals at heavily subsidized rates (even subsidizing gas and insurance on top of that for the very low-income). To get into the program, you’d have to fill out a lengthy application, complete with tax returns, to prove eligibility, then wait seemingly forever, for someone already on the program to either die, move away, or lose eligibility, for a car to be freed up and your name to be called off the wait list. Until your name gets called, you are simply on your own for getting around. If these burdens sound familiar, I have essentially described how the public housing system works. The fact that transit allows low-income people access to transportation without all of these hassles and waiting periods is a very, very good thing.

      1. I think your first point should be expanded to include a segment of the population that physically can’t drive. That includes teens and younger not yet eligible to drive, many older folk who have mobility challenges, those with underlying medical limitations that go way beyond being confined in a wheelchair (most forms of blindness, epilepsy, challenged in motor coordination, some forms of arthritis), suspended licenses, coming home from eye dilations, drivers with car problems and many other temporary or permanent circumstances.

      2. The fundamental purpose of transit is to have a universal and efficient way to get around. It should ideally be the public’s first choice alongside walking and biking, with cars being an optional alternative with limited capacity. The problem is when transit is so bad it takes an hour to get from eastern Renton to Seattle or Issaquah to Kirkland, and with waiting that can stretch to an hour and a half or two hours. That makes it hard to do these trips regularly, and practically forces people to drive and have a car. We need the opposite of that.

         A bus is more efficient than SUVs if it has twelve or more passengers — sometimes twice as efficient or more — and a train is four times as efficient. And most Americans are buying SUVs and other large cars and driving them solo. So the carbon footprint of a bus or train is immaterial: it’s less polluting than if half or more of the passengers drove, as they would otherwise do. Even empty buses are worthwhile because they make it possible for people to sometimes take it, even if they’re not taking it today. We can have universal transit without an unacceptable carbon impact, we just can’t have everybody driving petrol cars or dirty-electric cars. (And by “universal” I don’t necessarily mean a bus route to every lowest-density house.)

      3. Yes – mobility for those physically unable to drive is also very important (I thought of this shortly after hitting the “reply” button, but it was too late to make the edit).

         I got a brief experience of this once, after falling off my bike and being left unable to turn the steering wheel of a car without severe elbow pain. Fortunately, this period was brief and, within a few days, I was driving again. But, during those few days, I really depended on transit to get almost everywhere (obviously, I was not biking anywhere during that period either).

   3. I don’t think many feel “threatened” by better transit like they do upzoning, although the cost is high, but they do about their neighborhoods which are visceral for them, and a big reason Harrell is mayor.

      If people voted for Harrell thinking he is going to do away with upzoning, they are in for a huge disappointment, partially because that’s not something he’s going to prioritize, but mainly because as mayor, he doesn’t have the power to change zoning.

      1. I don’t think anyone believes the mayor will rollback upzones (which have been minimal over the years). It is more that they hope the mayor will stop any new upzones.

         I believe zoning changes are like any other law the city passes. It needs approval by the city council and the mayor, or 2/3 of the city council if the mayor vetoes it. The mayor can influence it in other ways as well. For example, Mayor Murray convened a committee to look at housing costs (Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda committee or HALA). Then there findings were essentially rejected by the mayor. As a result, very little happened. This is the type of thing that a lot of voters hope for.

         As for whether they will be disappointed or not remains to be seen. Reports have shown that the Urban Village concept is a failure, and even Rice (who championed it at the time) admits he would “would be looking at different options” now (https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/seattles-longstanding-urban-village-strategy-for-growth-needs-reworking-new-report-says/). On the other hand, there are a lot of people who want to encase Seattle in amber, and many helped elect Harrell. My guess is Harrell will likely suggest a similar committee as HALA, and they will come up to a similar conclusion (we need more widespread zoning changes). Whether Harrell rejects the findings of his own committee or not (like Murray) is anyone’s guess. Will Harrell support the majority who support more apartments and condos (https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/data/survey-shows-most-king-county-residents-likely-open-to-ditching-single-family-zoning/) or will Harrell pander to a noisy and powerful set of voters, many of which supported him? Hard to say.

      2. My view is that land use was not an issue in Harrell’s election. The issues appear to be more about homeless visibility, concern about crime and police oversight.

         Seattle is also more congested and harder to find parking than it was even 10 years ago. Those that own cars (a majority of Seattle households) have seen major increases in congestion and loss of on-street parking. I think they see those problems worsening mainly to frequent changes to remove traffic lanes mostly for bicyclists, remove parking almost entirely for bicyclists, and signal timing changes (along with bad signal timing maintenance) that is creating new traffic bottlenecks at minor streets where none used to exist. So that faction doesn’t want to see further system deterioration perceived as a result of SDOT decisions if they do vote because of transportation issues. Still, those aren’t specifically land use issues.

      3. @Al — I agree with your assessment. I do think that anti-upzone voters likely voted for Harrell though. Whether he cares or not is another matter. If he doesn’t do anything about homelessness, he will be in serious political trouble. If he goes along with upzoning, some in his newfound base may gripe, but I doubt it matters.

      4. Harrell said during one of the televised debates that he is against removing all SF zoning. His reasoning was that it tends to affect minority neighborhoods the most and the opportunity to own your own home is the primary way generational wealth is established.

         It seemed clear from that exchange that he was for upzones but by targeting areas when it makes sense rather than a blanket “do nothing” approach which doesn’t leverage the cities transit investment and will in fact just increase car ownership.

         Harrell could convene a Housing Affordability and Homelessness Agenda committee or HAHA.

      5. It seemed clear from that exchange that he was for upzones but by targeting areas when it makes sense rather than a blanket “do nothing” approach which doesn’t leverage the cities transit investment and will in fact just increase car ownership.

         In other words, the same failed approach that was rejected by the new study. In practical terms, this is doing nothing.

         Harrell could convene a Housing Affordability and Homelessness Agenda committee or HAHA.

         That’s funny. Nicely done.

      6. Doug Trumm had an article in The Urbanist breaking down voting percentages for Harrell based on zones. Harrell won huge in the SFH zones, but lost in the multi-family zones despite winning overall by 17 percentage points.

         Obviously crime and public safety (which in voters’ minds includes homeless camping in parks and on streets) were the top two issues because they are always the top two issues if they are issues in an election. Ross is correct Harrell will be judged on these two issues.

         Do I think upzoning was an issue in the SFH zones? Yes. I don’t think the voting differences based on zone are coincidental. Upzoning was a major issue even in elections on the Eastside, and was very contentious last time Seattle upzoned it’s residential neighborhoods.

         Was transit an issue in Harrell’s election in the SFH zone? I doubt it because they mostly don’t use transit, especially during the last 18 months, and for the vast majority of Seattle voters transit was not an issue in the mayor’s race, or other races. As Al notes little new was decided transit wise in 2021. ST 2 and 3 were decided years ago, and I don’t think the bus restructures were terribly contentious in 2021, although the Eastside restructure surprised me although I should have seen it coming.

         When Ross writes the past upzones “failed” I am not sure what he means but assumes he means the UGA’s.

         The first issue is more housing, or more affordable housing.

         The UGA’s represent a huge upzone, and created a lot of new housing. Was it affordable, brand new housing? Of course not, because brand new housing is never “affordable” without public subsidies.

         The second issue is whether another upzone of the residential SFH zone (which now allows three separate legal dwellings and an unlimited number of unrelated tenants based on a new state law referred to as the “fraternity without the Greek letters” law) will create brand new affordable housing? The answer is obvious: no.

         And as Bernie notes Metro can’t afford to provide frequent service to dense multi-family areas, let alone remote, upzonedvresidential neighborhoods that will have streets clogged with cars like the denser zones.

         The third issue is who will oppose another upzone of the SFH zone that is designed to replace the single family house? Lower income Black residents, because they don’t all live alone like white progressive Seattleites, and they know empirically from history upzones mean white gentrification and Black displacement. Their SFH neighborhoods will get redeveloped while rich white neighborhoods on the Eastside and north Seattle won’t. It wouldn’t look good for a Black Seattle mayor to be called racist by Black Seattle residents.

         The fourth issue is does Harrell want a big fight with his strongest voter base when he has so much on his plate already. Whether upzoning was a major factor in the election for mayor or not, the SFH zones will strongly object to a further upzone that essentially seeks to eliminate single family houses. Most politicians don’t turn around and betray their strongest voting block on an issue they take viscerally once elected.

         Losing the Black and SFH zone vote would not be ideal if Harrell wants to be the first Seattle mayor to win a second term in a long time.

         Finally, when discussing the term “failed” one has to ask how many actual additional housing spaces will be created by converting a SFH with four bedrooms — or three separate legal dwellings under the current code — to a four or six unit multi-family building with separate kitchens, bathrooms, entrances (because safety is much greater with separate entrances) because apparently no one can share living spaces in Seattle anymore, or find a roommate or spouse or partner.

         Although he was being facetious Bernie is right: Harrell will appoint a commission with lots of Black members from south Seattle and lots of SFH zone property owners and tell them to take their time, and focus on equity, equity, equity so his defense of the SFH zones and his strongest base is for racial justice. Being a Black mayor that will be a good defense while he addresses crime, homelessness, and revitalizing the downtown core although the Eastside work commuter might not be coming back.

         If I were advising Harrell I would tell him that is plenty on his plate without starting a huge fight with his base over zoning that by definition won’t create affordable housing (because if it did Seattle wouldn’t need a head tax) or really much additional housing over the current code.

      7. “On the other hand, there are a lot of people who want to encase Seattle in amber, and many helped elect Harrell.”

         There are only two choices in our system, so people have to vote for the one who’s overall better across all the issues. A lot of the vote for Harrell was about policing and tents rather than zoning.

         Harrell didn’t say he’d oppose all single-family conversions or upzoning. He said it would have to be “appropriate” for the neighborhood, and never defined what his threshold is. So it could mean anything, but probably not blanket opposition across the board.

      8. same failed approach that was rejected by the new study. In practical terms, this is doing nothing.
         If you ran 10 miles a day in 2021 and continue to do it in 2022 are you doing nothing? It might be fair to say he’ll do nothing new or no sweeping change to the status quo which has resulted in a ton of new apartments near light rail (Othello & Columbia City & Mt Baker) and future light rail (Judkins Park) I’d wager that one of those new buildings is more housing units than have been created by allowing DADUs (back yard cottages) and they are much better oriented to existing high capacity transit. Also, the ground floor retail and density are (slowly) creating walkable “villages” that are accessible via transit.

         BTW, does anyone know what the UW Commons building is? From the website it sort of sounds like a branch campus except not. From the outside it sure looks like an apartment building.

      9. “who will oppose another upzone of the SFH zone that is designed to replace the single family house? Lower income Black residents, because they don’t all live alone like white progressive Seattleites”

         The number of lower-income Black people who own houses (only feasible if their family bought them before 1995) is surely much smaller than the number of lower-income Black people who live in apartments or live in South King County because they can’t afford Seattle. Some of them might oppose upzoning single-family areas anyway the same way some lower-income Americans oppose taxing the rich, either because they might be rich someday or because they’ve been brainwashed by pro-rich propaganda, but it’s still a convoluted argument. We need pragmatic solutions that get more people into stable housing in walkable areas, not an ideology that claims to be what lower-income people want but actually harms them.

      10. “Reports have shown that the Urban Village concept is a failure”

          I see it as a glass half full. I focus on the villages themselves, and how they allow more people and businesses to be in a walkable area with good transit access. The objection seems to be the space between the villages, that the villages should be larger and the gaps between nearby villages filled in. People wanting more urban areas sound like the villages were successful, not failures.

      11. “same failed approach that was rejected by the new study. In practical terms, this is doing nothing.”

          If you ran 10 miles a day in 2021 and continue to do it in 2022 are you doing nothing?

          That is a ridiculous analogy when it comes to zoning. Nobody has every talked about downzoning. Nobody. Seriously, do you really think we will take areas zoned for apartments and zone them single family in the middle of a housing crisis? That is ridiculous.

          The most extreme policy position that is even remotely possible is to keep things the way they are. Allow only a tiny portion of the city to be developed for apartments or condos. That is the “NIMBY” or “preservationist” position.

      12. The third issue is who will oppose another upzone of the SFH zone that is designed to replace the single family house? Lower income Black residents, because they don’t all live alone like white progressive Seattleites, and they know empirically from history upzones mean white gentrification and Black displacement.

          Wow. Not all only is this racist as shit (black people don’t live in apartments like white people, they all huddle together in houses — I saw it on a documentary) but it completely ignores the report I referenced. Holy cow, it even ignores the summary of the report as reported by the Seattle Times. I realize you don’t like to spend time reading, and prefer to just spout out nonsense without any evidence, so I’ll do a Cliff Notes version for the Seattle Times article (I’ll even highlight some of the key parts so you don’t miss it this time):

          officials released a racial equity analysis of the urban village strategy and Seattle’s current growth plan. The analysis recommends that the city change its zoning laws to allow more housing types in areas outside the urban villages that are now reserved for single-family homes. It also recommends the city adopt strategies to support low-income residents and residents of color who want to rent or own homes throughout the city.

          In a sense, urban villages have achieved their aim, absorbing surges of development in dense hubs, the analysis says. But the strategy hasn’t kept home prices and rents from soaring. It also hasn’t stopped the displacement of low-income residents — including Black residents who make up a disproportionate share of low-income households, the analysis says.

          The analysis links the current situation to practices used in earlier decades to keep people of color and apartments out of wealthy areas occupied mostly by white people. Neighborhoods in Seattle and other cities once had covenants that restricted homebuying based on race. Lenders discriminated against would-be borrowers based on “redlining” on government maps.

          As covenants and redlining were outlawed, “local governments expanded the use of exclusionary residential zoning,” designating large swaths of land for single-family houses “that are typically unaffordable to low-income people of color,” the analysis says.

          “The urban village strategy has not been able to mitigate the displacement of BIPOC residents because it perpetuates a land use and zoning policy that was specifically designed to limit their housing options,” the analysis says, referring to Black, Indigenous and people of color.

      13. Seriously, do you really think we will take areas zoned for apartments and zone them single family in the middle of a housing crisis?
          Absolutely no idea what you’re ranting about. I never made any such assertion or even backhand reference. In fact, exactly the opposite. From what I understood from the TV debate is Harrell wants to UPZONE but in an intelligent manner rather than just remove SF zoning and let the market work it’s invisible hand.

      14. Ross, nothing you quote contradicts the points I made.

          Of course the UGA’s didn’t increase affordable housing. IT IS ALL NEW CONSTRUCTION. You just don’t seem capable of understanding this fundamental premise about upzoning, which by definition requires new construction.

          New construction is not going to be affordable if not subsidized.

          The second fundamental principle you fail to understand is the most important factor in the cost of affordable housing IS THE COST OF THE LAND. Developers are not going to buy lots in Laurelhurst to build multi-family units because the profit isn’t there. Just like The Central District, developers will migrate to the closest in areas with lower land prices to develop under upzoning, and just like The Central District Blacks will be displaced, this time from south Seattle. In 1970 85% of The Central District was Black. Today it is 15%. That is why Black Seattleites are one of the main groups opposing upzoning south Seattle. Are they racist? I don’t think they need you determining what is good for them.

          Finally you fail to understand the motive of builders and developers is to make a profit. That means buy low and sell as high as the market will bear. The only way this model creates affordable housing is if you upzone the poorer areas with the lowest land values and build shoeboxes, except each shoebox still requires a separate kitchen, bathroom, entrance and living room. For one. And even a shoe box after permitting, setasides, construction, increasing material costs, loan interest, and a separate kitchen and bathroom, won’t be as affordable as the existing SFH it replaced if the bedrooms are occupied and the upzone is 4-6 units. .

          Look, we get it. You want another mild upzone of the SFH zone (that under the current code allows three separate legal dwellings) because you like the Brooklynn Brownstone look, or hate people who live in a SFH, and in your world everyone lives alone. Your vision won’t create affordable housing (row houses run around $800k new) and it won’t affect the price of housing, certainly on the low end.

          You didn’t even understand that for your vision to work you would have to fundamentally change the regulatory limits, and when you did finally understand you thought just maintaining the residential height limit would preserve the SFH neighborhood character, and allow enough GFA to replace the bedrooms lost in the demolition of the SFH, something Al tried to explain to you in communities where extended families tend to live together.

          As the article notes 83% of those polled want to live in a SFH, but want others to live in a shoe box in a multi-family zone. Doesn’t that sound like you?

          My real point is Harrell doesn’t need a zoning fight with his base to start his term, and for once someone on the council or in the mayor’s office shouldvlisten to what Black residents want, and stop treating them like they are too dumb to understand the full impacts of upzoning. They don’t need you or me speaking for them. You supported Gonzales andxThomas-Kennedy. Elections have consequences. Your side got trounced.

          Of course, if Harrell fails in addressing crime and public safety in Seattle, and revitalizing the downtown core somehow without the Eastside work commuter — where most of Seattle’s tax revenue is generated — then maybe housing in Seattle will begin to decline, although it will never be affordable for those earning below 50% of AMI, although by far the most affordable housing today is renting a room in a SFH in a less expensive neighborhood, although God forbid they might have to share a kitchen ,

          First we were told DADU’s would create affordable housing. Except they are expensive to build in a hot market. Then we were told adding a third legal dwelling on each residential lot and allowing the property owner to live offsite would create affordable housing (and the tenants would give up their cars rather than parking them on the street), then really tall buildings in UGA’s except it was all new construction in areas that were suddenly hip and gentrified, and of course really tall buildings in Belltown.

          Now it is eliminate SFH zones (without any plan for transit service, something you never address) because SFH’s are racist or privileged when in fact nothing has hurt Black neighborhoods in Seattle more than upzoning, and since you can’t understand why every other upzone has not created non subsidized affordable housing because you don’t really understand how housing markets work you resort to name calling and accusations of racism because someone noted Seattle Blacks are predominantly opposed to upzoning south Seattle because in the past upzoning has displaced them from their historical neighborhoods for white people.

          Here is the truth: there is no magic pill that will create affordable housing without public subsidies. Unfortunately it costs the government 1/3 more than private developers to build housing, and they have to compete for the same land which is why ARCH doesn’t build affordable housing in Clyde Hill.

          If your goal is to eliminate SFH’s ok, but don’t claim it will create affordable new construction because it won’t, and of course it will displace Black residents from South Seattle. If you want to approach upzoning from a racial angle my advice is to ask Black residents in South Seattle what they think, and actually listen to them rather than assume they are too unsophisticated to understand the issue and need you to speak for them.

      15. I don’t think anyone thought you were suggesting downzoning in Seattle Bernie, although we could see some downzones around DADU’s and ADU’s in updated comp. plans on the Eastside after the GMPC’s housing allocations, mostly to do with eliminating or scaling back additional gross floor area to lot area ratios for DADU’s that really hasn’t created much housing let alone affordable housing. For example, after 20 years Mercer Island has around 238 ADU’s out of 7000 residential lots despite a model ADU code and additional GFAR for ADU’s on lots under 10,000 sf. (although many property owners rent out rooms in their house, but must live onsite like with an ADU.

          What I hope Harrell reevaluates is upzoning should begin in the city core and move out. Eliminating SFH zones does the opposite.

          You start with downtown, and then move to the closest and densest neighborhoods, like Capitol Hill, First Hill, Pioneer Square, understanding you will likely displace the people living there now. In very close areas like lower Capitol Hill you go very tall, because there will never be “middle housing” unless middle housing is the maximum allowed in the zone. Developers develop to the maximum allowed. As you go east of Broadway heights then lower.

          In-fill development applies to areas that are “in”. Blue Ridge is not “in”. “In” means you have the transit infrastructure — and know you have the long range transit funding — to support the increase density, and will have the population density for true retail density, not a corner grocery store.

          The goal is not just more housing, but collecting that housing and concentrating the density because at a certain density a car becomes impractical, and more importantly unnecessary, which means you have the necessity to walk, bike or take transit. Without the forced density in a tight space you won’t have the retail density and transit service to live without a car.

          The last places you want to upzone are outer areas where citizens mostly drive. You will never achieve the density there to create a walkable environment, and it is too expensive to provide transit or micro-transit to these areas. What works well in these outer zones are park and rides next to Link or express buses because with a park and the individual pays for the car and driver, two things that make micro-transit unaffordable.

          I think it is a mistake to take a 70 mile long city like Seattle, or the enormous three county area, and to upzone it all. Then you lose the benefit of true density, which is retail density and walk -ability. Upzoning Blue Ridge will never make it walkable.

          UGA’s make sense to me. Maybe like downtown Bellevue they need a much higher height limit. Being new construction the only affordable housing will be set asides, but the greater the height the more affordable units under the formula. There would be no affordable setasides in upzoning the SFH zones.

          Right now our UGA’s don’t have the true density to create true retail density, although some are better than others, and I worry we are abandoning our downtown core when housing there may be critical to replace the work commuter. Of all the UGA’s and most of the denser neighborhoods downtown Seattle is the worst urban experience, and that is the opposite of the goals of zoning, upzoning, and urbanism.

      16. “Capitol Hill, First Hill, Pioneer Square, understanding you will likely displace the people living there now.”

          Lower-income people were displaced on Capitol Hill over the past ten years! That’s why I’ve been sounding the alarm. In 2003 I had a 1960s Ballard (65th) 1 BR courtyard apartment for $700, then a 1960s First Hill studio for $450. In 2005 I moved to a 1920s Summit studio (375 sq ft) for $500. Over the following five years it increased to $700, the landlord said because of the neighborhood becoming more desirable (=new buildings around) and utilities/taxes (which may or may not have been true). My building was not improved at all and still had unreliable hot water, but he raised the rent 30% over five years”. I left in 2010 and I hear those same units go for over $1500, although I can’t confirm it. I moved to my current 2003 1 BR for $1175 in 2010. it’s now $1895 — a 40% increase in 11 years, with no improvements to the building, although maintenance is quite good.

          I knew people who lived in older cheap Summit buildings in the early 2000s, and in 2010 I looked at but didn’t get a 1 BR for $650 in the 1920s Carolina Court on Eastlake, discounted because of the freeway noise. Other lower-income people lived in similar $600 units around Capitol Hill, Eastlake, and the Denny Triangle.

          Then in 2012 the Amazon boom started and squeezed all the remaining slack out of the market. The 1960s 3-story dingbat building across the street from me was replaced with $2000 apartments. The one my friend lived in is gone, and other lower-income people saw their $600 rents jump to over $1000 and they were displaced.

          The point is, the lower-income people who might be displaced are already gone. They were displaced ten years ago.

      17. “other lower-income people saw their $600 rents jump to over $1000”

          To be clear, this was the same building, not a snazzy new replacement. When there’s a housing shortage and the vacancy rate falls to 3% or below, this is what happens, because more people compete for the same units and that drives the prices up. That’s why we need more infill housing. Yes, expand the urban villages! I’ve been saying that for years. We don’t have to upzone Magnolia or Broadmoor anytime soon, but we do need to upzone the areas around the urban villages where the transit hubs are.

      18. The business of upzoning SFH causing displacement does not make sense. If the status quo is owner occupied housing, upzoning does not force any owner to sell. If nobody is forced to sell, by definition, there is no displacement. If anything, upzoning single family black neighborhoods means that the kids will inherit more money when the parents eventually die and their estate does sell. This seems good for wealth building in black communities, not bad.

          As to affordability, the term affordable is not black and white, but a continuum. If your metric is that anything not affordable to a person living in poverty accomplishes nothing, sure, new construction can never be affordable to a person in poverty without big subsidies. But, with more supply, the cost of market rate housing can still go down a few noches, thereby reducing the minimum income necessary to afford a home in upzoned neighborhoods. Even if we’re taking $90k vs. $120k, that’s still something, and a step in the right direction.

          Having actually invested in several multifamily development projects and read developer sales pitches to investors, I can also say that developers love to build in places there theirs is the only development around, and single family zoning protects their project from competition. This applies also to real estate companies buying apartment complexes that are already built – less competition means more potential for rent appreciation, and justifies a higher purchase price. By contrast, areas where a new project is going to face lots of competition tend to be not nearly as lucrative to invest in. Which means, from the tenants perspective, cheaper rents. Not cheap enough for a person in poverty, but still cheaper for a middle class person.

      19. And in the houses right around urban villages, which is where the rezoning would occur, the owners are wealthier than the apartment residents, or at least they have an expensive house they can sell. So if lower-income people have already been displaced from the apartments, they’re already displaced from the houses even more. If they bought the house thirty years ago when it was affordable and are still of modest means, they’re one of a small number of homeowners in the areas that would be upzoned.

      20. asdf2, your points are well made, clear and cogent. But they don’t jibe with the Faux News Talking Point that “gentrification” is ruining Black prospects. We all know that stampeding African-Americans away from the people who actually like them into the cold stiff arms of the bluenoses is Faux’s foremost obsession.

      21. The business of upzoning SFH causing displacement does not make sense. If the status quo is owner occupied housing, upzoning does not force any owner to sell.

          Ah, but in theory, it is not owner occupied housing, but houses that have been rented out. Likewise, upzoning from low rise to high rise (which happens in this town quite a bit, given our reluctance to touch single family zones) does have the potential for displacement.

          However, they pale in comparison to the most common form of displacement, which is simply landlords raising the price. Maybe it is because the landlord just wants to make more money. Maybe it is because the property changes hands, and the new owner wants to make more money. Either way, it happens because there aren’t enough places for people to live, which is why rent is so damn expensive. We shouldn’t depend on the kindness of landlords to lower the rents, or keep them from going up. We should depend on one thing we know will work in a capitalist system: competition.

      22. Minneapolis eliminated SFH zones and enacted rent control, so Seattle can watch and see how the combination of those two works out while Harrell works on public safety, crime and homelessness.

          Expensive cities with large spreads in income like New York and San Francisco have long adopted rent control, which has its good and bad elements. But it does limit the increase in rents, if it may discourage rental housing development, probably most notably in converting SFH into some kind of rental multi-family housing with rent caps. Because the fundamental reality is new construction is not going to be affordable, and eventually the cost of the rental property falls below the rent caps.

          I thought this link was pretty good: https://www.governing.com/archive/gov-zoning-density.html

          “Ground zero for this fight is Seattle’s Central Area neighborhood. Once a thriving black commercial and cultural hub that nourished the musical talents of Quincy Jones, Jimi Hendrix and Sir Mix-a-Lot, Central Area fell on hard times in the 1970s and ’80s. Crime rose and property values plummeted. In recent years, affluent white Seattle residents have moved in and begun to push black residents south to neighborhoods such as Rainier Beach. With up-zoning now passed by the city, that movement could intensify.”

          We simply have to be honest about the fact upzoning will displace poorer renters and communities of color. The quirk about upzoning is it may increase the total number of housing bedrooms (SFH vs. individual legal units on the same lot), but it destroys more affordable housing to create less affordable housing because: 1. it is new construction; and 2. builders want to buy low and sell high. Whether it is Harlem or the Central District displacement is a reality.

          I look at cities like New York or San Francisco and I see decades of increasing housing prices, despite whatever steps are taken, except when there is a great recession, or a pandemic. Many forget that from 2009 to 2016 housing prices declined in the county.

          My preferred solution is housing vouchers for those below 50% AMI but who do have jobs and don’t come with some of the social issues the homeless on the street come with. Otherwise landlords won’t take the vouchers, and other renters will object. Affordable housing and emergency housing are two entirely different things. This leverages lower cost existing housing rather than waiting decades for brand new construction to somehow create affordable rental housing. Right now Seattle and King Co. have become some of the largest housing owners in King Co., and government housing is usually at least 1/3 more expensive to build and manage than private properties. I remember Ross once posting a link to Redfin showing something like 376 older condos for sale in Seattle under $350,000. THAT is the affordable housing stock, but also the properties most likely to be redeveloped with upzoning.

          Ross is correct in that affordable housing is about rental housing. The 50% who own their home in Seattle, and the 70% on the eastside, are not complaining about the skyrocketing costs of housing, which can’t be explained by population growth alone, because the biggest leaps in housing costs have been in the last few years when population growth has been near zero.

          The other catch-22 is the investor. Over 50% of Seattle residents rent, which means over 50% of the properties are investments. Low interest rates, favorable tax treatment, a belief prices will never decline, the fact the gain is not taxed by the state or until sold, the desire for a SFH during the pandemic, rent moratoria, all have led investors to move their money into property.

          This reduces the housing for buyers and raises prices especially for a SFH, but right now due to the moratoria and vetting rules many SFH owner/investors in Seattle are selling, and from what I hear anecdotally they are selling to Millennial couples who have decided to buy a SFH in Seattle, but plan on living in it without an ADU. So now you are losing rental housing.

          Finally, despite the different zoning efforts in Seattle for a largish and pretty affluent city it has one of the worst urban scenes I have ever seen, in the U.S. or outside the U.S. Some of that is the downtown issues, and some is it is so spread out. It is like a big town with a dead downtown. There is no urban “there”. At least Bellevue has a downtown core, very tall, with a ton of retail density, and pretty much that is where you have to go for retail action, which is why it is so much more walkable than anything in Seattle. No UGA’s in Crossroads or Overlake, although there is retail, just not very dense retail.

          As the linked article notes upzoning will never work if it doesn’t entice the developers to build under the new zones. I am not sure that today that will happen in the SFH zones because the properties are getting so pricey any developer is going to have to compete with buyers who want a SFH — especially in the desirable north Seattle neighborhoods, and the effects of the pandemic in which Millennials with a lot of equity are wanting a SFH to live in.

          In any case, whether upzoning the SFH zone will create any kind of affordable housing, I don’t think the fight is worth it for Harrell because it will dominate his first 2 or 3 years when he absolutely MUST turn around the downtown because that is where the money comes from. Just look at this blog, and how any posts on housing and upzoning are the most contentious, and my guess is this blog does not have a lot of SFH owners.

      23. @DT:

          “My preferred solution is housing vouchers for those below 50% AMI but who do have jobs and don’t come with some of the social issues the homeless on the street come with.”

          So, classism and ableism. Got it.

      24. A Joy, you are so predictable with your “ism’s”.

          You make the same classic error of conflating affordable and emergency housing (although ideally emergency housing does eventually become affordable housing, otherwise it becomes unaffordable).

          Affordable housing is designed for those who work but have an AMI too low to afford non-subsidized housing in the market. The amount of the subsidy varies depending on AMI, family size and income, etc. You can address this with rent control, or having government build and own the housing, shelters, or vouchers. I like vouchers because: 1. they leverage the most affordable housing, existing older housing that exists right now; 2. government built and managed housing is very expensive to build and manage, and there isn’t enough of it per dollar spent; and 3. my guess is those needing subsidized housing would prefer to not live in some large government built and managed housing project with all different AMI’s and tenants mixed together.

          Your approach takes every single person who needs some housing assistance, despite their AMI or needs, and forces them to live altogether, away from the rest of us.

          Whether is through the shelter migration system or distressed hotels, the goal is always to move folks to some kind of “affordable” housing based on their AMI, because it is better for them, and much more affordable. You want people to contribute to their own housing.

          Emergency housing is designed for those with zero AMI, at least temporary, which usually means the homeless, especially those living on the streets. They need SUPPORTIVE housing if they are to move into affordable housing. This means screening, drug treatment, treatment for mental illness, and as you have pointed out treatment just for the PTSD of living on the streets. The mistake King Co. made with its distressed hotel approach is it moved these folks into hotels without screening them or treating them, which was of course unfair to the other tenants in the hotel.

          It is unfair to the other tenants in the most affordable private housing, and to the property owner, to give vouchers to unscreened and untreated emergency housing applicants, just like it was a mistake for King Co. to move these folks to distressed hotels thinking by simply giving them a hotel room they would become cured. The entire point of the shelter migration system, still preferred on the eastside, is the migration itself serves as the vetting, and forced treatment, before qualifying for an enhanced shelter room, and then subsidized affordable housing outside the shelter.

          You also further damage the voucher system by mixing affordable and emergency housing applicants. Landlords — and the other tenants — are already suspicious of housing vouchers, and by law are often required to accept them. You can’t force a property owner and the other tenants to accept a voucher and voucher applicant and send over anyone. They must be screened, especially with Seattle’s very restrictive vetting rules. Otherwise you will never get the buy in for a voucher program.

          To pretend the homeless living in tents on the street and in parks don’t have unique needs, and need vetting and usually some kind of treatment, before mixing them in with the general housing, is naive, and it is that naivete that has plagued our affordable and emergency housing programs. It is why Harrell won by 17%. It is also very unfair to the other tenants who work hard but don’t make enough to avoid having voucher applicants in their buildings. Too often you ignore the working poor in your analysis, and think the working poor subscribe to your socialist views, which is why Democrats have lost the blue collar working class.

      25. Ah, predictable DT.

          “3. my guess is those needing subsidized housing would prefer to not live in some large government built and managed housing project with all different AMI’s and tenants mixed together.”

          Why? Mixed AMI , government built and managed housing is what we have now for many SHA/KCHA developments. It is the model that currently works, here and elsewhere. It is exactly what we need. Why would the needy prefer to not have it? This seems like a really weird guess to make.

          “Your approach takes every single person who needs some housing assistance, despite their AMI or needs, and forces them to live altogether, away from the rest of us.”

          It could be misinterpreted that way, yes. I would argue my approach helps everyone under 100% AMI, from 99% to 0%. Which to me makes sense as they are the ones most in need. I don’t think the government should be building market rate housing. Does that really sound so insane?

          “Whether is through the shelter migration system or distressed hotels, the goal is always to move folks to some kind of “affordable” housing based on their AMI, because it is better for them, and much more affordable. You want people to contribute to their own housing.”

          Here is where your classism and ableism begin to show. You are saying people only have worth if they can contribute to an artificial and arbitrary benchmark held above them by others. I want people to be housed, to have a roof over their heads. If they can contribute to the costs of their housing, great. If not, fine. In 0% AMI housing is always 100% better than on the streets.

          But it is the ableism, and the fact that it is a repeated oversight on your part, that really gets to me. The disabled cannot contribute to their own housing. It just isn’t really possible. They end up paying a percentage of their disability, which can be as low as just above 800 dollars a month. Which is unconscionable, but reality. Their disability counts against the food stamp money they can get, which also requires filling out forms every six months so obscure I doubt even a lawyer could fill them out correctly. DSHS agents can’t, as they often give contradictory responses on the same questions. And then there is the dearth of housing for the disabled. Lotteries every two years, with a 10% chance to get on a waiting list. A five+ year long wait to get off that waiting list and into housing. For a group that is so beneath your notice or apparent care that you neglect to even mention their existence.

          “Emergency housing is designed for those with zero AMI, at least temporary, which usually means the homeless, especially those living on the streets. They need SUPPORTIVE housing if they are to move into affordable housing. This means screening, drug treatment, treatment for mental illness, and as you have pointed out treatment just for the PTSD of living on the streets. The mistake King Co. made with its distressed hotel approach is it moved these folks into hotels without screening them or treating them, which was of course unfair to the other tenants in the hotel.”

          Screening and treatment for what, exactly? The support system comes from social services, located at DSHS facilities and local hospitals. But it absolutely exists. Prior to the pandemic, I could walk into any hospital with my Apple Health card and see the next social services worker available, without an appointment, for free. Drug treatment and treatment for mental illness are cheap, tawdry dog whistles. They describe the reality of a minority of the region’s homeless. So why continue to bring it up? It honestly feels like you are erecting meaningless barriers to keep people out of the system entirely when you start putting pointless mandates upon the system’s users.

          “It is unfair to the other tenants in the most affordable private housing, and to the property owner, to give vouchers to unscreened and untreated emergency housing applicants, just like it was a mistake for King Co. to move these folks to distressed hotels thinking by simply giving them a hotel room they would become cured. The entire point of the shelter migration system, still preferred on the eastside, is the migration itself serves as the vetting, and forced treatment, before qualifying for an enhanced shelter room, and then subsidized affordable housing outside the shelter.”

          Why is it unfair to anybody? The only unfair thing I see here is the “forced treatment” you advocate. I don’t think anyone who has looked at the past 100 years of human history could say anything good about “forced treatment”. Tens of millions of people have lost their lives in the past century alone under the guise of “forced treatment”, continuing into the present day.

          “You also further damage the voucher system by mixing affordable and emergency housing applicants. Landlords — and the other tenants — are already suspicious of housing vouchers, and by law are often required to accept them. You can’t force a property owner and the other tenants to accept a voucher and voucher applicant and send over anyone.”

          Why the hell not? Especially when it comes to any sub 100% AMI housing. This is exactly what should be happening. It is what the voucher system itself is for. If you take vouchers, you take vouchers for anyone they are given to. you don’t get to discriminate.

          “To pretend the homeless living in tents on the street and in parks don’t have unique needs, and need vetting and usually some kind of treatment, before mixing them in with the general housing, is naive, and it is that naivete that has plagued our affordable and emergency housing programs. It is why Harrell won by 17%. It is also very unfair to the other tenants who work hard but don’t make enough to avoid having voucher applicants in their buildings. Too often you ignore the working poor in your analysis, and think the working poor subscribe to your socialist views, which is why Democrats have lost the blue collar working class.”

          What unique needs? What vetting and/or treatment? How is it unfair to any other tenants, hard working or not, poor or not? You keep ringing this alarmist bell, but come up with no concrete issues aside from easily disproven false narratives and statistics designed to lie with a skill that would shock Mark Twain himself.

          I do not ignore the working poor at all. I work mostly with the working poor in my volunteer efforts throughout the year. I listen to what they have to say while I work, not interviewing or interrogating them. And in general, I see people so frightened about their own needs being met they couldn’t care less who their neighbor is.

          Neither political party in the US has ever held the sway of the working poor for long. They both “lose” that voting block with astonishing frequency. As far as any socialist views are concerned, in the US the mere word is still an epithet, the damage McCarthyism caused to the brand still quite real. With that baggage, it is easy to understand that, how, and why so few Americans subscribe to such views.

      26. And let’s be real: nobody is going to bring back the federal pre-Reagan efforts at building affordable houses. So, it’s either continue the nation wide homeless crisis, or “some large government built and managed housing project” or in the case of Shoreline and a couple other suburbs repurposed outdated hotels.

      27. A Joy, your post was very well written and made some very good points. I appreciated the respectful tone. I read it all.

          The only issue I will comment on is “ableism”. Impairment and disability are different things: the first is a medical diagnosis, and the other is mostly a vocational determination. For example, I have blind colleagues who are judges; they are impaired but not “disabled” when it comes to financial assistance.

          Not all disability is total, and not all is permanent. Most is partial. SSDI has a few very serious impairments that are presumptively totally disabling. For impairments that alone are not totally disabling SS lists the disability factors in order of importance: age, education, work experience, impairments. At age 55 a person is considered presumptively disabled if they cannot return to their job of injury or related employment. Employers don’t like old workers (and laws against discriminating against the “aged” use age 40 as the cut off).

          Most legal structures believe work is good for a person. Plus the more someone can contribute to their housing (or living) the more government funding there is for everyone else, and the more private disability insurance. For those who are totally disabled (earning less than $960/month I believe for SSDI) then of course they need 100% housing assistance.

          I represent disabled workers. My pensioners who can no longer physically perform work they can compete for and obtain don’t have to live in an expensive city like Seattle, and most don’t. They move to where it is cheaper, or warm, or often a more rural setting with a less progressive ideology (they tend to be pretty conservative).

          Whether it is a private disability system like the Longshore Act or state workers’ compensation, or SSDI, there has to be a process to determine the extent of disability (total vs. partial) and the permanence of the disability. It really is no different for people living on the streets. Some may be totally disabled, and some may have an extent of disability that is not permanent. It is a mistake to assume all are totally disabled forever, and quite honestly not affordable.

          That system to determine extent and permanence of disability for the homeless in the past was the shelter migration paradigm. Now some believe rehabilitation begins with housing — like distressed hotels — but what cities like Renton have seen is the treatment and rehabilitation doesn’t follow the housing, and no review process was done before moving the homeless to the hotel.

          That mistake cost King Co. hundreds of millions of dollars when every eastside city opted out of the 1/10th of one percent sales tax increase for emergency housing. These cities did not believe moving the homeless to distressed hotels and then forgetting about them was proper vetting, or any way to determine the extent and permanency of the disability. King Co. like you just assumed the disability for anyone living on the street was both total and permanent. That is just not affordable, and it isn’t correct.

          It is the same with housing vouchers. If the county makes the same mistake with housing vouchers it did with the distressed hotel program no property owner will sign up. I posted a pretty good article on housing not long ago, and what struck me was the pretty progressive authors made the point that you will never get enough housing if the builders and developers and landlords don’t buy in, and they are doing it for the money.

          You can make onerous rules like eviction moratoria going into a third year, or restricting vetting rules, but then you end up with 72,000 vacant apartments, or SFH landlords selling and taking the profit with the new owners planning on living in the house without an ADU, so you lose two rental dwellings, and affordable housing is all about rental housing.

          Again, thank you for your well thought out post.

5. I’m assuming this is an open thread, so I’ll treat it this way.

   I have a route numbering question that I’ll throw out there: I’m making suggestions (and a map) for a restructure after Lynnwood Link is complete and ST sends the 522 to 145th. Assume Metro takes over the 522, but only runs it from the Lake City Fred Meyer to the UW. Also assume that the 372 is truncated, and does not leave Seattle. What do we call the replacements for the 372 and 522?

   I would suggest the 372 just becomes the 72. That is simple and intuitive.

   The replacement for the 522 is where I stumble. We have plenty of numbers available in the seventies, but some were used in the past. The 74 is available now, but is that confusing? That would be my first choice, just because it pairs fairly well (the 72 and 74 go down Lake City Way). 78 could be used (does anyone remember what that was?). Another alternative would be the 82, although I would rather stay within the seventy series.

   Thoughts?

   1. I would consider making the Lake City portion of 522 connect to another route beyond Roosevelt Station so that the station is in the middle of the route. What route that is (and what number is used) is up to your creative ideas.

      I’ll note that it’s not easy to get to Aurora from Lake City, so a route that continues the diagonal to Fremont or Ballard or makes a “V” towards Aurora more northerly than that appears to serve the need and would attract plenty of other riders. Another system option would be to extend the route northward to Shoreline North or Mountlake Terrace Station. Finally, this service (if extended) into a longer route probably deserves a RapidRide designation.

      1. I would extend the 522-replacement to the UW.

         I agree about heading east, and connecting to Aurora. I send the 75 across 125th/130th to Greenwood, and then on up to Shoreline College. I would also extend the 65 to the college as well. Instead of the 65 ending at 15th NE, it would keep going on 145th, then head north (by the 145th station) then continue to 155th, and stair step to Shoreline College via the 330 route. In both cases you’ve connected riders to Link, but also one side to the other (and all the things in between, like Aurora). Both of these ideas were part of the LRP if I’m not mistaken. I’ve definitely warmed to them, and see a lot of advantages. For example, not only would the 75 have a really good anchor (in the college) but people on Greenwood Avenue (between the college and 130th) would have a bus headed to Link which would also be heading the direction they are going most of the time (south).

   2. It’s hard because both the 372 and the 522 are both successors to the 72 in different ways. The 72 turned off Lake City Way at 92nd and went down Ravenna Ave like the 372 does, but at 80th it turned back to 15th and the Ave, serving Roosvelt like the 522 does and the U-District like your proposal. Since I lived at 56th & University Way and took the 72 to Lake City, that to me would be its natural number. Although it wasn’t express like the 522 is.

      At the same time there’s a case for keeping the 72 with Ravenna Ave. I always considered that an annoying slow detour on the 72, but it fits naturally with the 372’s routing to 25th. and changing 372 to 72 would be easy for people to remember.

      I would probably give them both new numbers. The 71-74 series is so closely known with the University Way routes, and the 81-85 with night owls. And I would extend that to 89 because the first letter looks like owl’s eyes if the owl is standing on its side. That leaves 76, 77, and 78 available. These were peak expresses or short-term routes or coverage routes, so they’re easier to repurpose. I also wouldn’t mind yanking the number 20 from that stupid route and giving it to one of these two, and giving its successor on Northgate Way another number. The number 20 belongs to West Seattle (the 120’s ancestor), but if it’s never going to go back there, it could be used for one of these routes.

      1. I feel like the old 72 route is ancient history. The current 372 has been around a while. If you truncate it at the Lake City Fred Meyer every day (not just the weekends), logically, it just becomes the 72.

         In contrast, the 74, 76 and 77 were all operating until recently. The 76 and 77 were suspended during Covid. All were killed off during the Northgate restructure (which wasn’t that long ago). They still show up on Oran’s map (https://seattletransitmap.com/app/) which hasn’t been updated to reflect the Northgate restructure. I’m hesitant to use any of those numbers for that reason.

         That leaves the 78. I vaguely remember that bus, but I don’t remember it well — where did it go?

      2. The 71-74 series is so closely known with the University Way routes

         I think that pattern has been abandoned, and only old-timers like us make that association. If memory serves, back in the day, all of the seventy buses went from the UW to downtown. The 70 only did that, while the other buses came from the neighborhoods, went to the U-District via the Ave, and then downtown (via the freeway when the express lanes were in its favor). Now none of the buses do that. The only bus that comes close is the 73, and I would kill it off. Pretty soon (when the 70 becomes RapidRide) the seventy series will basically mean “serves the UW from the northeast”. That means the 75, 79, and perhaps the two buses I’m talking about.

         But it doesn’t work the other way. The 65 runs from the northeast and serves the UW. So does the 67. While neither run on the Ave, the 67 comes very close, and could easily be re-routed a couple blocks. The most frequent bus on University Way is the 45.

         I do like the 65/75 combination, and I’m sure it is handy. For a lot of trips, you can take the 65 or 75. I thought about naming the 522 replacement the 62 (to go with the 72) but of course that is taken. The combination of 72 and 78 works in my mind, as they are both even, both in the 70s, and are complementary pairs (http://mathletenation.com/content/complementary-numbers-pairs-and-multiplication). Note: I never heard of complementary pairs, but it is a fairly intuitive concept.

   3. I have also started thinking about putting my ideas into a new transit plan, an illustration of European-level transit. Except I won’t focus on routes so much as levels of service in corridors. Metro, CT, and PT have done a lot of work to come up with long-term routes, and I see no need to second-guess them except in a few cases; the routing details will be reviewed later anyway when/if Metro Connects is ever funded.

6. Metro, CT, and PT have done a lot of work to come up with long-term routes, and I see no need to second-guess them except in a few cases

   Have they? Maybe for a few of the “BRT” routes, but even then, it seems they are flexible. The RapidRide J (replacing the 70) is supposed to go to Northgate. Oh wait, it is supposed to end at about 70th or so. Never mind, it is going to the U-District, but in a new way, completely unlike anything anyone ever considered (or the current routing).

   Your typical new bus route (e. g. the 20) is just pulled out of thin air. Whether it goes to Greenwood (the original idea) or replaces the weakest part of the 26, it certainly doesn’t reflect long term thinking.

   Nor should it. The city changes. Bus routes change. Ideas that looked good years ago (like the 71/72/73, providing a spine from The Ave to downtown Seattle) just don’t make sense any more. Some areas have grown like crazy, while others are actually shrinking. Agencies get a lot of money, or they run out of it. Complicating everything is the interplay between the agencies. ST decides to abandon the most cost effective part of the 522 and send the “BRT” to 145th. CT runs Swift to 185th, but doesn’t add any stop on Aurora. These types of decisions should alter the way that Metro operates the buses. Sticking to a long term plan in the face of such major changes would be silly.

   Meanwhile, you have the planning agencies themselves, and the approach they take. They don’t dust off a long range plan, and implement it. Far from it. They are essentially given a clean slate. They might look at some old maps, just like they might consider other ideas, but their plan is whatever they feel like coming up with. The agencies are monoliths either. Different groups have different philosophies and priorities. It is more than a simple ridership/frequency trade-off. You can favor peak service or all-day trips. One seat rides, or transfers. Consolidation, or the opposite.

   Which is why I believe it is very important that we try and reach some sort of consensus on these issues, and push for a transit network that reflects that. It is no different than pushing for changes with the Link network. Simply accepting long term plans (whatever those were) ignores the very fluid nature of the planning (e. g. 14th NW, which no one ever considered until recently).

   1. “Have they? Maybe for a few of the “BRT” routes, but even then, it seems they are flexible.”

      I meant the entire LRPs, including local routes.

      “The RapidRide J (replacing the 70) is supposed to go to Northgate. Oh wait, it is supposed to end at about 70th or so. Never mind, it is going to the U-District, but in a new way, completely unlike anything anyone ever considered (or the current routing).”

      It was originally going to go to the U-District. Northgate was an option. People asked for Northgate but there wasn’t enough money in the budget. So they asked for 65th and SDOT said yes. People usually ask for the longest extension they can get; e.g., the G was also extended from 23rd to 28th, and some people wanted it to go to Madison Park. But the Move Seattle budget was unrealistic and had to be scaled back. That led to truncating the J at its original location at U-District Station. Then the covid recession happened and Metro cut its funding for the J. Seattle responded by replacing that funding so that the line could be completed.

      I don’t know what you mean by “completely like nothing ever considered.” The representative alignment was probably on Campus Parkway, and the current alignment is on 43rd. Does that matter? Campus Parkway was a major transfer point but it probably won’t be.

      “ST decides to abandon the most cost effective part of the 522 and send the “BRT” to 145th.”

      That’s because it’s for East King, East King is paying for it, and they wanted it to go to 145th.

      “CT runs Swift to 185th, but doesn’t add any stop on Aurora.”

      It didn’t? That’s unfortunate. How do they expect people to transfer from Swift to the E if they’re going to 130th, 105th, 85th, or SLU? Well, it can be added later.

      1. “ST decides to abandon the most cost effective part of the 522 and send the “BRT” to 145th.”

         That’s because it’s for East King, East King is paying for it, and they wanted it to go to 145th.

         I’m not trying to second guess their decision, I’m just saying it isn’t obvious. A long range plan could easily assume the current routing, or that they run it through Lake City to 130th. They could assume that the bus does go on 145th, and continues on 145th, all the way to Greenwood (with the station on 145th). For that matter they could assume the station is at 155th, and that the bus doglegs up to 155th, then continues all the way across, doglegging again to serve Shoreline College (dramatically increasing the productivity of that bus). All of those would have been realistic scenarios in the not so distant past, and yet they are all different enough to dramatically alter what Metro proposes. For that matter, it is quite possible that the 130th Station never gets built. Metro can’t propose anything until they have an idea of what ST will build, which means a long range plan built before then would be meaningless.

         “CT runs Swift to 185th, but doesn’t add any stop on Aurora.”

         It didn’t? That’s unfortunate. How do they expect people to transfer from Swift to the E if they’re going to 130th, 105th, 85th, or SLU? Well, it can be added later.

         That is the tentative plan. It may change. As for transferring to the E, it would be done as it is done today, via the out and back detour of the transit center (off 200th). My point is if they do change their mind, and add stops at 200th and 192nd, it alters what Metro produces, in the same way that ST’s plans alter it. It is hard enough getting the various agencies to cooperate on a real proposal (e. g. the East Link restructure), it would be tougher to have them cooperate on a long range plan (that is largely ignored by Metro, if not other planners).

   2. “their plan is whatever they feel like coming up with.”

      A lot of it is a judgment call, and there are about equal arguments both ways. Is a Fred Meyer to Fred Meyer route (Ballard to Lake City) on 15th NW and I don’t remember north of 85th, the best? Who knows. Which routes from the southwest should go to 145th station? Should the east Greenlake route go to 130th? Who knows. Those are the details I don’t want to get bogged in now and can be reviewed later before implementation. The important thing is to have some kind of connection between the northern U-District and Lake City, and Ballard and Lake City, and between other activity centers.

      1. It isn’t just details. There are fundamental differences between a hub and spoke system and a grid system. Metro has been slowly transitioning to the latter, but there are still huge gaps in the system, where a 10 minute drive is still a 45 minute set of bus rides (https://goo.gl/maps/rx7fLibLwZSPtbb16).

         It has taken a long time for the county (and now the city) to embrace the idea of frequency. There is talk of most of the city having frequent bus service (at specified levels). This is definitely part of the long range plan, and one of the metrics that any proposal is measured against. But it ignores where the bus is actually going. Is it part of a useful network, enabling easy trips to everywhere (e. g. Vancouver BC) or is it just another bus headed downtown (like the Seattle bus service in the 80s). These differences matter, a lot.

         For example, this is how long it takes to get from a typical apartment in Northgate to Phinney Ridge: https://goo.gl/maps/cKXBrDiV162hr3Q28. It takes somewhere between 10 and 15 minutes if you are driving, but over 45 minutes if you catch the bus. If we had the 20 (as originally proposed) then it would likely cut that time in half. The same is true for trips to Ballard. While a drive would take a while, it is still dramatically shorter than a bus ride (https://goo.gl/maps/YbDpncKmPuUgRzMu6). In contrast, if the 40 goes across 85th and on to Lake City Way, the trip would involve one-seat ride, with the bus always going the right direction (unlike the current 40).

         For all I know, the long range plan *does* address your concern. If not, then it definitely should. Enabling relatively fast connections between the various activity centers should be in there, and it should be a major consideration when it comes to any proposal. This has been a theme of Jarrett Walker’s for quite some time now (enabling “anywhere to anywhere” public transportation).

         Either way, I think the devil is in the details. A proposal can incorporate the idea, and implement it really well. Or it can come up woefully short, as has happened far too often. There is no reason we can assume that Metro will run a bus on Boren, for example, even though it would dramatically improve a lot of trips. That seems like a minor detail, but it really isn’t. Either the buses become more of a grid, or we have more of the same (https://goo.gl/maps/tiA35oxzwtv1pHUX9).

   3. I meant the entire LRPs, including local routes.

      The Long Range Plan doesn’t recommend individual routes. It never did. This was a common misconception. People saw the map, and assumed that is what the plan is. It wasn’t. They made that clear on the map (in writing) but since the map was associated with the actual plan, it was easy to get confused.

      The actual plan is far more high level. It involves things like service levels, or the number of electric vehicles. It doesn’t involve actual routes. This explains why *none* of the proposed restructures looked like the long range plan. Not a single one.

      It also explains why the new map is purposely vague. They don’t want to give people the idea that this represents an actual proposed set of routes. Instead they show a map with a bunch of lines, and you can’t even tell where they go. Will there be service on 145th, west of I-5? According to the map, maybe. Or maybe there will service on 155th (like there is today). If there is service on a particular corridor, where will the bus go? You can’t tell on the map, because they purposely avoid listing routes. The whole idea is to keep it vague, because it was never intended to be a long term proposal.

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