All posts by Matt Gangemi

There are several streets in Seattle that function more like highways, or even freeways, than city streets.  If you routinely cross Rainier, Denny, 15th Ave NW, or one of the other dozen or so 4+ lane streets at an uncontrolled intersection, then you know what I mean.  Let’s take my commute as an example.  The pedestrian portion of my commute involves crossing Rainier Ave S. at S. King St., which has no marked crosswalk. 

Legally, the second I step off the curb*, most lanes of traffic** have to stop for me.  It’s an intersection, and therefore it’s an unmarked crosswalk.  But in practice, I’d guess a good half of the cars don’t obey this rule and keep driving.  Not only is this illegal, it can put me in great danger, especially if this starts happening in both directions while I’m in the middle of the road.  I’ve had a bus do this to me (at least he yelled “sorry” out his window, though it was followed by “there was someone behind me”, which fails as a logical excuse).  I’ve had people yell “get out of the road” as they zip by. Continue reading “Using Shame to Cross the Street”

May I present my next dream: the Yesler Way Gondola.

Although this probably isn’t the most important line for a gondola in Seattle, this might be a good place to start.  Consider that we’re about to begin two massive projects: Yesler Terrace redevelopment, and the waterfront redevelopment.  If we’re going to build gondola stations, it would be cheap and easy to add them to projects that are being built anyway.  Consider also that both of these locations suffer from pedestrian access because of hills.  There are likely a large number of ferry passengers and waterfront tourists that would love an easy connection to Link light rail.  There are also 4,500(!) new housing units about to be built at Yesler Terrace that would love a quick and easy ride to that same transit service. 

The route is a very short one, which would be appropriate for Seattle’s first gondola line.  At 3,700 feet that’s around a 3 minute ride from end to end, adding another minute or so for the Pioneer Square Station stop.

Transit cameras have been reported as playing a major part in catching Ferrari’s alleged murderer.  Seattle Times:

Witnesses described the shooter’s attire and detectives pored over surveillance footage from Metro buses and located their suspect on video. They were then able to show the suspect’s photo around and come up with a name, said one source with knowledge of the investigation.

Although Seattle has no stationary public crime cameras and police aren’t allowed by law to to use red light cameras to help solve crimes, there are a large number of cameras on King County buses.

Ferrari was shot while driving in the Central District on May 24.  He is said to have been active on this blog.

Update 7/20:

I’ve since learned that Justin was a frequent reader, and commented under the user name justinf.  Here are search results of all of his comments at STB.  From what I’ve read he was intelligent, interesting, and knew his buses well.

Update 7/21:

More details have come out on how the alleged murderer was located and arrested.

Zach had a post up yesterday that should be embarrassing to government employees at many levels.  I’d like to offer those in power a solution that seems to work very well, and might provide a low-cost, almost foolproof way of identifying these problems in the future: listen to your customers.  Though there are various ways to accomplish this, my absolute favorite method is used by Seattle’s Department of Transportation.

SDOT has a blog, and on that blog there is a page set up just to listen to the public.  On this page a person can comment, and generally within a few days an SDOT representative comments back.  The responses are simple and courteous, but almost always describe what branch of SDOT the problem is being reported to and how a problem is being solved.  There’s also a page to report potholes, and they’re usually fixed within a day or two of reporting them.

Imagine if this process existed for King County Metro – it seems highly unlikely those announcements would continue for a year.  I’d actually love to see this throughout government.

A recent article from the other Washington touched on a conflict in the urban retail world: shoppers want small independent stores, and creditors want to fund big chains.  This is apparent when you look at almost any urban retail space built in the past few decades.  You’ll see shallow stores with wide storefronts designed to make sure you don’t miss the store’s presence.  But walk through any old section of town and you’ll see skinny storefronts and deep stores designed to fit the maximum number of shops on one street.

What does this do to the pedestrian experience?  Walking past 10′ to 20′ storefronts means you pass a new store every few seconds, and constantly have something to look at.  Because stores are smaller rents can be much lower, allowing more independent stores.  The sheer number of storefronts you pass on a typical trip means you have much more variety in shopping options.

In short, the old style is a hands-down win for pedestrians.  Everyone knows this – that’s one reason old retail areas in cities and towns across America have far more character than the new ones.  But they just don’t build them like they used to.

So how do we return to the skinny storefront days?  We could simply legislate it (new buildings shall have storefronts with a maximum width of…), or encourage it (height bonuses?).  I’m not sure just refusing to tear down old buildings is the best solution, but that’s an option too.  Any other ideas?

One convenient feature of having a strong central city is that it allows a region to build a good transit system. The unfortunate trend in the past few decades to move jobs into the suburbs has seriously degraded this transit potential.

Brookings released data this week detailing both how accessable jobs are via transit, and the share of working-age residents that can access these jobs within 90 minutes using transit. In Seattle (pdf), we do quite well in terms of serving jobs with transit. In fact, we’re #3 in the nation, with 99.3% of all jobs accessable by transit in our region – and a full 100% accessable by transit in our cities.

However, those rosy numbers don’t show the full picture. It’s not important that you can get to your job from somewhere, you want to reach it from your home. This number shrinks all the way down to 30.8%, 26th in the nation, and represents the percent of the metropolitin population can reach a typical job within 90 minutes using transit.

Why is there such a strong difference between these numbers? Because a hub-and-spoke model transit system requires a long journey often in the wrong direction to go from two points that aren’t near the hub. If you live in a suburb and you work in a different suburb, there is likely no easy transit access between your work and your home.  An efficient region would have most jobs in a central city, and our region has lost this transit efficiency as jobs have grown in the suburbs.

This is an open thread.

As I walk through a typical neighborhood I’m amazed at the conspicuous consumption that American front yards represent.  Considering front yards are rarely used for anything other than displaying gardening skill, and considering that a home is the most expensive purchase most of us will ever make, and further considering that much of the value of an urban house comes from the land that home sits on, it seems like an ostentatious display of wealth. 

Of course, this excess isn’t necessarily something we chose.  In Seattle, as with most towns and cities, it’s required by law.  In Seattle, your house built in a Single Family House (SFH) zone is requied to have a minimum of a 20′ deep front yard.  This is likely a very old law or standard, as my 110 year old house was built with a 20′ front yard.

What if Seattle did things differently?  What if 110+ years ago we looked around at these displays of wealth and instead of deciding a front yard is something everyone should be required to have, we decided to write our codes such as to minimize front yards?  What would the city be like today? Continue reading “The Power of Land Use Rules”

On Tuesday, a commenter listed whether a bus stops at “stabtastic” 3rd and Pike as one reason to drive.  Having recently reviewed some Seattle crime data, this seems like it might be more a case of trusting feelings and media more than data.  Yes, 3rd and Pike doesn’t “feel” safe.  But downtown actually is quite safe.  Let’s start with this Trulia heat map of crime:

  Continue reading “The Myth of Downtown Crime”

Imagine stumbling across 363,000 tons worth of concrete pontoons in the free section of Craig’s List.  Would you build a floating island? A massive version of Stonehenge?  Perhaps stack them on top of each other for a 33 story condo complex?

Well this is your chance to show off your idea for what our state should do with these massive blocks of concrete.  Come up with a brilliant idea, create a shiny and compelling poster to describe it, and you might win $3,000.  Head over to RETHINK REUSE for details.