Suddenly, we have less than half the year ahead of us. The good news is we’ve accomplished a great deal. The bad news is this is when I look at my wall calendar I realize we’re almost at the August hiatus which means we’re almost to the budget break which means we’re almost to the end of the year. Cripes!

My goals as Council President have been to 1) not screw up anything permanently (the general elected person’s version of the medical world’s “do no harm” oath); 2) keep the Council moving forward on our action priorities; and 3) do my part to keep the city focused on delivering service in a high quality way while we wrestle with the complex, knotty questions that invariably pop up despite the fact they aren’t listed anywhere on the action agenda. (Arenas, historic streetcars and profit-making ziplines, anyone?)

I may be biased (OK, quite biased), but I think the Council (and the city staff who help us) did pretty well by our priorities in the first half of the year. Among other accomplishments:

• The Third Avenue Initiative is underway coordinating city department work to clean up and better maintain Third Avenue through Downtown. Councilmember Rasmussen knows every inch of Third Ave. at this point.

• Construction of the First Hill Street Car is underway with the extension into Pioneer Square assured and the extension to Aloha Street under review. Councilmember Rasmussen has pushed this, as well, with Councilmember Conlin doing his part at the Sound Transit Board.

• We adopted an administration and finance plan for effectively using the Families & Education Levy funds approved by voters last fall. Councilmember Burgess spearheaded that work.

• The first Neighborhood Greenway opened through Wallingford this spring. Councilmember Bagshaw’s middle name is “Greenway.”

• We worked with allies in other cities and the state legislature to quell costly changes in Business and Occupation Tax collection and have launched work with allies on a better approach to simplification for businesses. This has been a big one for me.

• Squeaking in just at the start of July we adopted a Strategic Plan for Seattle City Light after thousands of hours of work by volunteers and staff. Councilmember O’Brien carried this over the line after multiple years of effort by Councilmember Harrell.

• Earlier this week we gave the final committee-level nod to asking voters to approve a bond sale for financing replacement of the central seawall. Councilmember Godden chairs this special committee.

We have a list of big items ahead of us before the December break – final decisions on new housing, zoning, parks and streets for the Yesler Terrace neighborhood (Councilmember Licata has the sharpest pencil reviewing this proposal); the SODO arena proposal; new zoning for South Lake Union; final rules on a rental housing licensing and inspection program; and more. We’ll receive the concept plan for the future Seattle waterfront later this month. We’ll spend October and November taking apart and reassembling the budget for 2013, including a probable shortfall of approximately $30 million.

We’ve also taken up brief conversations a few readers will think less important. I’m an optimist, though. I think we can review and act on something as detailed as the Seattle City Light Strategic Plan and have brain space available to consider a resolution on the potential impacts of coal trains chugging through Seattle.

I am disappointed to not have progress to report in one particular area – the City’s response to the United States Department of Justice’s December report on cases of excessive use of force by Seattle Police. While negotiations are currently the work of the Mayor and City Attorney, the crafting of new policies and the necessary staff and budget changes are of concern to all Councilmembers and rated as the Council’s highest priority for this year.

I believe the sooner the City reaches a fair agreement with the DOJ, the better for our police officers and the greater community. Ongoing pokes and disagreements about the validity of certain statistics cited in the DOJ findings do nothing to move us forward. Instead, the delays, intentional leaks to media, and resistance to change allow doubt and resentment to fester. 

It’s time for a reasonable negotiated agreement that puts Seattle on track to developing and living the policies and procedures, the training, the supervision and the accountability our officers and community deserve. 

There will be a price tag for making changes. We should calculate the real cost of reasonable, negotiated changes and then take responsibility for the difficult decisions we’ll need to make to pay for these changes.

We can do this. We can use this difficult opportunity to elevate Seattle to the top tier of urban policing. I hope to be able to blog soon that we have. We have less than half the year to go to get started.

There’s a great power in standing up to be seen. We should do it more often.

For many of the neighbors, it was the first ever extensive walk around the area. Most people, if they walk in the area at all, have their route to and from home. Mr. Vega was on his usual route when he was jumped in November.

The tragedy of Danny Vega’s death brought press coverage to what locals in South Seattle who rely on transit in the Light Rail Corridor already know – too many frightening attacks with serious consequences have also occurred.  More than 30 street robberies or attempted robberies have occurred in South Seattle since Sept. 1, Seattle police reports indicate.

One attack is too many. Thirty is way, way too many. My greater neighborhood is filled with hardworking people, many of whom have no practical alternative to walking to and from the bus or light rail. Nor should they have to worry about walking to and from the bus or light rail. It has to be safe to walk to and from the Othello Street station, and from the Mt. Baker, Columbia City, and Henderson Street stations.

During Sunday night’s walk, organized by the Southeast Seattle Crime Prevention Council and followed Monday night by a walk around the Columbia City station, we looked for dark spots or secluded, dangerous areas. We found a full half block with no street lights and no lights on adjacent property, and five burnt out pedestrian-scale lights just across from the station itself. We found some places very well lit with well-trimmed landscaping. We saw the mounted video camera that captured the images of two young men stashing a jacket into a dumpster near where Danny Vega was beaten. We saw mostly good sidewalks, but some cracked and heaved areas that make walking (or rolling in a wheelchair) difficult.

In the end, though, there isn’t much unique about the greater Othello area. I don’t mean that in a bad way. It’s a great neighborhood of small businesses, homes, a new apartment complex and the great Othello Park.  The attacks on people can and do happen just about anywhere.  They are thwarted by a combination of efforts and luck. More light, tidier landscaping, more eyes on the street from neighbors and other walkers.

While investigating the specific attack on Mr. Vega, SPD has also focused resources on preventing more attacks from occurring. Capt. Nolan of the South Precinct has responded to the attacks with emphasis patrols targeting the areas where these attacks have been occurring. Also, the precinct now deploys a two-officer special emphasis car that does nothing but cruise the corridor on the look out for transit predators. South Precinct Anti-Crime Teams and Gang Unit officers also work the problem. 

These are all good moves, though community members have reason to ask why the pattern of attacks wasn’t publicized sooner. I remain concerned that South Precinct doesn’t have the number of officers needed to cover the area with a consistent visible presence.  Not only are we not hiring to replace all our retiring or otherwise departing current officers, but events in other parts of the City (like Occupy) require shifting officers out of neighborhood patrol assignments and into special duties. The result is a patrol force stretched too thin.

For now – big thanks to Lieutenant Hayes and Detective Cookie for their company and assistance Sunday night.  The punch list from our Othello area walk-around includes replacing lights, adding new ones, trimming hedges, fixing sidewalks – and follow-through.

I’m proud that we succeeded in giving new flexibility to sidewalk cafes and loosening restrictions on mobile food vending. In planner-ese this is part of what’s called “placemaking,” but you could also say it’s just smart neighborhood and small business development. Walking down sidewalks this summer it was great to see people hanging out in new outdoor seating or see the tell-tale spray marks on sidewalks delineating planned outdoor seating.  One evening in upper Belltown I even got sit outside myself and talk with friends watching the world go by. A great luxury.

Helping food carts and trucks land in more places and be more successful strikes me as also smart neighborhood and small business development. Like everyone else I’m still waiting to see how mobile food vendors make use of the new street and sidewalk flexibility we approved this summer. I met a friend for dinner recently at Mr. Gyro in Greenwood and learned he’s underway with a truck and application. He’s now my test case.

If you know of anyone looking to get into the business, you can direct them to check out the Seattle Street-Food web portal - a one-stop-shop for interested mobile food operators to better understand the mobile food permitting process.  The portal includes a link to the Seattle Street-Food Checklist, which operators can print out to use while obtaining the necessary permits. 

Sidewalk seating and mobile food vending are part of my vision of land use (and street use) in service of economic rebound. Opening a food truck has a relatively low barrier to entry in terms of capital—what lenders call “low income, low asset startups.”  Make no mistake though. It’s still an expensive endeavor (as evidence, check out the niche market of food truck van retofitters), just not as expensive as some other ways to start a restaurant. The new flexibility and support are great ways the city can help hard-working entrepreneurs who want to innovate and be their own bosses.

This is my last blog entry looking back at the last term. Now that we’ve approved the 2012 Budget, everything is rolling again, and it’s time to start looking forward toward the future of our city.

The area used to be tideflats, and some of Seattle’s earliest structures were built there on a small point of land called “Denny’s Island,” according to local historian and author Knute Berger. Later, a neighborhood took shape there, built on landfill from the clean-up after the Great Fire. The neighborhood was abandoned in 1905 and replaced with a rail yard.

Here are some photos of artifacts: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wsdot/sets/72157624300611300/.  They’ll be stored and catalogued at the Burke Museum at the University of Washington.

There’s something very moving to me about seeing an old glass bottle with the word “Seattle” on it in raised glass. It makes me a little more aware that I too am just passing through this place. I wonder about the people who made the bottle and who used it, and what they would think if they could see the city today.  (I’m also glad I don’t have to drink “Stomach Bitters,” whatever they were.)

It’s probably a universal impulse among people looking at archeological items to imagine what future archeologists will find from our time.  Laminated building-access cards? Bottlecaps? Neon Pride Parade beads? Memory sticks? 12^th Man buttons? Pennies? Will they wonder about what it was like to use metal money? Will they wonder what we would think of their city if we could see it?

Councilmembers Sally Bagshaw, Nick Licata and I toured the Western with WSDOT staff last Friday afternoon. We wanted to see up close why the building can’t handle the tunnel project and quiz WSDOT about alternatives to bringing the building down and kicking the artists out.

Note the 2.5-inch-wide vertical crack to my right. This is in a hallway in the Western Building. (click to enlarge)

The Western and Polson Buildings sit at the south end of the tunnel alignment where the tunnel is still relatively shallow. It will be 70 feet to the top of the tunnel. That sounds like a lot to me, but then we talked about the fact that the soil in this area of Downtown is loose fill. The tunnel boring machine will pass under the western half of the Western and settlement due to the digging or to vibrations could cause part of the building to sink an inch or more. That becomes a big deal since the building is already cracked in places and because the Western’s attachment to Polson means the sinking walls and floors would pull on the Polson. That’s not good.

The alternative to demo would be strengthening the building to withstand the tunneling without sinking, but that would require such major work on each floor – WSDOT estimates $30 million – that the artists would be moved out anyway. The building owners are local and have said they’ve enjoyed seeing the artist community develop in the Western, but who knows whether they’d invite the artists back or look for higher return from high-end rents.

I’ll keep pressing WSDOT whether they really have to take the building, but I have started to think about focusing more on how to support the artists. WSDOT has pledged to find as much space as possible in Pioneer Square for relocation and the artists will have their relocation costs covered. Unfortunately, you can’t cover the cost of a lost community of collaborators and friends.

For fun (don’t laugh) I posted a question on Facebook regarding the parking options facing City Council in the 2011-2012 proposed city budget.  Now, the world of my “friends” on Facebook is skewed to be a self-selected lot of green-ish civic-minded types — by no means a full, statistically accurate cross section of Jet City resident opinions. I doubt there’s an owner of a small, bricks-and-mortar neighborhood business in the group. However, the comments closely matched the concerns and questions we (councilmembers) are posing to staff. I thought I’d repost the posts here to give other readers a view into the dialogue. You’ll note I’ve used initials rather than full names. I’m not sure anyone on Facebook truly believes they are in a private conversation, but I haven’t asked anyone if it’s OK to use their name and have erred on the side of caution. Some of you will have fun figuring out who’s who.

Parking. Pay more for on-street? Pay more and for more hours? Pay on Sundays? All of the above? None of the above?

• BM the underpinning work of san francisco’s variable pricing … was conducted by dr. donald shoup of ucla who wrote the ‘high price of free parking,’ which is a must read. if there is some modest amount of discretionary funds …at the council’s disposal, i would thoroughly recommend bringing dr. shoup to seattle for a briefing/public lecture. i know a few NGOs that would be interested in co-sponsoring;-) in the interim, download this podcast from the national building museum: http://www.nbm.org/media/audio/parking-is-not-free.html
  it’s fascinating stuff

Sunday at 8:49pm ·

• JW Yes, please enact the mayor’s parking revenue proposals; SDOT has had Prof. Shoup in Seattle; rates are too LOW today; Seattle needs the revenue and this is a fair approach; it is market based; Seattle has already provided parking capital …downtown (e.g., the Pacific garage, the Convention Center garage, and the Library garage; in Uptown, the Key Arena garage and the Mercer garages are largely empty); yes, the rpz fees should be higher; note that the AWV deep bore project will soon be taking out many parking stalls in downtown and it will get more scarce; note that budget may neet to add PEO; they would pay for themselves in added revenue.

Sunday at 8:58pm ·

• BW I support all of the above!

Sunday at 9:01pm ·

• RH All of the above!

Sunday at 9:37pm ·

• GV Meter the scores of absolutely free parking for ??? owners of Yachts? at the Northerly portion of the Westlake drag (W. of Lk Union, basically just South of the new sidewalk/combo bike trail heading dwntn out of Fremont. Biggest ROW givea…way I am personally aware of: overnight, all day, NO Charge. Hmmm.Might want to check out that whole Westlake lot for revenue ops, OR hand a row of parking over to a cycle path before a huge bike/ped/car crash!! (waiting to happen on this multimodal ‘lot’ the City owns and ‘operates’.

Sunday at 9:39pm ·

• RC As long as the revenue goes toward better infrastructure for pedestrians, I’m all for higher parking rates and more hours. I need to see some benefits for the higher costs.

Sunday at 9:53pm ·

• PBC The S.F. approach is very workable. Add to this a flat parking permit sticker fee for scooters/motorcycles that can be renewed each year. So all of the above but managed like S.F.

Sunday at 9:54pm ·

• AJL Yes to all of the above.

Sunday at 10:02pm ·

• AJL ‎*ahem* but no CPT increase for non-profit institutions that use their parking dollars to heavily subsidize bus passes for their employees… and in some cases students

Sunday at 10:07pm ·

• KJ Increase hourly rates. Retain free parking after 6 p.m. and on Sundays. Keep arts, culture, and entertainment vibrant in Seattle.

Sunday at 10:19pm ·

• JM ‎”Free” parking is a large subsidy to drivers from the whole city, when many of us don’t have cars or drive rarely. Seattle already has too much parking, and at a price of zero, you can never supply enough of it to meet demand. Parking should cost basically what the market will bear, with a share of the revenue going to support pedestrian, bike, and/or transit improvements in the areas where it’s collected.

Sunday at 10:28pm ·

• AB to add onto what J says, underpriced parking creates a shortage situation. In other contexts we recognize a shortage by seeing people standing in line for something. In the case of parking we see people circling for a spot. In Seattle we …have a good start with e-park (http://www.seattle.gov/transportation/epark/) but the creating a Seattle equivalent of SFpark will take time and money. In the short run we need to set parking pricing based on our current system. The mayor’s proposals are worth a try as they will provide valuable data for setting the initial rates for a more flexible parking pricing scheme. Raise the cost of parking in the short run to fund initial implementation of a more flexible system that will provide walking, biking, and pedestrian funding for the long term. This is one of those rare win-win situations for everyone, don’t miss it!

Sunday at 10:51pm ·

• IW As I told you today, Sally, retain free parking after 6 PM and on Sundays. If the meter rates have to go up, so be it. Extending paid parking to 8 PM will kill small retailers who can’t afford to provide parking lots for their customers. We… have more votes than the car
  haters.

Sunday at 10:55pm ·

• JM

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/101843.The_High_Cost_of_Free_Parking

Seattle recently hired Gehl Architects to advise us on how to create a more vibrant downtown. Among their observations was that downtown Seattle has too much parking. …They showed how a nearly 50 year old policy in Copenhagen of reducing the city’s number of parking spaces by 2% a year has improved vibrance, traffic congestion, and air pollution there. This is just the kind of barely noticeable incremental policy we should seriously look at to make great improvements to Seattle over time.

You can’t pander to cars and preserve the environment; Seattle is always talking a big game but looking for small, symbolic efforts rather than making tough changes to improve the environment. I seem to be in the majority considering who we elected mayor.

Sunday at 11:13pm ·

• AS Free parking after 7pm. Begin rates at a $1 minimum and raise rates on parking times over 1 hour.

Sunday at 11:18pm ·

• IW ‎@ JM: This is not Copenhagen. You don’t have the votes to ever get that. Your mayor was elected by a razor-thin margin over a candidate who was equally unfit for the job, and the voters will turn him out by a landslide, the way he’s going. And quit using “vibrant,” please. It is so overused as to become meaningless, just like “progressive.”

Sunday at 11:19pm ·

• JM I am only using the city’s word. The city chose to hire Gehl, knowing they’re in Copenhagen. I don’t hear anyone aspiring that we become more like Detroit or Houston. I wasn’t involved in that decision and don’t know who else might’ve bi…d on the consulting contract. And we all share the same planet, which we have no replacement for. If Seattle means what it’s been saying for so long about being environmentalist, it’s time to start making the real changes we voted for. Over half Washington state’s greenhouse emissions come from transportation, the overwhelming majority of which is cars. We can’t reverse global warming with organic beef and CFL bulbs. If we’re not willing to change our driving habits, that’s fine, but we need to admit that and stop pretending to be pro-environment.

Monday at 12:17am ·

• AB Hey IW, one feature of SFpark you might like is that parking rates are adjusted according to the time of day. Thus small businesses can be assured that if their location has empty spots after 6pm the price will go down until those spots start filling up. Check it out www.sfpark.org

Monday at 12:50am ·

• AB JM: while I appreciate your enthusiasm about our new mayor I don’t think parking policy came up much in the election so it’s not clear what exactly voters think about it. That said, I think you’re spot on about our need to address transpor…tation’s contribution to greenhouse gas emissions. I hope that Ivan would agree that greenhouse gas emissions are a serious problem which we all need to work together on addressing. Shifting how we get around away from automobiles is one way of handling this. Lets get market rate pricing in place and then with the data this pricing system provides us make intelligent decisions about the supply of parking.

Monday at 12:59am ·

• JW IW, your comments are “world class”!

Monday at 1:21am ·

• TF I say keep it the way it is. The price was raised only a few years ago and now again. When will the war on cars stop?

Monday at 2:05am ·

• JM No one’s fighting a war on cars. But are we fighting climate change? Or not? I think Seattle needs to make that fundamental decision and proceed from it. Nearly all transportation is subsidized, but we should subsidize transportation that is healthy for our bodies, communities, economy, and planet; and discourage transportation that is harmful to those things. So far, Seattle talks green but acts brown.

Monday at 2:24am ·

• JW I am tired of people using the “free market” as a justification for their agenda, whatever the cause or issue may be. The reason the Mariner’s suck is the “free market”. My friend’s favorite color is purple because of the “free market”. The… “free market” makes my food heathier. But when it does not serve the interests of the same folks when it is used for another issue, its a terrible reason. Please.

This is obviously not a small issue, yet there were no hearings or studies on the issue. Where is the buy-in from the public. We do have areas in the suburbs that have free parking, including Alderwood Mall in another frickin’ county, Snohomish! What a cruel joke it will be if the sales tax revenues go down enough to offset any revenue increase. And all we need to put at risk are small businesses and a vibrant downtown.

Monday at 2:36am ·

• AB JW, market rate pricing isn’t an abstract”justification”, it’s an actual policy. The “agenda” is to price parking spaces according to how much people actually value them, with people “voting with their cars”. Check out www.sfpark.org for more information on how this works.

Monday at 2:54am ·

• MJM Should we have an increase in the street parking rates? Sure. For RPZ passes? Yes. But extending hours for paid parking to 8p and Sundays is ridiculous.Comparing street parking the private lots is comparing apples to oranges. When we… start having routine security patrols, the ability to park all day, and begin covering every single street space, then we can talk about “market rate”, but until then, trying to get street parking as close to $7 per hour as possible is incredulous.Additionally, if we are going to increase the parking tax and parking rates, then that money should go, IMO, towards maintenance of streets and sidewalks. Sidewalks on Capitol Hill are barely walkable. Streets all over the city have potholes that are dangerous to cars and bikes. Increasing these rates and fees, while attempting to pump $13 million into more bike lanes and sidewalks, but with no plan to maintain them, while also slowing down basic maintenance of what we already have, is asinine at best.Expanding bike lanes and sidewalks is awesome. It’s good for safety, for cars, for bikes, for pedestrians. It’s a net positive. But not at the expense of what is already there, and not without a plant o keep those new lanes and sidewalks safe into the future.

Monday at 9:06am ·

• AB Who’s comparing street parking to private lots? There seems to be some misunderstanding about “market rate”. Look at the website sfpark.org Seriously. Market rate is merely the rate people are willing to pay to park in a particular place at a particular time. 98% of spots are full at 25 cents an hour then that’s the market rate. Again, look at the website sfpark.org. If we were to to do this it would look a lot like that.

Monday at 9:15am ·

• MJM ‎@AB: Who is? Well, the Mayor has talked about private lots when justifying the increase in street parking rates, for one, and since it’s his baby.Now, it looks to me as though some of the neighborhoods in SF are going to have variable… rate parking throughout the day. Awesome. Anyone who lives in the 167 corridor knows a thing or two about variable rate tolling, and I personally believe it’s a great idea. Variable rate parking – also not a bad idea.However, the proposal isn’t for variable rate parking. It’s for an increase in parking taxes, street parking hourly rates and RPZ rates, extending paid parking to 8 p.m. and Sundays, and putting $13mm towards new bike lanes and sidewalks, while delaying basic maintenance of existing sidewalks, bike lanes and roads. Further, there is no plan that I have seen come out of the 7th floor to maintain all these new lanes and sidewalks.Should we increase parking rates to help with the budgetary problems at SDOT? Yes. I disagree with the hours and Sundays, and also think that, at the current time, we should be maintaining what we have, not letting it crumble further while building new things that need to be taken care of, but not providing any plan to take care of them. That’s all.

Monday at 9:28am ·

• DG YES! Higher parking rates will benefit those of us who don’t drive and those of us who do by forcing us to make efficient and environmentally friendly transportation decisions and can increase economic development in neighborhood business districts

Monday at 10:51am ·

• JW On the Mayor’s walk through the University District, the owner of Bulldog News suggested extending paid parking to 8 pm in order to increase availability of parking around his store. The reasoning is that those who park for free there after meter hours actually decrease the parking supply. Hence the suggestion to 8 pm.

Monday at 11:05am ·

• NJG People should pay for leaving their vehicles on public streets. Period. The increased revenues should go to pedestrian improvements.

Monday at 11:18am ·

• DWH I don’t own a car, so I’m looking at this in the abstract. I think the downtown retailers may be loathe to see what affect it has on their Sunday revenues.Beyond that, it seems like car owners expect the world to cater for them, at huge ex…pense. I wouldn’t mind seeing a slow-down in road repair and construction – these construction workers make like $30 an hour, and so should have a decent war chest set aside for a temporary lay-off, plus they’ll make more on unemployment that a downtown cashier makes working full time.

Monday at 12:05pm ·

• KG To that end, tabs for bicycles.

Monday at 12:20pm ·

• JW Who is using the parking? People outside Seattle drive in and spend money Seattle would not have without them. Depending on the area, this could hurt neighborhood businesses by decreased patronage, and the city by decreasing revenue from pe…ople outside Seattle.
  All I am saying is that this is not a simple decision and its effects are unexamined FOR SEATTLE.
  @MJM: I totally agree that this must go to street maintenance first. In the eyes of residents and visitors, maintained streets are a basic expectation that helps sustain their willingness to invest in projects like more bike lanes. Why would residents support improvements in the city if it cannot even fix its potholes? Nickels ignored these basic expectations during the snow, and politicians would ignore it do so at their peril.
  What about the effect on the Mariners? You can argue that street parking is an indirect cost to the city. But will it increase gentrification of baseball fans at the game? Will a decrease in attendance not only impact Mariners fans, but increase resentment by many people outside Seattle feel?
  @AB: Market pricing without thorough examination and discussion by the public is used as a justification, not a policy.

Monday at 1:45pm ·

• JM Tabs for feet, too?

Monday at 3:48pm ·

• KG I wonder how much money Seattle has used for bicyclists in the last 10 years compared to pedestrians?

Monday at 3:51pm ·

• JM Very little on either. But walking and biking are both good for our physical and social health, good for our economy, and good for our environment. Thus they are modes of transportation we should subsidize. Driving hurts all those things, which is why we should stop subsidizing it so heavily.

Monday at 3:53pm ·

• CL Love the idea of paying on Sundays and later in the evening in key areas, but increasing the rate to $4/hour keeps me driving to Renton or Southcenter (from SE Seattle) instead of downtown. The city might get an extra $3 out of me for 2 hours of parking, but lose $5 -10 in sales tax.

Monday at 3:54pm ·

• KG I think it’s safe to say that Seattle spends quite a bit of coin for the needs of bikes compared to feet. Maybe the people who ride them (including me) can put their money where their treads are and cough up $50 per year to keep bike paths and roadways safe.

Monday at 3:57pm ·

• JM So if you already don’t spend your money in Seattle, how would higher parking fees cost the city sales tax revenue from you?

Monday at 4:01pm ·

• CL JM, my point is that I love going to downtown Seattle, like many people. But the cost of getting there is a huge disincentive, especially when so many other options exist for those that don’t live in the central core of the city. Not only are sales taxes less and parking free outside the city, most of the suburbs are safer. It all adds up. So I only go downtown to shop/recreate/celebrate a few times a year, instead of a few times a week.

Monday at 4:14pm ·

• NJG You don’t need insurance to drive or to ride a bike for some very good reasons. You can’t kill anyone doing either (easily). We have tabs and we have insurance for cars because providing for them is very very expensive and they are the most dangerous thing out there. We spend a pittance on bike or pedestrian improvements, compared to for cars.

Monday at 11:08pm ·

• JK

Ah, the specter of washington’s sprawl and dead mall generating tax system finally rears it’s ugly head. Shop in the suburbs where parking is “free” ie subsidized by sales at the mall, and then the burbs can have the sales tax revenue funne…led back from the state. And to heck with Seattle and their budget woes and pot holes. That’s what market rate parking is. Pass on the cost to future generations by building unsustainable automobile dependent places and then waiting for the price of gas to hit 4.50 per gallon again. Seattle can’t really do anything about it, unless they encourage walkable, urban densities and create enough value so that they can internalize the cost of parking and not lose retail tax dollars.

In the meantime, they should lobby hard correct the market distortion caused by our state’s asinine tax revenue sharing system. The biggest city and cultural capitol of the state and barely a voice in the legislature.

13 hours ago ·

The school of speaking points trains you to stick to your message; repeat it until others take up and use your language.  As a listener soon you find yourself talking about “abortion” instead of “choice,” or the “death tax” instead of the “estate tax.” This is smart argument strategy, but that doesn’t make the statements true.  Both Joel Connelly of SeattleP-I.com and David Brewster of Crosscut have recent postings about this communication strategy.

Frankly, I don’t know anyone who isn’t concerned about the deep bore tunnel coming in on-time and on-budget.  I know I am. Not to speak for other councilmembers, but I don’t know of one who’s kicking back and taking anything for granted. It may cover a short distance, but it’s still a b-i-g tunnel. The Governor (with whom the buck ultimately stops for this project) is partly dealing with her concern by appointing an executive oversight committee that includes the State House and Senate leaders, Mayor McGinn, City Councilmember Tom Rasmussen, King County Executive Dow Constantine, King County Councilmember Larry Phillips, Port of Seattle Commissioner Bill Bryant and Port of Seattle CEO Tay Yoshitani. The Council is dealing with our concern by reviewing the details of the project to death via staff, hired experts and community advocates, and through twice-a-month public meetings with city staff, the Washington State Department of Transportation and members of the Waterfront Partnerships Committee.

No one in City Hall likes the language the state adopted about capping project costs and shifting any overages onto property owners. Heck, almost no one in the whole city no matter what side of the Highway 99 replacement debate you’re on (or anyone in any other city trying to work with the state on big projects) likes that language. Debating the City Council president won’t erase the language, though. Maybe the Mayor should challenge Seattle area state lawmakers who supported the language. For the crafters of the language, it’s performing better than intended.  The language was intended to weigh down the project like an anchor. Using a different metaphor, the language is an ever-present odor of constant, niggling doubt about the project; about the competency of the engineers; about the predictability of soil conditions; about the boundaries of tunneling technology.

And about who’s really guarding the public’s interest.  Per the Mayor’s framing, if you collaborate with the state to move forward before the language is excised, you’re gambling and complacent. But traditionally, delaying transportation projects has proven to be the most likely way to incur cost overruns. Evidently the mayor is willing to risk taxpayers’ dollars in an attempt to resurrect the surface street option. To me, not surprisingly, that’s as a gamble with potentially catastrophic results – like collapse of the viaduct as we replay a decision that’s already taken ten years to make.

What’s not to worry about? Despite the worry I know I’ll never support city dollars paying for any cost overruns on the tunnel. It’s the state’s project. It’s the state’s highway. The language is unenforceable and unprecedented, an example of “Seattle exceptionalism” in Olympia.  It was great strategy for an odd coalition of tunnel opponents and elevated supporters, but it’s bad policy.

Let’s move on.

Othello Light Rail Station

I was reading through my stockpile of Daily Journals of Commerce yesterday (similar, yet different from the stack of New Yorkers at home) and came across a good article on how city regulations, transit-oriented development, and market forces are shaping new development around the Othello station in Southeast Seattle.

The building, now under construction and named the Station at Othello Park, will have 351 market-rate apartments and 20,000 square feet of retail space at street level. Because the site sits across the street from the light rail station city codes don’t require any parking spaces.

So, how much parking will it have? 330 spots. The builder estimates each spot costs $30,000 to build as part of the project. The total amount of parking included will total $9.9 million or 14 percent of the total project cost.

This is interesting for a number of reasons. Why so much parking across from a light rail station? If we’re to see low parking-to-unit ratios anywhere you’d think it would be spitting distance from the train. The developers say the ratio is low (.78 stalls per unit when you hold aside stalls for retail space) and that banks reject going lower. Living without your car in Seattle is still too untested to be attractive to construction lenders. The inclusion of parking still figures strongly in the resale value for units, too.

One of the reasons I supported doing away with city regulations on parking minimums in station areas was the idea that developers of new housing might produce units with less parking, save the $30,000 per space and reflect that savings in unit rent or price. Some people in the surrounding neighborhoods fear new residents will bring their cars along anyway when they move into station areas and that if new buildings appear sans parking spaces, the new residents will simply clog up streets a block or two away.

It looks like it will be a while before we really test that out.

520 Bridge

It’s been a busy few days for press conferences, letters and all around jousting about how to replace the 520 floating bridge. Last week the City Council sent a carefully worded letter to the Governor and to the transportation committee chairs in the State House and Senate. In the letter eight of nine councilmembers detailed a host of concerns about the State’s most likely option for replacing the bridge, but stopped short of saying that option (the perhaps inappropriately named Option A+) should be blown up and the process begun again. Generally, most councilmembers are resigned to six lanes as long as two of the six (one in each direction) are dedicated to high-capacity transit. We’re mixed as to whether we’re OK allowing HOV in those two lanes.

Yesterday a coalition of interesting bedfellows (Montlake, Laurelhurst, the Sierra Club, Cascade Bicycle Club, the 43rd District lawmakers, the Mayor, a couple of City Councilmembers, the Arboretum Foundation, a yacht club or two) stood in front of cameras at the 520 off-ramps to declare that Option A+ fails to meet the 21st Century transportation test. Generally, all the parties are resigned to six lanes as long as two of the six (one in each direction) are dedicated to high-capacity transit (no HOV). Parties differ as to whether the current options should be scrapped and the process begun again.

Via the media today the Governor, eastside communities and eastside state lawmakers are metaphorically standing together to proclaim that enough time has passed and that this region’s economic success is predicated on moving sooner rather than later to replace the ailing 520 bridge. Generally, all parties are resigned to six lanes, although many on east of Lake Washington really would rather it be eight. They definitely don’t think the current options should be scrapped. The Governor has committed to build, on time and on budget.

Compared to some of my colleagues I’m a newcomer to the 520 replacement debate, but I do know enough to find it a tougher problem to crack than even the viaduct replacement conundrum of the past few years. I don’t like the ramps through the Arboretum. I’d like to see a better transit connection to the UW light rail station. I’d like to see fewer cars overall in this corridor over time. I’d like less impact on Seattle neighborhoods. I don’t think a tunnel under Union Bay and over to the Husky Stadium parking lot would win permits from the federal government. I don’t support the arching skyway over Union Bay either. So, what else if A+ isn’t the way to go? I’m not hearing better ideas from any corner. How long should we wait?

The problem is knowing how long you wait and who you bunk down with in order to get the best outcome for Seattle. Who has the best leverage and the best possible outcome for Seattle? Maybe the Mayor has a better plan. If so, he can be a hero. The 2007 state law that authorized the mediated sessions among stakeholders and defined the 520 replacement project as having four general purpose lanes with two more lanes to take HOV and high capacity transit? That was sponsored by State Sen. Ed Murray from the 43rd and supported by State Reps. Frank Chopp and Jamie Pedersen of the 43rd. If we want the HOV part dropped, that would seem to require a change in the state code. Option A+ came out of the stakeholder sessions and was endorsed by neighborhoods and state lawmakers to the north of the Montlake Cut. What if A+ is the best buildable option we have? We should at least push it to produce the best possible results for Seattle. Just in case it gets built.

Back maybe eight years ago the City passed a host of land use changes intended to lead property owners around light rail stations to build in less car-centered ways. One of the changes prohibits single-purpose long-term parking. The idea is that you don’t really want in-city neighborhoods with light rail stations to be dominated by commuter parking lots and garages. Ideally the land is used for housing and businesses that lead people to use the train as a key mode of transportation.

Watch for more on this. I’ve asked staff to look into what it would take to allow special, temporary permission to operate a parking lot near a light rail station.