Sorry, Erica - but it isn't legally campaigning until something is actually on the ballot.

(Which is not to say that Nickels isn't a craven self-aggrendizing weenie politico - because he is certainly that to the core).

Is there any reason to believe that Northeast 45th Street in Wallingford, for example, really has the worst traffic in the city?

No, Erica. That's why the mayor's office pitched this as a "road-improvement" survey, rather than strictly a traffic-flow survey.

Note the lingo here, including:

Seattle- Mayor Greg Nickels today announced his list of the “Dirty Dozen� bad roads, missing sidewalks, ill-timed traffic signals and faded bike lanes around the city.

From the P-I: "Of more than 700 people who responded to a city survey last month, 50 named North 45th as one of the worst traffic blots in the city, more than any other location."

Blots? I think the P-I is talking out of both sides of its mouth. Here's how it presented the info in June (traffic issues are but one of the qualifications):

Mayor seeks nominations for Seattle's worst roads

The terrible 12 will get “very high priority� for fixing

P-I STAFF

What's on your list of the worst traffic problems in Seattle? Mayor Greg Nickels wants to know.

Nickels, publicizing his $1.8-billion, 20-year tax proposal to fix a backlog of problems, is asking citizens to nominate their least favorite traffic backups, malfunctioning signals, bad sidewalks, missing bike paths, busted street pavement and other travel headaches for a "dirty dozen" list to be publicized in another month.

Agree with the sentiment of the post, but I really couldn't imagine many worse road than 45th in Wallingford. You bloody well can trip on the ruts just crossing the street. TTry it with a toddler or a stroller!

West Seattle
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Come to think of it, you appear to be confusing "blot" with "clot." Or maybe the P-I did.

Anyway, yay for new pavement; I hope the viaduct doesn't fall down and North Korea doesn't bomb Bambridge.

Just like every prez gets to use Air Force One for reelection campaign travel, city mayors can use tax funds to outline their positions. Sucks, but left, right, and center have taken advantage of this since time immemorial. Parsing out election spending from official use of office is really, really hard.


RE: N 45th. I like to think Jimi wrote "Crosstown Traffic" while thinking about getting from the U district to Frelard. Two of the other streets you mentioned have two lanes each way at all times, and N 39th is only shitty because of the 5-way clusterf*** at Fremont Ave. N 45th doesn't and that's way it really, really sucks. Simple solution: NO PARKING on 45TH. PERIOD. Public and private lots could probably take the load.

Yes, 45th is really that bad.

The dirty dozen is not in the ballot measure at all. So the campaigning issue is moot.

From the PI...

"Nickels promised to repave North 45th Street, starting even before the fall election, when he hopes to have a $1.8 billion, 20-year transportation package on the ballot.

That package, which does not include any of the dirty dozen projects, would repair streets, bridges, sidewalks and stairways and upgrade traffic signals through a combination of taxes on property, private parking and employers".

That list was totally based on a handful of votes from the handful of citizens that were even aware of this poll in the first place (the mayor did jack shit to promote this poll to the city: I think I heard about it in passing once about 3 weeks ago), skewing the results.

Again, I can tell you that the blind entry lane on NE 45th Street and 21st Avenue is a much bigger hazard than any of those 13 areas. Make sealing that ramp off or redoing that intersection a priority. It certainly wouldn't take you long.

These sorts of underhanded practices by the Mayor are really starting to disgust me, which is saying something given two years ago I didn't really have a problem with the Five Cent Piece at all.

So what if I got all my friends to submit comments to get them to fix Stone Way and 45th and 50th - you could have gone to the website too and submitted your personal nightmares ...

At least they listened. You could have posted, but no, you're too cool for school.

Politics ain't won by the smarter person, but the person who knows how to complain effectively and fight dirty if need be. Just ask whiner Eyman.

Well, all you guys are pretty much right on this, but you'll have to admit that the Mayor gets shit done. Who was the last Mayor who was actually determined to accomplish infrastructure improvements? Paul Schell, remember him? I will synchronize the street lights! The city's infrastructure has been neglected a la lip service for a long time and has been taxed ever more by growth, so I'm happy to see actual accomplishments.

He's campaigning? Sure. There's a crappy stretch of road in every neighborhood suddenly that is getting a fix. Makes me happy. Hurry up, even.

As far as Wallingford goes, it does suck as bad as advertised. Maybe you just don't have to commute through there ever/at rush hour. I bet several more of the Dirty Dozen are East/West stretches, which anyone knows is the most clusterfucky way to travel in Seattle.

Hey Erica...here's a thought: perhaps "enough residents complained" about NE 45th because it's actually a bad road. Gasp!

Really...do you actually have a point? A road gets fixed because people want it to be fixed...and this is bad?

Hmm. Perhaps we should stop having public comment meetings on school closings and land-use, too. After all, we wouldn't want public opinion to interfere with our governing, would we?

Also, a lot of people who donate to political campaigns use 45th, 50th, and Stone Way. I'm someone clued in to that one.

And it is a bad road. I remember this past spring going around eight potholes all at least three inches deep just between 40th and 45th.

Indeed. 50th/Stone Way. There's another one. Fremont Bridge? Sucks bigtime balls right now, but whaddaya do, wait another 50 years, or just finally fucking decide to get it going? Bike/Pedestrian 'protection walls' completed on the erstwhile deadly Aurora Bridge. Nice job. Finally fixing 65, a rock-toss East of Whole Foods. And Queen Anners have a smooth ride finally from 5th to Queen Anne Ave, and south going back down to first. Keep it coming.

Anybody else?

Duh, I mean "65th'. You know what I mean.

Rainier Ave is no picnic as far as traffic goes.

It's probably not the worst for traffic but it must be one of the worst roads in Seattle for crosswalks. It definitely could use more crosswalks.

Will, nobody else knew about it. That's why no one submitted their suggestions. Take your smugness off the table and see the point.

I work on N 45th, right near Stone Way. It really is pretty bad. The traffic is awful and the pavement is worse.

But I don't really care.

The problem with the pavement is that the weight of trucks has created deep, deep waves in the surface of the pavement. But the integrity of the pavement isn't too bad -- the potholes aren't that noticeable. And, because of the traffic, you're never moving fast enough to really have to worry about the road surface. Frankly, the entire neighborhood on both sides of Greenwood just north of 85th are much worse, as they continue to sink into the water table.

As for that traffic: Phil's suggestion, of removing street parking, is the WORST POSSIBLE IDEA. On street parking protects pedestrians by providing a buffer between them and the speeding cars. The purpose of life is not to move through the city as rapidly as possible; the idea is to have places there to stop, and a convenient means of doing so. Removing the street parking would turn 45th into a speedway, and kill all of the businesses, and make walking along that street impossible.

Dynamic neighborhood streets ALWAYS have street parking. It is a necessary condition.

There is no "extra" parking around to take up the slack, either. The surrounding neighborhood is overloaded as it is, and would throw a shit fit if you suggested making their situation worse.

As is always the case, the ONLY sure-fire method for reducing traffic is to KILL OFF ALL ECONOMIC ACTIVITY. Kill off Ballard, Fremont, Wallingford and the U District, and traffic will open right up.

But where are you going to go at such speeds?

I agree with FNARF -- don't close 45th to street parking. Close it to traffic altogether. Allow mass-transit through in each direction, but otherwise, make it a pedestrian market.

Meanwhile, force the wankers who live on 50th to park their cars in their own goddamn driveways, and make it two full lanes in each direction, rather than the half-assed parking lot that it is right now. Do something to speed up the transition to 45th from 50th on Stone, and I bet that 50th could more than absorb the traffic that would result from closing 45th.

And as long as we're dreaming, how about light rail or monorail down 45th, Mayor Nickels?

While I think closing 45th is both a bad idea and a non-starter, the City ought to consider eliminating parking on 50th. If you drive down it at 2AM - few of the residents actually park there overnight (though there are enough cars during the day at off-peak hours to screw traffic up but good).

And the restriping the City did to eliminate a travel lane was just incredibly stupid (left turn pockets - yes. Eliminating a travel/passing lane of one of the only east-west arterials in town - FUCK no).

Changing the configuration of eastbound traffic flow on 36th in Fremont to eliminate the endless fuckery of left-hand turns onto Fremont Ave. Smart. Improving ingress/egress from 99 at 40th and 45th/50th. Well thought out. Thank the big guy, too, that Jackson is finally getting the new surface (around 23rd) that it's needed for quite some time. Every pothole not hit, doubtless a vote. And, who knew? The new bridge to I-90 & I-5 by the Stadiums that looked only to be an ass-kiss (albeit efficient) to suburban sports commuters? Hey, locally, it gets you from 4th to 1st, too; you'll never have to wait for a train on the surface streets there ever again!

Like I said, seems like the King of Seattle is paving, reconfiguring, restriping a little bit everywhere. Is he missing something obvious in your neighborhood?

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