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RSS icon Comments on Shorter Joel Connelly: WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

1

I can say for sure that every councilmember who voted for this piece of s*** "legislation" will never receive my vote again. I don't really have a problem with removing the parking requirement (though I do hope the developers decide to keep building parking spaces, if only to spite eco-freaks), but I believe the 30% "green space" requirement is a ridiculous and unnecessary burden on business. I don't know about you, but I can't recall the last time I visited a store for their green space. The city should be encouraging new businesses not shoving ridiculous regulations down their throats. This is pathetic, but I've come to expect nothing else from Steinbrueck & Co.

Posted by D-Willy | December 13, 2006 11:01 PM
2


Easy, compadre. That 30% is essentially in the form of landscaping. They can cover 30% of the site in ivy, build a cheap trellis and hang some vines on it, or plant some trees. Cheap and easy. It's not like 30% of the parcel has to be in the form of a grassy expanse of lawn or anything. Read all about it: http://www.seattle.gov/dpd/news/SeaGrF.pdf

And the Council voted for it 9-0 so you can happily vote against all of them because they dared to ask developers to do something besides cover the city in bland condos.

Posted by easy | December 13, 2006 11:13 PM
3

Connolly is a moron

Posted by cite | December 13, 2006 11:15 PM
4

Steinbrueck is totally a Naderite. He endorsed him in 2000. He spoke for 15 minutes at a Nader rally at Key Arena. He is probably also a moron.

Posted by chris | December 13, 2006 11:22 PM
5

Hey Joel,

I'm sorry it'll be tougher to drive your Lexus to the specialty cheese store if these eco-freakish Naderites shoving less fumes and more greenspace down our throats get their way. I know it's unfair buddy. Maybe you should just stay on Whidbey for awhile.

Posted by otla | December 13, 2006 11:26 PM
6

Easy - Maybe it would be easy, maybe not. But it is at the very, very best it is an unncessary regulation. At the worst, it is a significant disincentive to develop in Seattle.

And I will gladly vote against all 9 councilmembers...No one on the council really seems worthy of their tax payer financed salaries anyhow.

Posted by D-Willy | December 13, 2006 11:29 PM
7

"Freeway"? having been born within spitting distance of LaGuardia I can attest that there are no freeways on Long Island. There are Parkways, mostly, and the occasional Expressway. :)

Oh, and about Connolly... it wouldn't hurt him, or anyone else, to walk to the local wine shop once in a while, would it?

Posted by Frank Bruno | December 13, 2006 11:40 PM
8

Chris - I'm well aware of Steinbrueck's pro-Nader speech. But 2000 was six years ago. Peter has since said he does not support Nader, and hasn't done anything to make me believe that isn't true. People can change which politicians they support.

Posted by ECB | December 13, 2006 11:40 PM
9

Yeah, it would definitely benefit Connelly to walk to the wine store every once in a while.

Posted by otla | December 13, 2006 11:46 PM
10

ECB, care to engage Connelly's point: that this drives people to the burbs?

Posted by Whitney | December 13, 2006 11:47 PM
11


erica's school girl crush on peter....jeez

erica dear, the past six years of political hell are because of peter and his silly friends who could not see the consequences if they supported and voted for nader.......of course he regrets it.......but a bit too late, and there were plenty of warnings.......

as far as the car thing

here is some good advice, on any day but not during rush hours go to mercer island to shop....six to seven minutes away, parking, new stores, smiling and friendly help

joel makes some good points, and after 40 years in a union shop, erica, he makes good money.....and bet his wife is well employed as well.....little envy showing??....so what? not his problem if you are willing to write for the cheap

Posted by Sam | December 13, 2006 11:59 PM
12

Hey Sam,

"school girl crush" ... "erica dear" ???

Pour yourself a drink and relax there, old sport.

And not to be be morbid, but Joel's wife is dead.

Posted by Vietnamese Baby | December 14, 2006 12:30 AM
13

Oh for fuck's sake: Have the late-middle-aged people who live in Seattle neighborhoods now gotten so fucking LAZY that they'd rather drive 10 or 15 MILES out of their own territory just to find a fucking parking spot? I say: screw 'em. They'll all be dead of coronary disease in 10 or 15 years anyway, and the people who move into their houses will probably be more than happy to WALK six or eight blocks to that gourmet cheese shop.

Posted by COMTE | December 14, 2006 12:49 AM
14

how is Denver getting a working//comprehensive LRT before ours (assuming it does) even gets to Northgate? And when is the Light Rail going to expand west and east? i bet if the viaduct money went to building a light rail connection from downtown into w.seattle they'd be a little less distraught over a surface option. i think seattle is stuck in assuming that transit==buses.

-not the sam @ 11, as i'm not quite as misogynistic

Posted by Sam | December 14, 2006 1:22 AM
15

I'm about 50/50 with Joel's stuff at best, but he's really dead on here.

I keep posting at Slog in hopes you young, healthy, ambulatory, and perhaps overly idealistic newer residents of Capitol Hill/NewFremont/Belltown will get it, but the sad fact is that for most folks - including solid Democratic voters - the current configuration of jobs/housing/childrearing/shopping/worship
/entertainment/whatever means that people do still need to drive to function in Seattle - let alone the immediate region. It's great if you can bike or walk as a primary transportation mode, but it's just not a practical suggestion for most people.

Whitney @ 10 raises the crucial point - is this kind of development and attitude toward how people choose to live preventing suburbs or enhancing the market demand for them?

The market is the market, and you can pump Belltown buildings from 20 to 40 stories of upscale condos or aprtments, but it doesn't get to the fact that people who are longtime residents of (or own and/or work in older small businesses) Seattle's long-established neighborhood/commercial areas are getting squeezed out by new construction, and where Seattle is a midrise density kind of town, they may not want the new built-to-the-lotline new school of revenue maximizing infill.

There are also the families who decide to move to places like Kent or Stanwood when their kid gets old enough to go to school and they want to quit renting and buy a house. Pricy little townhouses in South Lake Union ain't exactly an option for them.

Give em enough parking tickets, and make their heretofore manageable day-to-day life miserable, and many people may indeed go to less inconvenient pastures just outside of the city or in suburbs further out (not to mention those who would love to buy in the city limits but can't afford to).

Given that the airport-to-downtown phase of Sound Transit light rail won't be up and running until 2009 (or so), and the segemnt to Husky Stadium (nevermind 45th and University) won't be until 2016, just when do people expect all of these magical transit alternatives to appear on routes that aren't on any serious planner's to-do-list?


For everyone on Slog who says just move closer to work, try this real-world scenario. You live and work in the City (hell, for sake of argument, within 1/4 mile in a walkable place like Capitol Hill/the U-District/whatever), and you have made a nice home near your work, but then you're laid off. You own your home (or are just comfortable renting it) in Seattle, but the only job you can find that can pay what you're worth is in Mukilteo/Redmond/Kent. Are you supposed to double (or more) the time it takes to get to your job on existing puboic transporation, or do you do what most people - including a sizeable majority of Seattle residents - do and drive because it's way more convenient?

Limiting parking before transportation alternatives are in place strikes a lot of folks as unnecessarily punitive, and it does nothing to diminish the City Council's regional reputation as, well, sort of idiotic (but ya gotta love that Zoo garage they're gonna make us subsidize - on an Olmstad site, no less.

Fecklessness/Hypocrisy/Inconsistency, anyone?

Posted by Mr. X | December 14, 2006 3:05 AM
16

You dumbasses are goofy. I've been to the UAE, where residences (at least in Sharjah and Dubai) have gone up and not out (sound familiar?), and the Sheikhs have wisely just recently started REQUIRING builders to provide at least one parking spot for each residence. The traffic would make you naive Seattlites cry for your mothers (5 hours to go 25 kilometers) and parking is nigh impossible to find.

What's going to happen is that less people will come to Seattle and that parking will get more expensive. That's it. If you're looking to reduce automobile traffic, oh you will; you'll be reducing paying customers too. Way to go fuckheads.

Posted by The guy | December 14, 2006 5:39 AM
17

not to be morbid number 12 - bet she did not die before they bought the two homes, and just how many homes do Tim Heck and Dan Savage have?

erica works on the cheap, that is her problem. why rank joel for a successful life after 40 years? just churlish, aegist and stupid and not good journalism

joel makes an excellent point, business flow relates to parking downtown .... this is a bit of an adventure to just throw all the parking rules out the window......office workers and shoppers are not the same animal

i do nothing downtown because of parking and i live in the cheap part of madison valley

because the city is the largest vendor of parking I wonder if they are going to keep jacking up the prices to make more cash flow for the city ..... called supply and demand

Posted by Sam | December 14, 2006 6:54 AM
18

Erica:

I hear it ("T-REX"?) is a good system. You might think about asking your guides for some details about how it was financed. ST and RTID are trying to put together a comparable roads & rail system. The legislature is planning on re-jiggering the laws to help them out this session.

Is there a link or two that shows what the financing laws covering this project are? What kinds and amounts of taxes, and what bonding capacity, was the government that built Denver's system given? Denver's system is being expanded, so there was new taxes approved. The legal framework for joining the "old" and "new" would be interesting to see too.

The Seattle Monorail Project left foul taste in our mouths. We want ST2 and RTID's proposal to be a lot tighter than what Joel Horn and Tom Weeks got to operate under. The nuts and bolts of the financing laws for the Denver system would be very interesting to check out. Hopefully your tourguides can provide links.

Posted by law nerd | December 14, 2006 7:40 AM
19

I second Mr. X in comment 15 Dan Savage yesterday:

You need to provide alternative transportation before you stick it to the drivers. Otherwise, people will flee to the suburbs.

By the way, the "WAAAAAAAAH" thing is the most childish, cliched taunt in the blogosphere.

Posted by Sean | December 14, 2006 7:54 AM
20

I agree with Mr. X. As much as we want people to stop driving, it is not going to happen anytime soon. I live in the city and have had to commute to the Eastside for over a year with buses. It sucks. Honestly, I do want a car for the mornings I just want to sleep in a little.


And even though I hate when people complain about parking in Seattle, I can see their point. They want to come see me, but they end up circling the block for 10 minutes, just to find parking 10 blocks away. Now, sure its not too hard to walk a few blocks, but what if they are carrying something? What about older adults that are less mobile? I mean I understand that you think that taking away parking will stop people from driving, but I highly doubt that will be effective. Its like raising the price of cigarettes. People are still going to smoke. A few many quit due to price, but most will not. This is the same for cars. Until you give people a real solution, they will not give up driving. And if you take away even more parking in Seattle, you force people to leave the city or never come here because they are sick of dealing with parking inadequacies.

Posted by Monique | December 14, 2006 8:13 AM
21

Comfort Inn and Suites- no expense spared at The Stranger!!!

Posted by Investigatory Journalist | December 14, 2006 8:42 AM
22

Sam,
Savage owns one house. Keck rents. (And they bike everywhere.)
More relevant, though, the person taking on Joel, Erica, rents. (She also bikes everywhere.)
And what do you mean "throw all the parking rules out the window" ? As Erica said, the rule doesn't prohibit new parking, it just doesn't require it. IMHO, requiring more parking seems like the sort of social engineering that bugs Joel. Developers shouldn't be forced to build parking just to accomodate one life-style over another. They should be free to choose. If developers want to build for a pedestrian-oriented community, rather than a car-oriented community, that's their right. Joel should stop demanding social engineering for his life style and let people be.


Posted by Josh Feit | December 14, 2006 8:43 AM
23

Erica,

Since you're in my city I can offer hospitality and a break from horrible suburban restaurants. My wife and I would like to invite you to dinner. I promise we're not creeps. Really. And we're good cooks.

If interested, email me. If not, no problem.

Posted by Matt from Denver | December 14, 2006 8:46 AM
24

Sam @ 14 - The entire Denver area has only one transit authority that includes 7 counties. Seattle has four transit authorities (one each for Snohomish, King, and Pierce Counties plus Sound Transit) and would have had a fifth if the Monorail wasn't finally killed. That has something to do with the success of our lightrail and the relative ease with which it was constructed. Of course the fact that we're not landlocked and could use existing freeway and railroad corridors to build helps...

Posted by Matt from Denver | December 14, 2006 8:57 AM
25

I´ve been in Mexico City and Oaxaca for two months now and I have yet to see ONE PERSON as fat as Joel Connelly. WALK to the wine store, for Chrisssakes, dude.

Posted by Grant Cogswell | December 14, 2006 9:23 AM
26

Mr X:
I feel like you must be talking about a different piece of legislation than what the Council passed on Monday. How does the removal of a parking minimum = a limiting of parking? Furthermore, you seem like a free-market kind of guy; why would you want to force businesses to build parking when it's not in their own self interest?

Posted by green street | December 14, 2006 9:31 AM
27

Hey fuckheads, anyone realize that Joel Connelly has been recovering from reconstructive surgery on his knees and that the PI employs people with disabilities?
Start realizing that not everyone can venture outside and go for a brisk jaunt in their thousand dollar shoes.
Fuckers

Posted by DoYourHomework | December 14, 2006 9:32 AM
28

This reminds me of the smoking ban, lots of hotheaded speculation about the calamity that will result, meanwhile there's other cities that have tried this and succeeded at it. Most notably Portland, which continues to restrict street parking available *in downtown* to encourage more people to use transit and other means of transportation there.

Posted by Courtney | December 14, 2006 9:36 AM
29


Why did all of this get so personal? I know more about Joel's deceased wife and bum knees, Dan's housing status, and Tim's pechant for biking than I do about the damn proposal that just passed.

The City Council just partially deregulated parking for some neighborhoods for some types of development. Discuss.

Posted by personal | December 14, 2006 9:53 AM
30

The problem with Connelly and his ilk is their definition of "middle class" is about 50 years out of date.

They haven't the slightest clue about what it is like to live in this city as a part of the present middle class, what the needs of many of its residents who don't make as high wages really are.

The amount of available parking is such a small element of the city's overall transit and living policy. If he really wanted to help the middle class he'd be pushing hard for the maximal ST2 plan, greatly increased bus service, and better efforts to retain small businesses in neighborhoods in the face of dense development.

Until he goes down that line, he's just a tired old crank.

Posted by eugene | December 14, 2006 10:03 AM
31

The truly regrettable part of the parking thing is that it will tend to further isolate the various neighborhoods.

Citizens, repeatedly denied a true city-wide transportation system, will increasingly be 'locked down' in their 'Village.'

Trips to another 'village' will take too long, and no parking will be guaranteed, so why bother trying to check out a restaurant or shop in some other 'village.'

This could possibly become a basis for a genuine classist/racist balkanization of the city, as private patrols step into former policing positions.

Oh well, as long as real estate is going up, who really cares?

Posted by old timer | December 14, 2006 10:36 AM
32

DoYourHomework,
If Joel Connelly had wanted to make his surgery the issue he would have written about it in his column.

Posted by green street | December 14, 2006 10:43 AM
33

If you guys think parking in Seattle is bad, try San Francisco. There are more cars in that city than parking space. Despite MUNI and BART, many neighborhoods in SF are only accessible by car, bus, or walking. Yet, San Francisco is thriving and those difficult-to-reach neighborhoods are thriving. Get over it.

Posted by keshmeshi | December 14, 2006 10:55 AM
34

I agree that people opposed to this get it ass-backward with the "social engineering" terminology, since the proposal is for deregulation. The reality, as mentioned above, is that builders will omit most parking and foist it on others to provide. This will negatively impact the city because it will deter people from coming into town, as there is no parking. Our transit system sucks now, and it's not an alternative. Who's going to bike into town from the eastside at 4pm in winter, just to load up some shopping bags and bike back? There's a reason why parking requirements were implemented in the first place, and we'll soon learn why that was.

Once we have some decent mass transit, say in 10-20 years, the parking requirements might not be needed.

Posted by him | December 14, 2006 11:07 AM
35

Great -- Erica is going to report on transit. Should be hilarious to hear about how our transit ills are all the fault of straight white men...

Posted by GoodGrief | December 14, 2006 11:22 AM
36

So let me get this straight: If other places "flourish" *despite* stupidity, we should seek to emulate them? Oh super.

What about those of us with a pregnant wife and almost 2 year old kid? We're gonna go biking in downtown Seattle or ride the bus? LOL you elitist single Seattle fucks would piss all over that in a minute. You'd be crying over my son being loud or rambunctious (as if you weren't, you snot-nosed litttle fucks), or you'd be staring at my asian breeder wife or my white breeder self thinking how fucked up all these middle class heteros are and how our dumb republican asses somehow fucked up your golden transit system. Here's a hint: Metro ran a lot better, a lot smoother, and a lot more often when I was a kid and growing up. I rode exclusively on it. Mistake for me. Didn't get a driver's license till I was 20 thanks to Metro going too many damn places. You won't believe how much shit that catches you in the military.

Posted by The guy | December 14, 2006 11:28 AM
37

So your kid isn't loud and rambunctious when you've driven him to downtown? It sounds like your issues with Seattle have nothing to do with driving or parking, The Guy. You might want to consider moving.

Posted by keshmeshi | December 14, 2006 11:35 AM
38

Damn, you've all got me figured out; I can no longer rambunctiously piss on pregnant women and toddlers with a runny nose while ogling Asian breeders in my thousand-dollar shoes on our not-so-golden buses that are responsible for humiliating soldiers. Shit.

The logic behind not accommodating everyone who wants to own a car is that driving will become thoroughly impractical over time as more people move into the city; trying to drive anywhere for a good part of the morning and afternoon is already pretty pointless. It is unfortunate that the political will has not existed to improve our transit situation, but it needs to start existing; increased transit/less accommodation of cars is a chicken-and-egg problem (keep in mind that we don't have any restrictions on building parking yet). Given that multiple times over the history of Seattle the city has not had the foresight to build transit, anything to push it along is a step in the right direction. As it stands, it already looks like this issue could cause Portland to become the primary urban center of the Pacific Northwest in the not-too-distant future.

Posted by Noink | December 14, 2006 12:33 PM
39

Noink:
King County Proposition 2.

Posted by green street | December 14, 2006 12:55 PM
40

Indeed, and I voted for it. Increasing bus service is a great idea, since it seems like the most we can hope to accomplish in terms of extensive transit service in less than 30 years. Somehow we don't seem able to handle building more than one rapid transit line at a time.

Posted by Noink | December 14, 2006 2:18 PM

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