Comments on Greg Nickels: Lying Sack of Shit

But Dan, he has done so much for public transportation in Seattle! Wait, what has he done for public transportation in Seattle.... Let me think. Hmmmmm, well that street car that links South Lake Union with downtown. Yeah, bus service has never been improved since I have lived here in 10 years. He really did not put any effort into supporting the monorail and when it was killed he never offered a forward thinking solution. Gee, he really is a blow hole.

Retaining the through capacity of the 99 is critical to seattle's economy. More constriction in Seattle equals greater growth in, say, Issaquah, where a complete lack of multimodal transport will result in even more carbon.

We need more transit.
We need better CAFE standards
We need to limit our per capita carbon output.
We need to plant more trees
We need urban planning that supports dense walkable places

We do not need to completely eliminate through transportation to do so. Seattle's "hourglass" is 6 blocks wide. Should the viaduct go away with no replacement, aerial or tunnel, the travel time from Aurora at Mercer to Spokane Street increases from something like 8 mins to 30 minutes.

Building a smaller, four lane corridor preserves the through capacity for people whose trips will not ever be - in our lifetimes- accomodated well by transit. It also allows freight and trucks to get from northend industrial locations to anywhere south of downtown without backing up in belltown of having to go through downtown.

W/ no corridor replacement, you're either willing to sacrifice the industrial health of the BINMIC, or sent a whole mess of trucks through downtown, which is not good for carbon emissions (trucks at 8 mph) or downtown livability.

We need to
1) keep the corridor as a critical support/backup ti I-5
2) toll it os reduce SOV use
3) run transit on it
4) Create a waterfont we can be proud of
5) Support industrial jobs in Ballard/BINMIC

What has Mayor Gridlock done for mass transit while in office for the past five years though? He is great at talking but the tangible results are ... well lacking. Unless you can afford a $500K condo in South Lake Union then you have the street car....

"We need to plant more trees"

I was surprised to learn of a recent study that shows that in temperate climates like ours, reforestation has at best no impact on CO2 levels and in many cases actually increases them. The good news is that reforestation at tropical latitudes actually has an even greater beneficial impact on greenhouse gases than was previously thought.

@1, @3 - I think you mean Ron Sims.

But, if it was an 25+ mpg HOV-only, 15+ mpg truck, 40+ mpg car/SUV, and bus highway, then it would be different.

Or even one that had a toll for vehicles that didn't meet the standards, with no toll for those that did.

Now THAT would be green. But an extra $2.2 BILLION or more for a tunnel that takes away transit service doesn't make you green.

“the same Greg Nickels doing all he can to keep Seattle safe for automobiles and their greenhouse-gas-spewing tailpipes.”

Here is where the Greenies start sounding all shrill and hysterical. They can not separate road construction from pollution issues. Guess what, if you manage to eliminate greenhouse-gas-spewing tailpipes, it’s not going to be done by making people walk, ride their bikes or take public transportation. It will be done by changing what they drive. Without building newer and bigger roads, what the fuck are you going to drive your solar powered electric car on anyway?

Or do the Greenies really just hate the car culture, and rely on pollution to rationalize it? I think that may be it. I am convinced that if we all had ecologically viable cars today, the Greenies would still be all pissy about people wanting to have the freedom to move about conveniently, and still be calling for fewer and smaller roads.

Maybe Greg understands that the solution will be what we drive, not if we drive, and knowing that, realizes that roads are important.

"Retaining the through capacity of the 99 is critical to seattle's economy"

I think 520 is more critical to the economy than the Viaduct.

We can maintain capacity without rebuilding the roadway. Most of those driving on the Viaduct are commuters. We can get them on decent transit if we really wanted to. Not everyone has meetings during the day in which they need their car.

Dan I think its time to start printing up more Mayor Gridlock shirts!

Nickels was a key player in evicting buses from the downtown bus tunnel so its useless tracks (a key selling point for tunnel construction that turned out to be the wrong size and totally useless) could be pulled out and the tunnel could be remade into a world class light rail connection between Seahawks Stadium and South Lake Union.

Ah yes, I remember the track-laying charade in the bus tunnel back when they built the fucking thing. The bus tunnel attracted a lot of attention in international transit-geek circles back in the 80s, ranging from "negative" to "extremely negative". Some people were pointing out that the tracks could never be used even then, but their voices were shouted down by the city shills. Then the construction project killed off downtown. And the buses in the tunnel turned out to have zero impact on traffic. Lovely. Let's do it again!

I don't usually agree with Mr/MS you_gotta_be_kidding_me, but that last post is dead on.

Thank you Mr. X.

You fucking idiots are complaining about the hem line on a skirt that makes a big ass look bigger.

Dan says that mayors who are serious about fighting climate change tear down freeways. Of course, the only freeways that have been torn down in inner cities are either spur routes (Milwaukee, San Fran), surface streets (Portland), or torn down and replaced with a tunnel (Boston). No American city has ever torn down a freeway that runs all the way THROUGH downtown without stopping and not replaced its capacity.

Why? Because they know it'll cause gridlock. Just like it would here. Anybody remember after the earthquake?

If you want to have an honest conversation about tearing down urban freeways, fine. But don't compare apples to oranges. That's what you're doing when you compare the viaduct to other freeways that have been torn down.

Not to mention that climate change was never cited as a reason for the removal of any of those structures...

While rather mean spirited, #13 (which, no, I did not write) is the most hilarious, telling metaphor I've heard in a long time.