Politics Sheket Bavakasha!
posted by on January 26 at 10:55 AM
I haven’t handed out a sheket bavakasha in several weeks. (That’s Hebrew school teacher for: Shut Up!)
Well, there’s nothing like Mayor Nickels’s grating hypocrisy to earn a stern sheket bavakasha.
Indeed, Nickels was in DC for the national conference of mayors this week.What’s he doing there? Taking center stage as an enviornmental champion.
From Nickels’s press release:
Speaking at a news conference at the annual winter meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, Nickels announced the Mayors Climate Campaign 2007, which will press the 110th Congress to:Fund an Energy and Environmental Block Grant of $4 billion to help cities combat global warming by increasing community energy efficiency;
Establish a national cap on greenhouse gas emissions and a flexible market-based system of tradable allowances for emitting industries; and
Pass climate-friendly energy and transportation policies.
Italics are mine. We’ll get to that in a minute. First here’s Nickels:
“Change is in the air and the time to act is now. We need our leaders in Washington to step up to the aggressive but achievable goal of cutting emissions 80 percent nationwide by 2050.”
Leaders in Washington need to step up? Yeah, maybe Washington state, Greg.
Look, I gave you props when you first started this effort at the 2005 U.S. conference of mayors, but since then, you have done nothing but push your tunnel freeway idea—that is, a plan to accommodate 140,000 cars, trucks etc. a day right through downtown Seattle.
Just yesterday, Deputy Mayor Tim Ceis was in Olympia pitching the tunnel plan and boasting that even your scaled back version would accommodate cars cars cars.
Sheket bavakasha Greg! And you too Ceis.
Josh, you and Ceis should get a room.
Lame Post Award of the Day goes to Josh!
Either:
A)You are just trying to invent controversy by attacking the tunnel while your and Steinbrueck's idea is DOA and Frank "Karate" Chopp is trying to rebuild the fucking viaduct
or
B)As is the case with most who have untreated syphilis, you are all just. that. dumb.
Ein Be'ad Ma!
it takes a real stretch of the imagination to say that the tunnel would run through the middle of downtown.
how is your utopian vision of six lanes along the waterfront and gridlock through downtown any greener?
I think your suggestion that Mayor Nickels has done "nothing" regarding climate change is more than a little overstated. Putting more residents into the center city through zoning changes, as advocated by the Mayor, will bring people closer to where they work, which will reduce driving and the resulting emissions. Reclaiming the land along the waterfront by tearing down the viaduct and not replacing it with a bigger elevated structure will also facilitate a more vibrant downtown which is less dependent on cars.
Also, the tunnel-hybrid proposal is accompanied by transit improvements including street car extensions that should expand future transportation capacity in an environmentally friendly manner. People should support the tunnell/transit option and vote NO on a new elevated highway.
Now if only The Stranger would report on the effort in Kitsap county and in Olympia to stop the freaking NASCAR track that the ISC corporation of Florida wants to build here using YOUR taxes. Also how King County own schmuck Rep Simpson has whored himself out the NASCAR to introduce their Pork filled bill this session.
Hmm Scott. Do you know what the average cost of the housing that is being zoned into downtown Seattle is? And have you compared that to the average salary of what a downtown employee makes per year? On one hand there is more housing being built in downtown Seattle but it falls in two catagories. First, expensive condos costing in the $300K range (and those are the cheap ones) and getting much higher after that. Second, the other type of housing is income dependant for lower income housing (a good good thing). But the people that are squeezed out of this building mecca and have to travel are the mid income earners (think $40k to $80K annually). They can not afford a mortgage of a couple of thousand a month with all the fees and they make too much for the lower income housing. If there was a SERIOUS effort towards building middle income rentals in downtown I would be impressed. But until then... the mayor is a hypocrite.
Andrew: increasing the supply of supply of housing should decrease (or at least slow the rate of increase) the price. In any event, regardless of the who is living in the center city or their income level, greater density is better for the environment, and it will result in less suburban sprawl than would otherwise occur.
Also, the "center city" includes not just downtown, but also the neighborhoods immediately around it where greater density is also being planned. Part of the Mayor's tunnel plan is to have a street car not only along the waterfront, but also into the international district, which will connect to the one being planned by sound transit for first hill. I think the tunnel proposal (4 lanes instead of 6; and incrased transit capacity for the future) is a realistic way to transition to a less car-focused trasportation system. Not replacing the current 6 lanes with anything will likely be too big an adjustment for most people and they will vote to have an elevated highway instead. The best choice is to vote for the tunnel/transit option and against a new, bigger viaduct.
The transit surface hybrid is BS - all the plans include transit and roadway improvements
http://www.seattle.gov/council/attachments/06awv.pdf
- this is not a green friendly expediture - just the extra money could do a lot to reduce greenhouse gasses - and the only reason that it's not 6 lanes is that he can't find any money or support for it - think that $1.5B extra for the tunnel would be a $3000 per person down payment on a GM Volt for every resident of the City.
Bike lanes and compact fluorescents aren't going to do it.
Go to the DEIS energy section - tunnel twice carbon footprint of rebuild - not counting the 24/7 exhaust fans and lighting.
Nickels is worse on global warming than that idiot from Oklahoma, Imhof.
And how many of the new condo owners will be reverse commuters? Gates Sr. just bought top floor condo for $30M -think that will help lower prices for housing? - the only thing that will lower prices for housing is smaller sized lots and apartments.
Scott H..... Hmm "should decrease" sounds like supply side or trickle down. And I am not just talking about downtown, I am talking about Queen Anne, First Hill, Capital Hill, and to a lesser degree even Beacon Hill. These are all seeing huge increases in housing prices and an increasing shortage of affordable rental units. (Seattle Times had an article about two months ago on the rental shortage in Seattle).
The reality is the Mayor has only dealt with the tunnel idea that is supposed to make Seattle greener and ignoring the other issues that are involved. I agree that urban density is good but his policies help two income groups: the upper income groups (nice for the tax base) and the lower income groups (nice since they need housing). And not to sound like Lou Dobbs but the Mayors monoptic ideas are crushing the middle class out of Seattle.....
Well, you know what they say in San Francisco...
What middle class?
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