Media Has Joel Connelly Gone Round the Bend?
posted by on February 12 at 12:51 PM
That’s the question I found myself asking this morning when reading his column, which presents a dystopian vision of Seattle circa 2077, after the viaduct has been removed. Soft drinks, porn, and hardons are banned; bikes and mopeds (the horror!) are everywhere thanks to laws promulgated by Peter Steinbrueck and a group of young Capitol Hill “trust fund kids.” (Confidential to Connelly: Want to see my credit-card and student-loan debt? I’ll send copies to both your houses. )
Connelly’s doomsday scenario includes a viaduct-free waterfront, which, as everyone knows, is the quickest path to fascism. (See also: San Francisco, Milwaukee, London, Portland, Sydney…) Once the viaduct’s gone, Connelly hypothesizes, everyone will ride bikes and live in densely packed downtown condos, and West Seattle will secede. (I dunno, sounds pretty great to me!) Connelly calls this move toward fascism “coordination,” a word popularized by a certain German leader of the past.
Then there’s this:
The “Bicycle Blockade of Ballard Oil” is a heroic painting that officials frequently show their guests from “the outside.”Ballard Oil was a business that defied coordination. Its owner insisted he had a right to drive trucks along the waterfront, to take on fuel at Harbor Island and to sell it to engine-powered boats.
In a city switching to leg- and wind-powered transport, that was deemed “anti-social.” A mob, organized by authorities, converged on Ballard Oil. The mural depicts its chief agitator, the radical journalist Erica Barnett, in a Delacroix-like pose with a bicycle chain thrust into the air.
I think we can all see the resemblance.
this Jo-el Connelly dude needs to get on the clue bus...and the express, not the local..
Joel is the new Mossback. Actually, he kinda lost me with the Delacroix reference, but now that you post the pic, I guess I *do* see it.
And follow through with your swing.
@1: Unless he's in a wheelchair. Because there ain't no cripples on the Barnett Express Bus.
DOUG: @1: Unless he's in a wheelchair. Because there ain't no cripples on the Barnett Express Bus.
DOUG. I confess. I know that's a cheap shot, but you made me laugh.
Speaking of resemblances, Connelly's so large these days they should move him around on one of those rolling platforms like Jabba the Hut's.
Wait, are you shoeless in a bowling alley? Grody to the MAX!
Whoa someone had to stand in the lane to take that picture... SO DANGEROUS! those lanes are slicker than a policitican.
ECB,
Ha! Thanks for the hilarious post : )
You'd look great in a beret.
Viva la Surface Transit Option!
Revolution!
Joke of the Day goes to DOUG.
ECB - careful, you may be seen as objectifying womens' breasts with that picture. But thanks for the insight on "coordination". He pulled out the Hitler card. Sheesh. By any chance, were you the one chiming in with "Cars suck"?
Yep, definitely. Eyebrows & forearms = perfect match.
I swear, I think Ballard Oil is the only commercial traffic on the damn thing -- somehow that's the one example that always gets used. Oh, and "say good bye to a working waterfront" gets trotted out...
I have asked this question before... has *anyone* ever seen a CONTAINER truck use the Viaduct?!!? They virtually all already use Spokane or Atlantic/Martinez....
Anyway -- vote NO and NO!!!
It's true. The Port has said repeatedly that they don't use the Viaduct. Only 4,000 vehicles out of the 110,000 are freight, just like any other arterial.
How did the Stranger manage to hire so many homely people?
My favorite part is how we drove the basketball team out by harassing them with tickets for DUI.
If only it were true. (but keep the Storm cause they don't suck)
I'm crushin' on ECB just a lil' bit now...
I'm with you, Will...
@ 13... If you're referring to ECB as homely, you need glasses.
I think #13 is referring to the guy in the stove-top hat in the painting. Hey #13, that dude doesn't work for the Stranger.
I pictured you being round and stumpy with a flat top. Hmmmmmmmmmmm....
he used a tired trope, but "round the bend" is pretty defensive. your actions, and those of your fellow activists (you aren't a reporter on this issue; not even close), do appear to be coming almost solely from a perspective of smug self-satisfaction rather than genuine concern about the future of this city.
you twist facts, cherrypick data, and ignore reality through wish fulfillment (people will stop driving because you can force them to; how grandiose). he may have not done it well, but you shouldn't be surprised that you're being ridiculed.
Erica is a hottie!
ahh, great form ;-}!I'm not sure I get bowling bare foot, but easily the best photo I've seen in a while.
I dunno. That all sounds pretty good to me apart from the ban or porn and hardons.
She's even better in person. But I've never seen her with a beret. Just a beer.
I don't mind the bikes and mopeds, but I'd really miss the hardons. But I'll be dead by then anyway.
Oh, and by the way - tear that schitt down.
perhaps removing the viaduct wouldn't cause a traffic disruption, as some people claim has been successfully done in other urban areas like san francisco, london, portland, etc. the only way i can support that data, however, is to better understand the history of how those cities legislated the behavior of their residents.
in seattle i fear that people are so used to being told what to do by the city council et al that unless a bill is passed explaining what streets to drive on and when, nobody is going to have a clue what the expectations are and they'll make the already clogged freeways worse.
@26:
Refresh my memory: Where did they take down a viaduct in Portland? Tell me.
And I'd dispute your view of San Francisco as successful. I know that data is not the plural of anecdote, but I've driven through that part of town on a Saturday afternoon, and it makes Northgate to downtown at that time look like a racetrack.
@20:
You're right. Piss-poor satire, but the target is very much deserving.
@13:
Let me put this as gently as possible: Set down the inflatable doll and try to take a walk outside for once. Just out to the sidewalk will do for now.
@27:
i have no idea about portland. san francisco's urban freeway removal project was the central freeway.
note, i'm as skeptical as you. i'm only parroting the references made by the author to make a later point. i don't personally understand how any of those cities can be held up as shining examples of success when all of them are painfully bad to drive in.
it proves my point though that it is a case of the blind leading the blind, and that's how the seattle majority seems to want it.
@28: Thanks. Sorry I missed your viewpoint.
I'm fairly familiar with Portland, and I don't recall their ever tearing a viaduct down. I suppose the viaduct haters are tearing a page out of the GOP playbook and just making stuff up.
They didn't tear down a viaduct in Portland, but they did take out a waterfront freeway. the waterfront park use to be a the harbor freeway.
"just making stuff up", huh?
Here's a very balanced piece from the Chronicle on SF's Octavia Blvd. (formerly Central Freeway)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/09/13/BAGP6EMIOR1.DTL
wikipedia has some facts on redevelopment post-Embarcadero removal here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Embarcadero_(San_Francisco)
And more...
Here's NYC looking to SF for lessons from Embarcadero removal:
http://www.nycsr.org/nyc/video-view.php?id=27
Even Milwaukee has figured out that freeways in dense urban areas aren't real smart:
http://www.mkedcd.org/parkeast/newsletters/ParkEastNews0302.pdf
As for Portland, no, nobody's making that up either:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harbor_Drive
Thanks, John. That was before my time.
I do know they put I-405 in through downtown Portland, though, and I-5 still occupies the east bank of the Willamette River.
The reason I get so skeptical (hey, I'm a world-class cynic) is because I've seen a lot of crap flying around this issue from all sides. It's not a Big Dig, we're not cut off from the waterfront right now, and surface + transit would actually cut us off from the waterfront (think SR 99 up by Green Lake).
Repair-to-prepare is the only honest surface + transit option, and the "prepare" part needs to be a solid plan and not someone's wishful thinking based on "cars are icky." Otherwise it's not a page from the GOP playbook, but a page from the underpants gnomes. That whole Step 2 thing is a pain, isn't it?
Yoga-bowling? sign me up.
Erica;
Well done! Joel is so smart to point out that only fascists would suggest that Americans learn to get out of our cars before the planet melts. I'm looking forward to more of your spot-on humor and commentary in the future.
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