Comments on Ultimate Viaduct Comment of All Time

Nailed it.

I've all but joined the "nothing I say is going to make a difference so I might as well stop worrying about it" crowd.

Geesh, Fnarf as the patron saint?

In the end, they all add up to tax subsidies of oil-based single-passenger vehicles. Thus, the least cost option that gives the most capacity is the best.

Which, since the politicos killed Surface Plus Transit - and they did - means the Viaduct rebuild is the wisest choice since it's the most easily upgradeable for transit.

As even the Gov admits.

Whether you like the description of your personal stance or not that is THE post on the AWV. Brilliant.

FNARF?

I'm blushing.

Now if we could get Daniel Clowes to illustrate the various species, as another poster suggested, it would be perfect.

Great post Golob,

I think we're all slowing moving into the Realist Defetus camp.

At this point, it's hard to care after dealing with what's generously called the Seattle / State of WA political "process." Psychologists call it "learned helplessness."

All hail the glorious new Chopp Chopp Freeway.

As long as I get to be a saint, I don't really care what position you slot me under.

Fnarf's talkin' dirty on the SLOG again MOM!!

I honestly have no idea what Fnarf supports, but figured he earned saint status.

beautifully done, golob.

i'm still hoping for a major news item to knock the viaduct off the slog for a few days.

Slack jawed yokels are going to drive in circles on the Kitsap peninsula thanks to YOUR lawmakers!

So if you were a person who moved here recently and had no idea of the insanity of local politics or how unlike a big city it is, in spite of it's not-too-small size, and it's still way better than back home, but perhaps in a few years you might want to upgrade cities again,

where would you go?

I went to San Francisco.

"where would you go?"

London.

San Francisco politics are ten times as annoying and divisive, over even smaller actual differences, than Seattle's. London is terrific if you inherit a hundred million dollars, or have a skill that the English will pay upwards of $250,000 a year (minimum) for. New York ditto. Boston's nice, but pretty expensive, too, and ridiculously standoffish; you are unlikely to be spoken to by a native until you live there five years. Most other American cities have simply brutal weather (Chicago), a soulless strip mall urban environment (Phoenix, San Jose, etc.), a criminal mindset (anyplace Floridian), or are simply beyond the Pale (anyplace Texas or Deep South). Portland's awfully nice but is a step down, not up, in size and homogeneity. If you go out of the counry you've got Vancouver (BC, not WA) but again your standard of living goes down. How about Melbourne, Australia? It's also no longer affordable.

i was going to say that this was well-written, but the inherent bias means it could have been written by erica, and the only reason she was willing to post it.

sadly, the words "erica" and "well-written" are sunni-shiite-level enemies on this issue. facts ignored indeed.

London's great - if you want a car, no prob, so long as you're a billionaire. Otherwise, get in the tube, cause it's public transit, bay-bee.

That said, the NoLa refugees were a welcome addition at the Fremont Arts Council fundraiser Voodou Carnivale this weekend.

Jason - sorry, disagree.

oh, and I recommend Vancouver BC.

FNARF Wrote:
"If you go out of the counry you've got Vancouver (BC, not WA) but again your standard of living goes down."

Now Fnarf, as someone who enjoys Vancouver B.C. and is one of only three
or four Seattlites who can actually name the premier of B.C., I would like to know how you came to the conclusion one's standard of living goes down once you cross our northern border. Care to fess up?

---Jensen

San Jose is the suburbs with tall office buildings. It dreams of having a soulless strip mall urban environment, since that would at least make it urban.

Vancouver BC has a higher cost of living, therefore, you would have a harder time finding equivalent housing and lifestyle accommodations than in Seattle.

Trasitus Surfusus
Secret Hope: to teleport Vancouver 100 miles south where there isn't a single expressway of any sort within the city limits - think Shoreline to WhiteCenter without a single freeway or expressway! And, one or North America's largest ports to boot! forget Manhattan, SFO and even Portland, the best model is just a 2 hour drive away.

Secret Desire: to go kick the teeth in of the next Rodus Rebuilus that says that 'Seattle is completely different from Vancouver.

When I finish up my MD/PhD, I'm angling for Boston or NYC for residency.

Residents aren't paid that well. Thankfully, New York is more than Manhattan. Depending upon which hospitals I'd have to deal with, I'd shoot for Hudson Heights, the Bronx, Queens or Brooklyn. That's what makes real rapid mass transit so pleasant: one can live in a more affordable part of the region and still make it into work.

Heh. Jason, I can definitely state that I am not Erica, nor have I met Erica in person. She is also a better writer than I am.

Canadians earn less than Americans. Average GDP per person is quite a bit higher ($42k vs. $34k at PPP in 2005). For both Seattle and Vancouver, the average is higher than that, but the difference is still there.

Of course, there are tradeoffs, and you'll live in a smaller house but you'll have better health care.

I've lived in San Jose, without a car, no less; I know exactly what a crushing experience it is.

Key fact(s) ignored: No empiric proof that Seattle would malfunction if the Stranger fired its writing staff and never published again.

Thanks for the input, I mean it.

For all the bitching about Seattle, just remember: you could have been born in Minneapolis, too, and on top of all the same tranist problems, had snow and bitter cold to deal with.

Yet here we both are, Smarm. : (

FNARF Wrote:
"Canadians earn less than Americans."

Fer Chrissakes Fnarf, a pretty narrow set of criteria. What about some of Canada's and B.C.'s other assets?

---Jensen

Golob, Let me get this straight, after you and ECB get the viaduct torn down the two of you are leaving town? - "When I finish up my MD/PhD, I'm angling for Boston or NYC for residency." :D

@28 - yeah, more cute girls/women ...

I have a question about 520...

Did anyone notice the governor selected the six lane option?

How is I-5 south of the Ship Canal bridge NOT going to be a parking lot with three lanes of 520 traffic pouring into it, half of which are merging to the Mercer exit?

(Glancing at the plans, I didn't see any evidence that the 520 to Mercer merger mess is going to be fixed.)

(Sorry, I'm hoping my post above is considered at least marginally on topic.)

Heh @ Peter

Yeah, but only for a while. I'll be gone during construction. ;p The pleasures of training.

I acutally own a place (after a lot of saving and scary loans) on Capitol Hill where I intend to settle permanently.

(BTW, you nearly had me convinced there for a mini-retrofit while the light rail gets completed. Then I realized that no good idea will ever happen, and learned to love the bomb.)

Jensen, I included another benefit in my post. I'm not bashing Vancouver at all; I love it.

Of course, if I lived there, my own standard of living would quickly drop to zero, because I would be unable to control myself from eating at Vij's every single night until the money ran out and I was divorced, obese and homeless.

Nah, lots of people do that, Fnarf. Not the homeless part, the eating out part.

Let's not forget when praising what an awesome place YVR is that it is facing its own massive highway plan imposed from on high.
Livable Region Coalition, fighting the good fight

WILL Wrote:
"@28 - yeah, more cute girls/women .."

Will, I am may be eternally flammed
for the following comments, and I am
donning my racing nomex now, however...

I have found women in Canada and
Vancouver B.C in particular, to be far better educated, much more cosmopolitian, fitter, more impressively coutured and damn more interesting to be with than their U.S., and in particular, Seattle counterparts. Yes, I do believe I am correct in stating, the grass IS greener on the other side of the fence.

---Jensen

FNARF Wrote:
"...eating at Vij's every single night until the money ran out and I was divorced, obese and homeless..."

Well Fnarf, please contact me when or if this occurs. I know of several cable stayed bridges, located in the lower B.C. mainland, under which you can find a home...and all close to 11th West.

---Jensen

The only time I have seriously doubted the superiority of the Canadian health care system is driving past one of those bridges, and seeing a homeless man getting up from an abandoned couch and pulling his pants up over the largest ass-cyst I ever hope to see...

Golub, that's genius. I want to be saint of my one-man category, Expatrius Fuckyallus (genus Zioncheckia Viviendus) but I realize that's asking for a lot. In answer to the question of where do you go? I am using Portland as my U.S. base of operations: it has the glorious anything-can-happen vibe of Seattle in the mid-90s, and is about as cheap as that yet with a sprinkling of new money restaurants and newcomers' ambition. Plus you can drink in the strip clubs. Unfortunately, be warned that many apartments went condo this summer and it is all but impossible to find an apartment right now - houses are readily available though if you can pull together enough people, and a good deal in almost any part of the city except NW. My long-term plans are focussed on Mexico City, which seems ungentrifiable. This does however, for Americans, require an independent, U.S.-based income, a couple years on the immigration rolls, a lot of pocket cash or a willingness to flout the law and get crafty. There is no cultural tension in Canada. While I am sure people's lives are quantifiably better there in a hundred ways, it is insufficient in the most important way: Canada will never produce an art form or a revolution, even when the U.S. invades them for their resources, which is about twenty years away. Canada is boring. (No offense.) And cold. If I want to freeze (and drink) myself to death I'll go to Reykjavik.

This is very clever indeed.

One thing about all of the West Seattle bashing though. In case you did not know this, West Seattle is a very big portion of the city's land mass (about 1/5th or 1/6th) and is comprised of about 40 different neighborhoods. It also includes several of the most affordable neighborhoods in the whole city. Everyone who lives in West Seattle (be it Alki, Admiral, Alaska Junction, Belvedere, High Point, Morgan Junction, Arbor Heights, Westwood Village, White Center, Delridge, etc. etc.) depends on the Viaduct daily. Many of whom ride the bus on the Viaduct daily. The quickest route is 15-20 minutes (Junction to 1st & Union, most of the rest are certainly longer bus trips.

You might think it was an ill advised decision for these 60,000 plus residents to move to West Seattle but I hope you can't be trying to say that all of these people should be expected to move out of West Seattle or face commute times that would be worse than living in Issaquah or Fall City.

It would be like bringing down I-5 if you lived in the University District, Wallingford, Freemont, Sand Point, Northgate, Lake City, Greenlake, Shorewood, Ravenna, Maple leaf, Hawthorne Hills, etc. etc.) Sure, everybody could take 23rd Avenue or Aurora but it would mean that it would take you a very long time to get there.

We could all move downtown or to Capitol Hill but if you think housing prices are bad now just wait until you have 60,000 additional residents to compete with. Another choice would be to lose your funky cool places like Cha Cha and Bimbo's to make way for more dense housing and add more stock in the center city.

West Seattle is not some tiny little part of Seattle. It will have great impacts on a large number of Seattle residents and their daily quality of life issues. People purchase homes based on some assumptions. Sure, those assumptions can change. But you are treating it like its a small little community of a few thousand people.

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