News Get Drunk in Ballard and Belltown! But Screw the U. District, Queen Anne, and Downtown Drunks.
posted by on May 16 at 13:10 PM
Harborview will open its final two taxi stands in Ballard and Belltown this weekend.
They’ve already opened stands in Capitol Hill, Fremont, and Pioneer Square.
It’s a great idea. I’ve got one question, though. The press release (I’ve linked it below) says they opened the stands in the five most popular drinking neighborhoods. However, according to their own data the most popular neighborhoods to go drinking are:
1) Capitol Hill (20%)
2) Fremont (18%)
3) Belltown (16%)
4) Downtown (13%)
5) Pioneer Square (12%)
6) U-District (8%)
7) Queen Anne (2%)
Ballard’s not on the list. Downtown is. The U-District is. Queen Anne is. What of those drunks?
New Belltown & Ballard Taxi Stands open Thursday, May 17th
Harborview’s “Last Call” designated driver and safe-ride home project
opens final set of taxi stands to reduce drunk driving, announces new text messaging service
(Seattle, WA) The Harborview Injury Prevention & Research Center’s (HIPRC) Last Call program is completing its city-wide installation of taxi stands in popular bar neighborhoods by opening taxi stands in the Ballard and Belltown neighborhoods Thursday, May 17th. Last Call began opening taxi stands in November 2006, with a site in Fremont, and also installed stands in Capitol Hill and Pioneer Square. This week’s installation completes the program’s siting of taxi stands in the five most popular drinking neighborhoods in Seattle. Taxis service the stands Thursday – Saturday nights from 11:30 pm – 3:00 am.
Last Call is a partnership between the Harborview Injury Prevention & Research Center and Public Health – Seattle & King County. It is a three year project funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to design, implement, and evaluate a designated driver and safe-ride home program in the City of Seattle. Through promoting the use of taxis and designated drivers, and making taxis more convenient by opening taxi stands, Last Call aims to reduce deaths and injuries caused by drunk driving. Last Call also partners with bars and restaurants in Seattle to remind their patrons to get home safely after drinking, direct customers to the taxi stand, and offer perks to designated drivers. Taxi rides are full fare – Last Call does not subsidize the cab rides home.
Last Call is unveiling a new text messaging service to help drinkers find taxis – when Seattleites text “lastcall” to 22122, they will receive a list of taxi stand locations and taxi phone numbers. Text messaging is operational as of May 11, 2007.
“Locating taxi stands near bars helps people catch a cab more quickly and easily after a night out,” said Last Call Program Coordinator Suzette Riley. “We hope drinkers will leave their cars at home, knowing it’ll be easier to catch a cab after last call.”
In a telephone survey of 21-34 year-olds conducted by Last Call, the neighborhoods of Fremont, Ballard, Pioneer Square, Belltown and Capitol Hill were named Seattle’s favorite drinking spots. In the survey, almost one out of five Seattle drinkers in this age group reported that in the last month they had driven even after knowingly consuming too much alcohol.
“About 17,000 people a year are killed in alcohol-related crashes,” says Dr. Fred Rivara, principal investigator of the Last Call project and founding director of the HIPRC. “Drunk driving rates in Washington have not dropped in the last ten years. Last Call may be an important step to reduce the number of people hurt by drunk drivers.”
The new Ballard taxi stand is located at Bergen Place Park, on 22nd Ave. NW at NW Market. Belltown taxi stands are on Western Ave. at Blanchard (in front of Club Venom) and on 1st Ave. between Bell and Battery. For more information: www.lastcallseattle.org.
About Last Call:
Last Call is program of the Harborview Injury Prevention & Research Center and Public Health – Seattle & King County. Last Call is a partnership with bars, clubs and restaurants in five Seattle neighborhoods - Capitol Hill, Fremont, Pioneer Square, Belltown and Ballard -- to remind people to plan for a safe ride home, and make it easier to do so. By establishing taxi stands in each of the neighborhoods and supplying participating bars with promotional materials, the program is designed to reduce drunk driving injuries and deaths in Seattle.

I know, it's like, "Can I have a milkshake with that salad?"
I think part of it is some persistent belief that nothing happens in Ballard. Of course, that belief is wrong, but it does persist.
It's not hard to find a taxi downtown at any hour because of the proliferation of hotels; maybe that's why they're focusing on other neighborhoods.
They don't need taxi stands as badly in downtown or Queen Anne (lower) because it's usually fairly easy to hail a cab in those areas, and certainly much easier than trying to find one in Ballard. (Can't speak for the U-District, I don't spend much time out there.)
The list shows us which neighborhoods are the most popular, but not when they're popular, or among whom they're popular (other than a rather broad age group).
My guess is that downtown attracts drinkers primarily during the few hours after work, at which point nearly all bus routes are still running. Also, there's no shortage of taxi stands downtown already.
The University District attracts...wait for it...primarily students at the University, most of whom live within walking distance.
By contrast, Belltown, Ballard, Capitol Hill, Fremont, & Pioneer Square attract lots of people late at night and from all sorts of neighborhoods.
Lower QA would seem to be in a similar situation, though, so I'm not sure why they wouldn't put a stand there.
Just drive home drunk. You'll be fine.
;)
yeah. most downtown hotels are de facto taxi stands, and the parts of downtown that aren't pioneer square or belltown are fairly saturated with cabs at most hours.
The press release offers different take on the data. Are you quoting data from a different survey?
"In a telephone survey of 21-34 year-olds conducted by Last Call, the neighborhoods of Fremont, Ballard, Pioneer Square, Belltown and Capitol Hill were named Seattle’s favorite drinking spots."
Also, in the U-District, I'm sure college kids can usually walk home, or if they can't, I can certainly speak for our collectivity that we have no problem with sleeping on couches at our loser friends' houses, particularly in the U-district.
Anyone who can’t find a cab downtown should be deported to Pe Ell or Humptulips.
I for one love the fact that Fremont, even if you didn't list us in the subject, is pro-drink.
Except when you barf on my front yard or set off the car alarms at 2:45 - which sets off the puppy next door and the dogs in the nearby apartments.
And get your motorcycle exhaust fixed - it's not funny that you set off the car alarms, they then have to take bricks out of their windshields ...
Plus, the U Dist has this thing called transit. You know, bus service. And most UW students have U Passes, so it's cheaper than a taxi.
Hey, Will, I have a friend in Campbell, California whose drunk neighbors decided at 3:00 AM to use a power saw to cut the roof off of their beater car and turn it into a convertible. Louder than God, they said. Count your blessings.
We wouldn't need cab stands if we had better transit hahahaha
Will in Seattle:
Yes, the U-District has transit, but no place in the Puget Sound has much transit around last call. I suspect there's not as much demand for cabs because most U-District-goers live within reasonable walking distance.
It's impossible to get a cab in Ballard without calling one. I tried this past Saturday night after coming out of the BalMar at 1 a.m. Nuthin'. A couple of buses went by on Market, but they didn't go to where I wanted to go.
We got a nice server at the People's Pub to call us a taxi (after we ordered deep-fried pickles, yum!) and it arrived in five minutes.
The only problem with the Last Call thing is that their promotional materials do not include the numbers for local cab companies. FWIW, I usually go for Yellow Cab: 282-8222
Maybe people get Downtown confused with Belltown and Pioneer Square. It's pretty easy given they're all smashed together.
Also, agree that most U District drunks live within walking distance (I'm one of them, lol) as do Queen Anners.
Also, surveys are deeply flawed and inherently shallow research, film at 11.
@15 - then walk on the Burke Gilman or use your bike. And there are at least three bus lines that run in the U Dist after last call - I've been on them.
I just noticed that my first point may be a bit unclear.
Let's say you survey someone and ask them where they like to drink. A person like to drink along that stretch of clubs near 1st/Yesler, but he/she sees 'Downtown' and selects that, thinking their hangouts are in Downtown when technically, those hangouts are in Pioneer Square. This can distort the results.
I've had to cab it from the U District to Capitol Hill twice this year, and both times I had the same driver. He told me he used to drive in Ballard, but left that neighborhood because of all the stupidass drunkards -- far higher incidence in Ballard than in the UD -- who underpaid and mistreated him. I don't blame cabbies for not wanting to drive in Ballard. I try to stay out of Ballard myself.
I'm the project manager for Last Call at Harborview. Several posters are right - there's no taxi stand downtown because taxis are already available around many hotels. And to clarify Josh's point - we chose the five neighborhoods based on a phone survey of 300 Seattleites age 21-34 who go out to drink, and based on street surveys in those neighborhoods, plus some focus groups.
The Last Call materials do now include taxi phone #'s - bars are distributing cards with taxi stand locations and cab phone numbers for Yellow, Orange and Farwest.
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