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RSS icon Comments on Intersection: First Hill at Madison and Minor

1

Sounds like a big improvement to the neighborhood to me. They would be replacing an auto-oriented business with dense urban, presumably built out to the sidewalk type development. If so, I'm all for it.

Posted by Tiffany | May 12, 2007 5:37 PM
2

what is planned sounds 100 per cent OK - what is the rub? - these neighborhood groups like to whine to feel important

crummy banking system, but always liked the giant arc on the white brick building

that upper stretch of Madison has a lot of shops, good bus, walk down hill to down town, nice place to have an apt or condo

go for it - let the whiners whine on

Posted by Essex | May 12, 2007 6:00 PM
3

If you live downtown you don't get to complain about density. Its a fucking city people... cities have buildings.

Posted by Giffy | May 12, 2007 6:42 PM
4

If you ask me, ANYTHING would be an improvement over that fugly building. That's really from '57? I would have thought the 70's.

Posted by catalina vel-duray | May 12, 2007 7:17 PM
5

"is now drawing the ire of some neighborhood residents"

Evidence of ire is to be found where?

Posted by wf | May 13, 2007 12:23 AM
6

I'm for anything that will make that area less Swedish-centric. Yes, there are quite a few shops there, but they are 9-5 or even 9-3, M-F mostly. And when the Swedish grunts do their nightly and Friday exodus, the area becomes kind of a ghost town. Starbucks, Bartell's, McDonald's (and the gamey people who hang outside), Rite Aid (closes at 7), and Mad Pizza is it. So, what's to preserve?

Posted by Bauhaus | May 13, 2007 5:04 AM
7

#4
this building dates from the same era as does your name...perhaps

the white brick should be salvaged and re used...let's hope....remember going north behind this site you connect to Pine and Pike quite nicely as well

Posted by rorry | May 13, 2007 6:41 AM
8

Sound Transit says all kinds of stuff to get "yes" votes, then after locking the taxes in it drops the features that would help the most. The First Hill station is just one example of this.

I'd suggest we vote in new leadership, but we can't - the board is comprised entirely of sycophantic political appointees.

Posted by just goes to show ya | May 13, 2007 7:26 AM
9

I was wondering how long it would take before some dolt would wander in with a simple-minded misconception about Sound Transit. You get extra points for being a whiney victim about it, and for completely ignoring the reasons why the land was rejected by the agency.

Get back to work Just goes - you've got customers waiting, and those lattes won't make themselves. Besides, you're not paid to cruise the net.

Posted by Big thinkers | May 13, 2007 9:00 AM
10

Aw, I'll be sad to see that building go, even if it is for the greater good. That part of Madison is basically downtown- really it should be as dense as possible.

But I do think the neighbors should feel free to demand something beautiful from developers, especially for a project this large. Buildings are semi-permanent, after all.

Posted by computer spy | May 13, 2007 10:55 AM
11

Dumping off the First hill station was a big mistake - even if it contained soil - engineering - building challenges.

Are we not in the 21st century? Politics and bad planning, big mistake.

I support Sound Transit, but, they blew the 100 year chance for a better system. And lots of riders.

Posted by Essex | May 13, 2007 12:30 PM
12

It's a pattern. ST sold an attractive vision of transit, and once the taxing started it suddenly had every excuse in the world why it couldn't do what the voters approved. Then Seattle Monorail Project sold an attractive vision of transit, and once the taxing started it suddenly had every excuse in the world why it couldn't do what the voters approved.

If ST thinks we are stupid enough to fall for this same con job a third time, it has another thing coming.

Posted by twice bitten thrice shy | May 13, 2007 1:48 PM
13

Hmmm. let's see.....

A bunch of second-rate hipsters in a third rate town are bitter over their lack of career options and economic viability. Who can they blame....Oh yes - the regional transit authority!! That's the ticket!!

The joke’s on the hipsters, of course. Sound Transit will still be around long after they took that one pill too many, or moved back in with Mom, or got bogged down with their unwanted children, or finally realized that the world just doesn’t care what they think.

A new generation of hipsters will come here, and they’ll like the new system. And they’ll make hip, ironic comments about the dorks that didn’t want it.

Thus the hipsters eat themselves.

Posted by enough already | May 13, 2007 6:03 PM
14

#13 "enouhg already", what the fuck are you even talking about? People are discussing transit and neighborhood planning here. Hipsters?

Posted by Dougsf | May 13, 2007 7:11 PM
15

Journalists often exaggerate neighborhood opposition in order to create what they think is a relevant story line.

Posted by Eric | May 13, 2007 7:22 PM
16

Catch a b 'n e for tryin'a skylight in Queens
or catch a scratch tag in Brooklyn,

That buildin needs old people like dude in the cowboy hat to bust in and wild out. In realpeople time.

Posted by KRS DICK | May 13, 2007 9:45 PM
17

@8: "Sound Transit says all kinds of stuff to get "yes" votes, then after locking the taxes in it drops the features that would help the most."

Sound Transit has pulled off a miracle. They've done the impossible. They've brought rapid transit to Seattle, and indications are that they will bring even more in the future. Show some respect.

Posted by Sean | May 13, 2007 10:14 PM
18

Dougsf @14:
Just a guess, but I think the hipsters in question are the ones writing for this paper, who, in classic Seattle form, vehemently opposed Sound Transit's two railed train in favor of the same fucking train except that, get this dude, it runs on a single rail!

If there was any logic to this opposition, I'm unaware of it. It often seems to me that Seattle is a city of ill-tempered toddlers, and Ron Simms is our nanny.

Posted by Sean | May 13, 2007 10:41 PM
19

Sean - The original opposition to Sound Transit was that ST's plan considered a countywide transit system that would be completed in bits and pieces. The hope was to serve all of King County....eventually.

The Monorail supporters - in remembering what happened to Seattle Metro when its bus service went regional in the 80s - said, "Fuck King County. Fuck the eastside. Build transit for Seattle." Bus service declined when Metro tried to plan for the entire area. Seattle service was diminshed so that it could do hourly runs to places such as Factoria and Enumclaw. The general feeling, I think, was that the eastside needs to provide its own public transportation for the relatively few people who use it. Let's face it. Those people drive. The streets there are like freeways.

Additionally, Sound Transit had some rather fitful starts and misfires. The kind of which made it appear that they didn't know whether to shit or go blind - including a plan for a Seattle to Sea/Tac run that would have dumped your ass in Tukwila where you'd have to take a bus the rest of the way to the airport. Does that sound useful?

I'm with you though. I don't care who builds it as long as it's built and usable and done within my lifetime, please? Can you believe we've been talking about this since the late 60s? I see that ramp outside of the airport now and my heart goes all aflutter.

Posted by Bauhaus | May 14, 2007 1:28 AM
20

We'll have a race. All the ST cheerleaders can compete.

Link to any document, or series of documents, on soundtransit.org, showing how much tax ST has ripped out of this region since 1997.

Ready, set, GO . . . .

[Punch line: the cheerleaders won't be able to do this]

Posted by governments lie | May 14, 2007 8:35 AM
21

I'm an engineer, which I suspect many of the opinionated about the first hill station on this thread are not.

The first hill station was an incredibly risky proposition. What would you rather have? Another unacceptable risk that put the *entire* rail network in jeopardy of ever being built because of the potential of huge cost overruns, or a real live working light rail network minus one station?

ST made the right decision to eliminate First Hill. Any risk and cost/benefit analysis of the real engineering details would back that up. So get over it, and get back on topic about building more density in our downtown neighborhoods.

Sometimes I think you are damned if you do, and damned if you don’t in this town.

Posted by Paul | May 14, 2007 8:43 AM
22

"indications are that [ST] will bring even more in the future."

Let's see if this poster has a clue.

Hey Sean, how much will this "even more" you speak of cost the region in highly regressive sales taxes?

Posted by governments lie | May 14, 2007 8:44 AM
23

The rub here is that the plan is to replace a once-proposed light rail station with a 400 car garage. 40 apartments, some medical office and 400 freaking parking stalls...

Posted by High-Rise | May 14, 2007 9:19 AM
24

@22:
"how much will this "even more" you speak of cost the region in highly regressive sales taxes"

A more important question - how much will not extending the train cost the region?

Posted by Sean | May 14, 2007 10:43 AM
25

@19: "the eastside needs to provide its own public transportation for the relatively few people who use it."

Lots of people use eastside transit today (at least certain lines), especially the thousands of low income workers who can't afford Seattle. And the 540 was always standing room only when I used to commute to the Redmond. Ron was right.

Posted by Sean | May 14, 2007 10:50 AM
26

Sound Transit is building a streetcar through first hill and capitol hill and downtown to replace the first hill station, so in a way, first hill will still be nicely served by transit. I wrote a post about it two weeks ago.

Posted by Transit Man | May 14, 2007 11:14 AM
27

Nice try, Transit Man. We've seen your garbage before. Promise first hill transit before the vote, and then after the vote don't build it. I'm sure Sound Transit will come up with an interminable list of whiney excuses: "it costs too much, the soil is unstable, plans changed, the public wants someting else, we have to spend the money on heavy rail to Olympia, yada yada yada."

Transit Man, don't you agree that ST2 will be like ST1, where the board can drop projects AFTER the vote? What makes you think ST wouldn't drop the trolly service to First Hill like it dropped the First Hill light rail station?

Posted by sodo mojo | May 14, 2007 11:20 AM
28

Well, the trolley is being built by the City, and will be run by the City, just paid for by sound transit funds. So I imagine it will be Nickels, who can be quite the hard-ass, enforcing the street car.

Also, you can force them too; they are accountable to the public. Mail them and let them know that transit to first hill is important to you!

Posted by Transit Man | May 14, 2007 12:52 PM
29

Nickels got reamed by BNRR trying to buy easements for Sounder. Nickels got reamed by the voters on his tunnel proposal. Nickels had to float bonds to do street repairs. He's about as much of a hard-ass as Paris Hilton.

"Also, you can force them too; they are accountable to the public." No, they are not accountable to the public. They are political appointees.

Posted by sodo mojo | May 14, 2007 3:02 PM
30

"political appointees"?
The board is made up of 17 elected officials and one political appointee (the State secretary of transportation):
http://soundtransit.org/x2249.xml
The CEO of sound transit is elected by the board, and so she is indirectly accountable to the people.

There is also a Citizen Oversight Panel, but it is, unfortunately, not easy to join. They do have stakeholder meetings but it is actually easier to meet with sound transit employees than their commitee panels.

I don't work for sound transit, I am just hugely in favor of better transit.

Posted by Angry Andrew | May 14, 2007 4:10 PM
31

Nickels is a hapless boob. So he’d be in charge of the Seattle Trolly, but Sound Transit would pay for it? That’s a guaranteed recipe for getting the Seattle Trolly axed out of the package.

Nickels backed monorail; that was a huge mistake. He was finance chair for ST during the ludicrous cost-estimating phase. Several weeks ago he got out-negotiated on terms of ST2 by the twenty-something Exec. in Snohomish Co.: http://www.heraldnet.com/stories/07/04/29/100edi_editorial001.cfm Now Sno. County would get more light rail line, and Nickels’ constituents in Seattle will mostly be dead by the time light rail gets to Northgate.

The First Hill trolly will be gone before you know it, if the ST2 plan is approved.

Posted by dispassionate observer | May 14, 2007 5:57 PM
32

Those 17 are elected to other postions. They are appointed by the county executives. If one of the appointees does not toe the line the county exec. wants, the county exec just appoints someone else. Voters do not choose among candidates for any of the ST seats. Voters can not directly elect anyone to serve on ST's board (for example, if they vote for a county exec, it is for reasons unrealated to building a region-wide transit system).

Posted by dispassionate observer | May 14, 2007 6:02 PM
33

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34

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35

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