Comments

1
YES! FINALLY!

Punish those lazy poor people who can't afford to pay rent in Seattle, and drive around in their '92 Hondas. They're just worthless scum, and the only way they'll learn is if we keep punishing them. They won't learn though because they're just so lazy and poor. They should take their lazy poor selves and move to Canada or something. Stupid lazy poor people messing up the world for the rest of us, eh, Charles? Amirite, Charles?
2
The problem with this concept is that your New-Urbanism has pushed a large percentage of the poverty out into the suburbs. When you combine this with a cascading set of systems failures in terms of providing public transit, you will end up punishing those who can least afford it.
3
The city / suburbs dichotomy is not as well suited to this area as it is to places like NY or London. There, the people who live in the suburbs need to commute into city for work. In this area there are a fair number of employers in the subrubs. I suspect there are a fair number of people who live in Seattle who work at either Boeing or Microsoft (for example) and whose commute is the reverse of the classic "sleeper community" commute. You really want to look at commute distance and mode of transportation.
BTW, the way King county taxes residents in new developments to pay for Brightwater, it's actually implementing what you want.
4
@3 You only have to look at the WSDOT traffic map or ST545 ridership during rush hour to see that there are plenty of people going both ways over the bridges every day between work and home. At least when it comes to the Eastside there's no such thing as a reverse commute. The same can probably be said about the I-405 corridor from Bothell down to Renton as well.
5
@3, yeah, I was wondering if the person writing this had stuck their head in the ground during the whole debate over how much new hookups should pay.
http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2…
6
Interesting that these various punishments somehow don't punish the OP.
7
This news suggests the carrot is working! Why call for the stick?
8
This incentive makes sense to me, not sure why people are railing against this. Development and urban planning doesn't have to be in support of gentrification-- in fact, proper development is one of the strongest forces to abate gentrification.
9
The Boulder-area transit system is pretty good, not London good, not New York good, but definitely useable. Regional connections from Boulder to the airport and downtown Denver work well, too. I never drive to either the airport or to see the Rockies, and very rarely drive to work. My kids use their EcoPasses to get themselves to school, practices, etc. I should point out that RTD (the regional transit system, with whom Boulder partners for its local bus service) has been for some reason trying of late to snuff out the neighborhood EcoPass deal. I'm not sure why. Maybe they hope to get more money if everyone uses the farebox? For me a big part of its being low-hassle enough to use is not having to fumble with bills and coins, but just open my wallet and wave it at the sensor.
10
@5, thank you for the link. it made my case perfectly.
11

..punish those who use cars..

Why not start here:

http://goo.gl/maps/fuL1W

12
@9, are Ecopasses still good on every route? I had one in the 90s and got myself out to DIA with it.
13

Or how about malls.

http://goo.gl/maps/nW6ju

Oops. There it is.
14
@7, self-styled Marxists are all about punishment and revenge. The "class warfare" angle attracts those with punitive personalities.
15
If you're going to punish the people who use cars, could you at least improve the public transit _first_? Because I know you're off planning your ecotopia, and that's cool, but I still have to get to work and occasionally buy household goods of nontrivial size. Just saying.
17
@15- precisely. Given that from where I live you can drive to a park and ride that is nowhere near anything and get a once/hour ride into Seattle, no transfer to the local buses, and god fucking forbid you wanna do that on a sunday, or need to stay in town later than about 10pm. I live near my work (as stated above, many major employers are out in the suburbs), so why am I being punished for wanting to spend my nightlife/entertainment/retail $ in Seattle?
18
I thought banning plastic bags was reward enough, because its so much better now I have to bring with me 4-6 cloth bags with me everywhere I go. Even better is the fact that even though I don't own a car, all the extra money basically went to paying skyrocketing rents, which forced me to move out of Seattle completely. So the money I save from this Eco Pass, will pay a fraction of a single months rent increase.

Punishing someone who has moved to the suburbs, because of the skyrocketing rent increase, is not exactly a good idea. Basically you are asking the entire country to pay for water and electric upgrades, but stick people with higher fee's because they don't live in the city? You sir, should run for mayor!
19
City living in Seattle ROCKS!! For those of you who can afford to live in Seattle. And watching the last three mayors and Seattle's city council over the past two decades it's clear the only people they care about housing are those who are making close to 6 figures or more a year.

High rents and high housing values aren't good if you are going for a sustainable lifestyle. Making Metro "cute" isn't going to help
20
Fuck your city - Ill take my yard, garden, and three car garage thank you very much
21
@12: Ecopass gets you from boulder to Denver for free. But from boulder to airport, you need a $2.50 "co-pay". This is compared to the regular cost which is I think $13. Getting back to the convenience thing they used to charge $5 out bound, and nothing coming back from airport. Much easier to find $5 once, than $2.50 twice. They stopped doing that when they installed the new software in their scanners. Seemed liked a step backwards, to me.
22
My neighbors and I would sooner chew off our own index fingers than live in a dense urban environment. And we pay for that privilege. No-one needs provide either water or septic services, due to wells and septic fields. Even if they were needed the ratepayer for utilities pays for hookup and maintenance. Seattle doesn't pay for the few sheriff deputies we see, we do as taxpayers. Fire service is good, and paid for by property taxes. Since we insist on schools which educate our kids rather than making them some given social model, my family privately educates our kids. God forbid they turn out as abysmally ignorant as say Schmuck Mudede!

And transit? I haven't ridden a bus or train in the US in 15 years, but pay for every single rider on Metro or the Sounder in taxes.
23
"sane" and "modern cosmopolitan living" are not synonymous as assumed here.
24
@14, ah. That's too bad.
25
Yeah, screw everyone who drives! Like me, who lives in the city and bikes/walks a lot but also has health conditions that occasionally require the use of a vehicle because I'm damned well not going to wait to take three fucking buses to the doctor's office from my house, which is less than five miles from the doctor.

It's ridiculous to turn this into an us-versus-them dichotomy, especially when so many of us are getting priced out of the city and will probably have to rely more on cars in the future as a result. Stick to writing about pigeons.
26
@17,

Later than 10? Plenty of Metro service out to the 'burbs runs in the very early morning and in the afternoon. Period. I feel for anyone living on one of those routes who has to stay at work past 6.
27
@23, you win Slog today. And the current "sustainable living" push is freakishly expensive for most people. How many people do we know who have spent tens of thousands of dollars on upgrading appliances, cars etc. to be "green". Ironically...it isn't sustainable. But at least we can all live an aPodment!!! With our entire family!! Just like those old propaganda films showing life behind the Iron Curtain!!!
28
Mercer Island is nearly the same distance from Downtown as Columbia City.
29
LOL. boulder is NOT seattle. wouldn't look to them for advice with our transit issues... First off, those hop skip and jump buses look like shit. Second, boulder is a tiny, very wealthytown that uses its "Natural" surroundings to keep out the poor folk (See Boulder's Open Space Initiatives).
30
@3 you might be surprised how many people live in NYC and commute to jobs in Connecticut. UBS is in Connecticut and a lot of young bankers want to live in the city, not suburban CT. Also lots of hedge funds, same story.
31
Sitting next to stinky drunks and people who hear voices is it's own reward.
32
For someone who styles himself as a friend of the proletariat, you sure are one blind, elitist prick, Mudede.
33
You know, you're supposed to be a Marxist - you know, where we pool resources for common essential infrastructure...like...water, sewer and electricity.

The answer I think you're scratching around for is to avoid letting some people - namely, drivers and develpers, push off some of their costs as "externalities". That is, the cost of new housing should include in it everything required: new roads, new schools, new water and sewer infrastructure. The full cost should be built in. That does, in fact, completely take into account what you want and does make improving existing dense urban housing stock less expensive than building new suburbs. That will slow down and concentrate development as you wish. It's also "fair" and prevents free-riders.
34
Sounds like a great program; I'll definitely check it out once I scrape together the $100k needed for a down payment on a halfway-decent 4br in the city proper.

Please wait...

and remember to be decent to everyone
all of the time.

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