http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2008/12/16/where_did_people_get_the_idea Comments On: Where Did People Get the Idea... by Dan Savage en-us Copyright 2009 The Stranger. All rights reserved. This RSS file is offered to individuals, The Stranger readers, and non-commercial organizations only. Any commercial websites wishing to use this RSS file, please contact The Stranger. webmaster@thestranger.com (The Stranger Webmaster) Wed, 25 Nov 2009 00:00:01 -0800 Wed, 25 Nov 2009 01:30:00 -0800 Foundation http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss
If your spouse changes jobs... time to start looking for a new partner.
Posted by Jigae]]> Fri, 19 Dec 2008 15:22:43 -0800 The Stranger
Sometimes spouses work in different places. Often actually. If my husband and I moved into the city, we'd be paying more for less space and he would have to commute back out to the 'burbs.
Posted by Your Name Here]]> Fri, 19 Dec 2008 15:02:02 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Duh....]]> Thu, 18 Dec 2008 22:17:36 -0800 The Stranger
People are generally selfish douchebags that act only in their own self-interest. If driving a single occupancy vehicle to any and all locations, regardless of whether or not it's actually necessary, and regardless of the environmental and societal impact, AS LONG AS IT GETS ME TO MY DESTINATION IN 15 MINUTES OR LESS, BECAUSE I CAN'T TOLERATE BEING IN MY CAR AND DRIVING FOR ANY LONGER THAN THAT OR I WILL SERIOUSLY FREAK OUT, well, people will do so. And if they can't do so, they will whine, bitch, complain, moan, cry, fret and throw giant temper tantrums about it. Like all these pathetic douches on the Slog.

Anybody crying to replace the Viaduct with another freeway monstrosity is someone that can't look beyond their own selfish need and desire to drive and SOV in the quickest possible manner to any and all destinations. And you know what?

FUCK THOSE PEOPLE.

Seriously. They don't matter. If we left city planning up to those douchebags, we'd live in LA, Phoenix, Houston, Dallas, Miami, or San Diego. And you know what? Those cities SUCK MY BALLS. If the douchebags whining about the Viaduct want a freeway, let them move to any of the above-named cities. They all happen to be suffering the worst in the recession, but whatever - they can drive their SOVs straight to oblivion with a big fucking smile on their faces.

So, FNARF and everyone else that is whining, SUCK MY HAIRY STINKY BALLS. If you can't bother to think beyond gas-guzzling SOVs and trucks, then you are a dinosaur, and completely inconsequential to the future of our society. You are the children of the Neanderthal, destined to live out your sad lives in a cave, waiting for death. FUCK YOU.

Posted by srsly fuck off freeway lovers]]> Thu, 18 Dec 2008 22:09:36 -0800 The Stranger Posted by West Seattle=Whiney]]> Thu, 18 Dec 2008 21:18:16 -0800 The Stranger
I'm not sure what the best choice here is, but as someone who uses the viaduct as a way to get from one part of the city to another, not for commuting, and also uses it when going downtown, I'm not sure how the Stoplight Option solves anything. It's certainly less green. More stops of that many vehicles a day is a lot more gasoline consumed.
Posted by Steve Bradford]]> Thu, 18 Dec 2008 20:48:13 -0800 The Stranger
The future of transportation will be electric cars that are recharged in the middle of the night from wind, wave, tidal, nuclear and other green sources. These same cars will give back their power during peak use periods when sitting at home. If density is desired, then strict zoning is the only way to make it happen.

The current structure has now lived 7 years since the 100 year earthquake in 2001. After waiting 6 years to stabilize the three bad columns , they now are not sinking.

How about fixing what we have and building a sound wall to block the noise from the lower car deck. The sound wall could be another sculpture park - let local artists carve Buddhas of Bamiyan and other classical wall art in them which will be one of the greatest tourist attractions in the world. Imagine the glorious Seattle waterfront on one side and a march through wall art history on the other. Makes you want to spend money doesn't it?

If cars didn't pollute, would a tree make noise when it fell? Spend on clean electricity not tunnels.


Posted by McG]]> Thu, 18 Dec 2008 09:11:26 -0800 The Stranger
NYC's landmass is also 22.96 sq miles, versus Seattle's 91.5685. NYC is mostly flat, Seattle is hilly and built around lakes and rivers. The two are so different -- It's like comparing apples and oranges.

I love mass transit - we just have a lot of infrastructure we need to create before we can start seriously impeding all vehicular (car, delivery truck, bus) traffic.
Posted by Jigae]]> Thu, 18 Dec 2008 08:18:57 -0800 The Stranger
What you're saying about Brooklyn residents traveling on surface roads is a blatant lie.

Oh, and lest I forget, there's the L.I.E in Long Island, and multiple high capacity tunnels into and out of Jersey.
Posted by Jigae]]> Thu, 18 Dec 2008 08:05:17 -0800 The Stranger
Unless you're talking about putting a sandy beach there instead of a seawall, you won't fool me into thinking the waterfront's attractive, with or without the viaduct.
A park might be nice, and housing of-the-800-bucks-a-month variety might be a good look there.
I think the suspension bridge isn't an altogether terrible idea (though I'd rather see it across elliot bay, from Alki north to Smith Cove, for example). The piers are/always will be ugly. The cranes and shipping containers too.
@2 you have the best point: how important is it really.
Crazy brainstorm: Merge sr99 traffic into West Seattle bridge. Extend west seattle freeway through north beacon hill and over to MLK/SR900. Build MLK into a freewayish highway to take NorthSouth traffic. Connect at the south to I-5 or 405 in renton. Keep it going N through the arboreteum & Jump it across to UW. Make a floating bridge from Magnuson to Juanita/DennyPark (shortest jump across the lake). Let 520 AND the Viaduct rot, (Probably cheaper than both projects) and shut up about it already.

Posted by UrbanMapsmith]]> Thu, 18 Dec 2008 05:27:30 -0800 The Stranger Vancouver's cool. How bout
- NYC (minus the triboro/GW bridges)
- SF (101, the goldengate highway, just PLOPS into surface street mode)
- Paris, Athens, Dublin, Rome, etc

Big Cities have traffic, you know? And they don't require freeways. Not every californian whim /concrete contractor needs to be stroked.
The freeways vitally connect snohomish county to the south? Who the fuck cares about Edmonds, SnoHo, Goldbar, etc? If taking down 3.5 lanes of northbound earthquake-prone and expensive viaduct somehow causes the death of Everett, shouldn't the person responsible get a medal? If we're going to need N-S freeways so bad, how come you radicals aren't proposing another Interstate 605?

I think Grants (@67) comment about 'car owners arent poor' is more a reality check than trying to define poverty: it's like that poster I used to see: "Poverty: you and your TV... or a village in bangladesh?" On the grand scheme of things, in global scale, you are not at all poor. You have luxury and don't even know it.

I worked/lived in NYC, and manhattan lacks freeways of any 'normal' sort, and with 9 million citizens, they're doing ok. Long Island hasn't withered away from being disconnected to Jersey; Brooklyn residents still travel north to Conn on surface streets. Cargo gets delivered, from a port, two train stations and 3 airports, just fine - and buses, while they dont run on time always, run frequently.
Yes, transit, trains, monorails are needed. Affordable dense housing needs to be built downtown [instead of the yesler terrace handout to Harborview]. But what, praytell, fire are you going to lite under the city's ass that will get the job done faster than tearing down the antiquated asphalt veins?
West Sea, South Park, White Ctr, et al - I sympathize that you bought your house or business in a place where you thought that the freeway was a given. Your commute will not be the same, your quality of life might change. But what model did you use to determine that cities never evolve?? What freeway, ESPECIALLY viaducts, did you think would last forever?? Even the elevated subways were removed from manhattan. Cities change.
That strip you luna park/west seattle folks are on, for example, use to be home to gamblers, drunks, rapists, arsonists and whores. See? Aren't you glad things change?

Hey Stranger staff: did anyone research Seattle's reaction/letters to editors when Railroad Avenue was replaced (by landfill) to become Alaskan Way? Was there this same bitchin and moanin and fear of progress?



Posted by UrbanMapsmith]]> Thu, 18 Dec 2008 05:03:02 -0800 The Stranger i like candy canes. i once threw one out my window and it landed in the yard. two days later, i grew a giant beard, where birds came to nest. within weeks these birds laid eggs that were the size of nickles. i survived off the birds milk and eggs for months until i broke out in hives. these hives became boils that were full of puss and smelled like the air in bicycle tires and tasted like peppermint. i went to the doctor who took one look at me through a giant telescope and diagnosed me with having a rare virus called, "throwmapsinegypt". there was no cure and i was forced to stay in doors. no visitors (except on fridays and sundays), no phone calls and no smoking filtered cigarettes. i grew lonely and depressed and decided i needed an outlet for my boredom, so i started a band. the band consisted of only three members, me, myself and carl, who was my pet blanket. we called ourselves "the mark arms" and played only two shows. this of course went against my doctors orders to never leave the house.. but when you gotta rock you gotta rock right? you feel it and you go for it. as for me i really really felt it. deep in my pus. anyways, we played just two shows. one was an instore at the crown hill taco del mar where we blew the beans right out of the containers and the other show was at the cha cha. the turn out was a great due to our massive poster campaign and in just two shows, we made enough money to cut our first demo. the recording took place at a studio called reciprocal recording, with someone named jack endino. i'd never heard of the guy, but he apparently had a good reputation of being a great producer. we spent a total of $600. the demo turned out great and mr. endino liked it so much, he passed it on to sub pop. we weren't expecting much to happen, since we were a new band. i was wrong. the calls came in and wouldn't stop. we decided to ink a 10 album deal, with no tour support and album budgets so huge, we would never recoup. it was just what we wanted, we were on our way to stardom, when tragedy struck. our drummer, blanket, lost his arms in a dryer accident. there was no way that we were going to go on with him, so we broke up.
my sores grew bigger and i eventually became so sick that i couldn't work. i lost my job at scarecrow video, my birds, my ethnic friends, my record collection, my subway card, my hearing, my eye site and my feet. now i live under the viaduct.
now i find out that i will be losing that? FUCK YOU DAN SAVAGE! YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW IT FEELS TO BE ME YOU SELFISH SACK OF BALLS! I'M COMING TO LIVE AT YOUR HOUSE!
Posted by go nad.]]> Thu, 18 Dec 2008 02:07:41 -0800 The Stranger



Posted by Mr. X]]> Wed, 17 Dec 2008 20:33:04 -0800 The Stranger Posted by repatriated]]> Wed, 17 Dec 2008 17:17:05 -0800 The Stranger Posted by dwight moody]]> Wed, 17 Dec 2008 12:23:07 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Explorer]]> Wed, 17 Dec 2008 11:07:14 -0800 The Stranger
@91: The Viaduct is important not because it's an elevated freeway, but because it's an elevated freeway bypass THRU DOWNTOWN -- a downtown, I might add, that's a natural choke point. I'm not suggesting people need a freeway between all possible commute points. But people need reasonable alternatives to sitting in I-5 or surface street gridlock. Light rail, you say? Fine. Call me in 40 years when ST3 has some light rail on the west side.

Also, 15 minutes a trip may not seem like much, but that's still 2.5 hours a workweek.
Posted by joykiller]]> Tue, 16 Dec 2008 22:50:27 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Get a grip, y'all]]> Tue, 16 Dec 2008 21:22:48 -0800 The Stranger
I'm reminded of a story from Jane Jacob's "The Death and Life of Great American Cities" (I think that's what it was called.) There was a busy road running though a park in New York, and when the city wanted to close that road, much fretting ensued about what would happen to all those cars--quite similar to our fretting about the viaduct today. When they finally did close the road (with no mitigation arrangements whatsoever), the prophesied traffic nightmare never materialized. In fact, it was as though all of the cars just disappeared. The point of the case study was to illustrate that there is no fixed number of automobiles, and that everyone makes tradeoffs when deciding among dozens of transportation options.

Why don't we build another light rail line from West Seattle up to Ballard? That could move a lot of people. Aren't we already planning a rapid bus route there as well? Seems like it's more important to count the number of people moved rather than the number of cars.
Posted by Mark]]> Tue, 16 Dec 2008 20:30:23 -0800 The Stranger
Not even if Dan Savage self-righteously insisted so really, really stridently?



Posted by Mr. X]]> Tue, 16 Dec 2008 19:23:14 -0800 The Stranger
I could adapt to a city that's 25 degrees most of the year, but that doesn't mean I'm going to wake up one day and say, "Hey! This is really the ideal temperature for Seattle."
Posted by joykiller]]> Tue, 16 Dec 2008 19:04:58 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Get a grip, y'all]]> Tue, 16 Dec 2008 18:29:43 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Chas Redmond]]> Tue, 16 Dec 2008 18:01:12 -0800 The Stranger And what about those poor Vashon Island commuters, stuck in West Seattle traffic twice a day, just because there's no freeway to the dock. Time for an extension from the new Seattle Fwy to Fauntleroy.
Posted by uptown]]> Tue, 16 Dec 2008 17:43:44 -0800 The Stranger
I live in Ballard, which is a few miles from work. I don't use the Viaduct to commute, but I sure as shit use it to get to the airport, stadiums, W. Seattle, etc. And as anyone not lost in Savage's dream world will tell you, tearing down the Viaduct will have a ripple effect on Aurora, 15th, downtown streets, I-5, etc. It's not just about capacity on 99, it's about capacity -- and options -- on both sides of the city. Failure to replace the Viaduct will add not just to the commutes of single-car drivers headed to Burien, but also to bus commuters headed downtown.
Posted by joykiller]]> Tue, 16 Dec 2008 15:56:02 -0800 The Stranger