Slog
News & ArtsThursday, March 14, 2013
Transportation Seattle Only Has One City
Posted by Charles Mudede on Thu, Mar 14, 2013 at 9:10 AM
That city exists between the airport and downtown. What makes it a city is this....
It was packed this morning with the citizens of the only city in Seattle. These people live in the future. The rest live in the past. And the past is just plain primitive. No amount of car sharing can help this terrible situation. Without a public transportation system that has a dedicated line or lane, you are going nowhere. You are stuck in the past. The city is a stage, and that stage is supported by Link.
1
Well put, Charles. (Having just moved back from DC, I can say the one thing I miss now is the Metro.)
2
Speaking as a northsider, you can keep your southend with its lousy schools, crime problems and Rainier Ave strip malls.
3
Where are these people going on the train? Closer to the real city. Link is commuter rail.
The only real city in Seattle is Capitol Hill. Everything needed is within walking distance, and overall better for society. There's a co-op, vegan restaurants, small independent hardware and toy and tea stores, the best cafes and bars, parks, unique art and music and culture.
What looks more like London or Brooklyn or Manhattan or Mexico City? Certainly not a commuter rail station across the street from a Home Depot parking lot. If commuter light rail defined a city, the cities of America would be Tukwila, and the suburbs of Salt Lake City, Phoenix, and Portland.
The First Hill Streetcar will be the first true city transit in Seattle - a rail line that will carry people within the city, instead of to and from bedroom communities and the airport.
The only real city in Seattle is Capitol Hill. Everything needed is within walking distance, and overall better for society. There's a co-op, vegan restaurants, small independent hardware and toy and tea stores, the best cafes and bars, parks, unique art and music and culture.
What looks more like London or Brooklyn or Manhattan or Mexico City? Certainly not a commuter rail station across the street from a Home Depot parking lot. If commuter light rail defined a city, the cities of America would be Tukwila, and the suburbs of Salt Lake City, Phoenix, and Portland.
The First Hill Streetcar will be the first true city transit in Seattle - a rail line that will carry people within the city, instead of to and from bedroom communities and the airport.
4
I love the south end, and I am glad Ship Canal Refugee will be hiding away on the north end stuck in traffic. I use the link daily and LOVE it, keep spreading the good word Charles.
6
I have to take issue with the idea that only trains are "the future". Clearly bicycles are the future as well.
But thank the stars that we are finally getting a light rail system. I'm pretty stunned that after the 1962 World's Fair city planners did not at the very least lay out rail right-of-ways to accommodate a potential monorail system, if not regular rail. Idiots. Probably infected with the C.A.R. virus that blinkered so many in that era. I blame them for forcing us to frickin' retrofit our city now for a decent set of transit lines.
But thank the stars that we are finally getting a light rail system. I'm pretty stunned that after the 1962 World's Fair city planners did not at the very least lay out rail right-of-ways to accommodate a potential monorail system, if not regular rail. Idiots. Probably infected with the C.A.R. virus that blinkered so many in that era. I blame them for forcing us to frickin' retrofit our city now for a decent set of transit lines.
7
Absolutely right. When friends and family visit from Europe they hardly stray from the light rail line. They have an incomplete picture of Seattle, it's true, but it's hard to unlearn a lifetime of logical transit assumptions. Very much looking forward to the day when more than a small fraction of this city is accessible by train.
8
Say what you will about the mayor's handling of the police department and working with other politicians--dismal, if you ask me--he's the only elected leader in this city pushing for a real city. The only one talking about light rail, the most important thing Seattle should focus on. The city council is predominantly an advocate to keep Seattle suburban forever.
9
Traffic? From Ballard to Fremont? Plus no one breaks into your car at night and you can walk down the street with your iPhone out and not need eyes in the back of your head.
12
Cars are the solution, I want a hamster powered car. You can have the electric one. Just stay away from the beach.
13
@10) People also communicated before the internet and the telephone, but, as Charles put it in this post about rail, those without them "live in the past."
14
@8, the mayor's happy to accept hobby rail, SLUT rail, trolleys sharing lanes with cars. That's not the Link kind Charles is talking about, the kind I love, with its own separated lane.
McGinn likes to suggest the two mean the same thing for Seattle, but we should stay aware of the difference.
McGinn likes to suggest the two mean the same thing for Seattle, but we should stay aware of the difference.
15
Some of us who don't live near the present light rail and nor capitol hill would like to be those who live in the future, but thank to a reactionary and fearful of the future political structure and business community, we can't get that "future" transport in our communities.
A streetcar just strikes me as a bus on rails, potentially subject to the same traffic problems.
A streetcar just strikes me as a bus on rails, potentially subject to the same traffic problems.
16
Charles, just as SOON as the LINK comes near my house or goes near ANYTHING I want to visit, I will be right on it. But I do not go downtown unless there is no other option.
17
Poor people can have their shitty trains. Just keep their fucking bikes out of the way of my car.
18
@10. Sure, the word City used to mean one thing, now it means something else. You're doing exactly what Charles was saying, looking back, not forward.
19
Charles writes: Without a public transportation system that has a dedicated line or lane, you are going nowhere. You are stuck in the past.
Interestingly, it looks like Tim Burgess is pinning his mayoral candidacy on the calculation that a good number of Seattle voters are stuck in the past.
raku @3, two qualifiers to the point you make:
1. By your standard, Capitol Hill is not the only real city in the city. There are a number of urban centers in this city where just about every amenity is within walking distance. Of course, the problem is that once you get beyond walking (or bicycling) distance, you're stuck with either bus or car.
2. Sure, the suburban stations of Central Link are by and large commuter rail. But many/most of the in-city stations really do connect pedestrian-oriented places.
Interestingly, it looks like Tim Burgess is pinning his mayoral candidacy on the calculation that a good number of Seattle voters are stuck in the past.
raku @3, two qualifiers to the point you make:
1. By your standard, Capitol Hill is not the only real city in the city. There are a number of urban centers in this city where just about every amenity is within walking distance. Of course, the problem is that once you get beyond walking (or bicycling) distance, you're stuck with either bus or car.
2. Sure, the suburban stations of Central Link are by and large commuter rail. But many/most of the in-city stations really do connect pedestrian-oriented places.
20
@14) I'm worried about pointless toy trains, too, but you know as well as I do that if McGinn declared allegiance to light rail and only light rail, he'd be skewered for it. Not based on data, and blah, blah, blah. You'd be in the chorus, I'd presume, if your past fanship of council soap operas are any indication.
21
Agreeing with gloomy gus @14. I'd happily vote for the first mayoral candidate who unequivocally expresses their support for a real light rail connection between Ballard and downtown (potentially extending to points north and south), and who wants to see it as part of an ST3 ballot measure.
The sad thing is, as wishy-washy as McGinn has been with his rail agenda, I don't see any challengers giving a stronger message.
The sad thing is, as wishy-washy as McGinn has been with his rail agenda, I don't see any challengers giving a stronger message.
22
@20, when you presume you make a pee out of you and me. If McGinn showed the spine he claims on this I'd be happy, I'd cling to it as a shining example of something he hadn't backtracked on yet. But no.
23
Seattle is a "real" city. It's got a downtown, it has sprawling suburbs, just like London, Mexico City, New York, LA, Chicago, Paris, etc. It has people commuting in multiple and various fashions. The strong majority still use the car much like oh, all of those other places. It has a daily newspaper, it even has a shitty weekly and an even shittier weekly. It has an international airport. It even has people who didn't grow up there, move there, love it there, but then want to make it just like the shit pile they left behind. Seattle is fucking awesome from the southern point in Skyway to 145th. Equal parts homes, equal parts urban centers. It must kill you knowing there is a freeway only blocks from Williamsburg. How could there be a freeway, sorry freeways, plural, in New York City!? You guys are clueless.
24
Link doesn't come to my home or place of work (yet), but I walked to work today like I do most days. Am I living in the past?
26
@3: I didn't realize that First Hill and Capitol Hill have no bedrooms. Makes sense though, with all the loud block parties, marches, riots, and growing crime rates - why bother with bedrooms - since all sex is performed on stages, nobody has need for sleep.
27
@7 That happens in Boston as well. I lived there for years and was always learning new ways that the different subway stops I was familiar with connected on the surface. There is usually a cluster of development around each station, but you miss out on a lot of really great shops and restaurants if you don't wander out from there.
28
Light rail is an imperfect solution. But it's what we have.
And Charles is right - if you care about progress, about living BETTER, then the future of city living is going to be about mass transportation. Simple as that. And rail is the most efficient and robust way to move people we have yet discovered. All you have to do is look to the most livable cities, and to the least livable cities, to prove this fact. Why this is controversial to some people is befuddling.
OTOH If you don't care about living better and want things to keep spiraling down into the morass of pollution, congestion, and city-killing suburban hells then by all means build more roads.
PS. I love how that one dude up there compulsively has to mention veganism in every post no matter what the subject. You could ask: "When did the Crimean War start?" And he'd answer: "Oh. That was in... VEGANISM!!!!" It's like a self-righteous form of Tourette's or something.
And Charles is right - if you care about progress, about living BETTER, then the future of city living is going to be about mass transportation. Simple as that. And rail is the most efficient and robust way to move people we have yet discovered. All you have to do is look to the most livable cities, and to the least livable cities, to prove this fact. Why this is controversial to some people is befuddling.
OTOH If you don't care about living better and want things to keep spiraling down into the morass of pollution, congestion, and city-killing suburban hells then by all means build more roads.
PS. I love how that one dude up there compulsively has to mention veganism in every post no matter what the subject. You could ask: "When did the Crimean War start?" And he'd answer: "Oh. That was in... VEGANISM!!!!" It's like a self-righteous form of Tourette's or something.
30
#26: Look up "bedroom community". It essentially means suburb, where people live but work and play and shop elsewhere. Capitol Hill is the city furthest from a bedroom community in the region.
#28: Vegan infrastructure is one of the clearest symbols of a modern, cosmopolitan, progressive neighborhood or city. Brooklyn, Manhattan, London, Vancouver, Seattle, San Francisco, Barcelona, Singapore, Taiwan, Mexico City - all are real cities with vegan infrastructure in certain neighborhoods (usually not the bedroom communities). Houston, Boston, Calgary, Jacksonville, Seville, Perth, Puebla, Tukwila - provincial cities with plenty of steakhouses and chain restaurants. If you see a neighborhood/city that caters to veganism, you know it is full of interesting culture and is liveable without the car.
Also, please don't call me "dude".
#28: Vegan infrastructure is one of the clearest symbols of a modern, cosmopolitan, progressive neighborhood or city. Brooklyn, Manhattan, London, Vancouver, Seattle, San Francisco, Barcelona, Singapore, Taiwan, Mexico City - all are real cities with vegan infrastructure in certain neighborhoods (usually not the bedroom communities). Houston, Boston, Calgary, Jacksonville, Seville, Perth, Puebla, Tukwila - provincial cities with plenty of steakhouses and chain restaurants. If you see a neighborhood/city that caters to veganism, you know it is full of interesting culture and is liveable without the car.
Also, please don't call me "dude".
33
And yet just one stop southward, this station is a "Failure":
http://www.thestranger.com/slog/archives…
http://www.thestranger.com/slog/archives…
34
talking about light rail isn't doing light rail.
talk is cheap. doing involves siting, pissing off property owners, and taxes.
the mayor has supported a light rail plan that goes way far out and has not actually proposed a full or complete rail plan for inside seattle.
talk is cheap. doing involves siting, pissing off property owners, and taxes.
the mayor has supported a light rail plan that goes way far out and has not actually proposed a full or complete rail plan for inside seattle.
35
Not to stir up any more inter-neighborhood skirmishing, but...
Anyone who thinks Capitol Hill represents an aesthetic or cultural apotheosis of urbanity has never set foot in a real city in his or her entire life.
That is all.
Anyone who thinks Capitol Hill represents an aesthetic or cultural apotheosis of urbanity has never set foot in a real city in his or her entire life.
That is all.
36
...And apparently Seattle is now more of a "real" city than Boston because it has "vegan infrastructure". Boston's double density, walking culture, functioning transit system, and significantly more diversified economy be damned.
Thanks for the laugh, Raku, you unbelievable fucking idiot.
Thanks for the laugh, Raku, you unbelievable fucking idiot.
37
@23, as far as NY, I'd say a large number rather than a significant majority drive. I never needed a car in NY with the 24/7 subways, but here, you don't have much choice if you want to patronize arts and culture and don't live in Capitol Hill lest you want to stand around for about and hour or so after 12am, 1am waiting for a bus.
Yeah, Seattle is a city but not like a few that you mentioned.
Yeah, Seattle is a city but not like a few that you mentioned.
38
35- Name an example of why another "real city" is superior. I've been to oh, let's say every real city, and Capitol Hill is a world-class example and the only such example in the region outside Vancouver.
39
@8 - Right. On.
@10 - there were cities before cars existed, too. But once we started building infrastructure for cars, we've had to build transit as well or things get unwalkable and unlivable fast.
@10 - there were cities before cars existed, too. But once we started building infrastructure for cars, we've had to build transit as well or things get unwalkable and unlivable fast.
40
@38: Capitol Hill is ugly, it's poorly laid out, there are lots of pedestrian dead zones, it reverts to single-family housing half a block off Broadway, and its culture is shockingly monolithic.
Even San Francisco's most boring neighborhood likely offers something more interesting to the flâneur's eye than the best of Capitol Hill.
Capitol hill is moderately active and busy by Seattle standards. But like most of Seattle, it's on the positively lame end of the greater spectrum of urban placemaking. ("Vegan infrastructure" notwithstanding.)
Even San Francisco's most boring neighborhood likely offers something more interesting to the flâneur's eye than the best of Capitol Hill.
Capitol hill is moderately active and busy by Seattle standards. But like most of Seattle, it's on the positively lame end of the greater spectrum of urban placemaking. ("Vegan infrastructure" notwithstanding.)
42
40- I don't think you've been to Capitol Hill much if that's your impression. I'm talking about the urban part of Capitol Hill, not the Montlake or Madison areas that real estate agents define as Capitol Hill.
I'd be interested to know how a neighborhood is "shockingly monolithic" with a Jewish community center, Russian community center, international movie theater, literary center, Ethiopian and African-American and Catholic churches (plus many others), large college with 30% international students and no racial majority, world-class bookstore, musical acts both local, regional, and international from Bollywood to dance to world music, international and diverse business owners, progressive politics from across the spectrum (socialist, cooperative, anarchist, democrat, green, radical feminist), LGBT inclusion and support of all kinds, institutions from across the economic spectrum from homeless to elderly to people with health issues to poor to very wealthy, just to think about random examples from a few blocks.
Have you only been to Boom Noodle and Coastal Kitchen?
I'd be interested to know how a neighborhood is "shockingly monolithic" with a Jewish community center, Russian community center, international movie theater, literary center, Ethiopian and African-American and Catholic churches (plus many others), large college with 30% international students and no racial majority, world-class bookstore, musical acts both local, regional, and international from Bollywood to dance to world music, international and diverse business owners, progressive politics from across the spectrum (socialist, cooperative, anarchist, democrat, green, radical feminist), LGBT inclusion and support of all kinds, institutions from across the economic spectrum from homeless to elderly to people with health issues to poor to very wealthy, just to think about random examples from a few blocks.
Have you only been to Boom Noodle and Coastal Kitchen?
43
@42: I've lived on Capitol Hill. And yes, I'm referring to the "urban" part of Capitol Hill.
Just the fact that you feel the need to itemize reeks of "neighborhood parochialism doth protest too much". Real cities offer so much stuff messily arrayed on top of so much other stuff that it would be impossible to compartmentalize and list the way you try to.
And hey, you're the one who brought up "vegan infrastructure" as a single linchpin feature. Which is just fucking silly (and I'm a vegetarian).
I don't hate Capitol Hill by any means. But in the scheme of urban areas near and far, it's quite mundane. And it's ugly even by Seattle standards.
Just the fact that you feel the need to itemize reeks of "neighborhood parochialism doth protest too much". Real cities offer so much stuff messily arrayed on top of so much other stuff that it would be impossible to compartmentalize and list the way you try to.
And hey, you're the one who brought up "vegan infrastructure" as a single linchpin feature. Which is just fucking silly (and I'm a vegetarian).
I don't hate Capitol Hill by any means. But in the scheme of urban areas near and far, it's quite mundane. And it's ugly even by Seattle standards.
44
43: OK, give one example of a real city where there's so much stuff it's impossible to characterize its culture and beauty. It's certainly not the "most boring neighborhoods" in San Francisco, let alone Mission or Castro or the Tenderloin, or anywhere in NYC, or any cities I've been to. Kinshasa maybe?
46
@8 McGinn actually works pretty well with other politicians so long as they aren't gunning for his job or his authority. Holmes has his share of blame in the most recent spat, as people from Wes Uhlman to Norm Rice to Mark Sidran have said. But on rail I totally agree - all the other candidates are lining up against it, whereas McGinn keeps pressing forward.
@43 I'd argue that Seattle's most urban neighborhood is actually Belltown.
@43 I'd argue that Seattle's most urban neighborhood is actually Belltown.
48
@46, McGinn works well with other politicians whose authority he himself isn't trying to curb, you mean. The federal judge just the other day made clear McGinn was flat wrong in the argument he relied on trying to make Holmes shut up. Washed-up ex-pols can say a lot of stuff when given a chance, so let's hear from the not-washed-up Judge Robart himself:
The judge also dissuaded the city of a notion, first put forth by McGinn during a Feb. 27 news briefing, that the city’s agreement with the DOJ — signed in July — settled the litigation between them.http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2…
McGinn’s legal counsel, Carl Marquardt, repeated the assertion in a March 5 letter to Holmes, saying “implementation of the Settlement Agreement is not ‘litigation.’ ”
He said the agreement makes clear that it is an accord between the city and DOJ to avoid litigation. Marquardt asserted that implementation “falls squarely” within the mayor’s authority.
That view is “simply wrong,” Robart said.
49
Bicycles fit on trains. Thus, even if bikes are the future, they are also part of trains.
Adapt or die.
Adapt or die.
50
@43, @44
"America has only three cities: New York, San Francisco, and New Orleans. Everywhere else is Cleveland.”
--Tennessee Williams
"America has only three cities: New York, San Francisco, and New Orleans. Everywhere else is Cleveland.”
--Tennessee Williams
51
@12 "I want a hamster powered car." - turns out you can recycle hamsters, unlike car batteries. Put them in the lawn and yard waste bin. Shellfish, chicken bones, small animals - all go in there with your food waste.
52
@20 (etc.) Conlin has done as much as the mayor to push for better transit options within the city. He has pushed for higher density (Roosevelt, Capitol Hill, UW, South Lake Union, etc.), less parking (making it cheaper to build big buildings throughout the city), better bridges (connecting the Northgate station to NSCC) fewer park and rides (at the same station) and better stations that will more easily connect other city neighborhoods (a station at 130th NE will connect to Lake City). Higher density and better transportation means cheaper housing and less driving (per capita). Sounds like a real city to me.
54
Cap Hill is over 78% white according to the US census. You'll find more diversity at Bellevue mall than broadway.
55
@30: Yes, I know what 'Bedroom Community' means. I thought you'd catch on that I was being sarcastic. It's an obnoxious term to apply to Seattle's environs.
57
Seeing as how I don't live in the real city, can I stop sending my property taxes to a city I don't live in?
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