Eric Grandy proclaimed this week that copy editors are a violently uptight bunch. While this may or may not be true, this sign in the Value Village window is bothering me.

1. Frankenstein is the DOCTOR, not the monster. I doubt this text is saying what they want it to.

2. It is August! Let me enjoy the summer and not be thinking about Halloween already!

That is all.

Dan Bertolet at Hugeasscity, making some excellent points as usual:

Bicycles have but the tiniest impact on most urbanites’ lives. But judging by the way some people spew the bile (google “slog” and “bikes”), you’d think bikes were holding the entire city hostage.

The impact that bikes have on traffic flow is negligible. The damage that bicycles do to people and property is negligible. The objective reality is that pretty much the worst bicycles do is that they annoy people.[...]

I mean really people, are bicycles riding on sidewalks really that big of a source of anxiety in your lives? Does my riding up to the front of a line of cars stopped at a red light have any significant consequence, other than annoyance?

Meanwhile cars kill something like 40,000 people per year in the U.S. And maim who knows how many times more. And destroy a few bazillion dollars of property. [...]

I am baffled by those who express the same level of contempt for cyclists that break the rules of the road as they do for drivers that break the rules of the road. In the latter instance, someone might end up crushed on the pavement, while in the former, perhaps someone might get, well, really annoyed. It’s awfully curious how these folks (including many cyclists) suddenly become sticklers for the letter of the law when it comes to bikes. But you can be sure that all but the purest saints among them have either jaywalked, or smoked pot, or committed some other trivial victimless crime.

Which brings us to the “we’ll only earn their respect if we set a good example” argument. Yes, there is some truth in that, but here again I find it remarkable how so many cyclists seem to believe it’s so important for all cyclists to strictly adhere to this saintly standard. Did cyclists in Europe have to prove they were all perfectly behaved at all times before their governments invested in serious cycling infrastructure? No, I think not. That’s because the Europeans are smart enough to focus on what matters: the support of cycling for the overall health of their cities — not trivialities such as a bike rolling through a stop sign.

And what also repels me from the “respect” argument is that it is based on — and therefore helps to propagate — the twisted attitude that drivers are doing cyclists a huge favor by merely putting up with their presence on the roads. In other words, you cyclists best be kissing our asses, and maybe we’ll be good enough not to mow you down. First of all, as I already pointed out, bikes have a miniscule impact on cars and people in the city. But more importantly, the truth is that every person who opts to travel by bike instead of by car is doing a favor for everyone in the city, including drivers. Cue up the indignant cries that I am claiming cyclists are superior moral beings. Whatever. The fact that travel by bike is good for the planet is objective, verifiable, quantifiable truth.

Over at Crosscut, Matt Rosenberg--senior fellow at the intelligent design-believing Discovery Institute's Cascadia Center--argues that Metro should completely revamp its bus system, starting by raising bus fares to somewhere between $3.50 and $4.00--or, in reality, probably even higher, as rising fuel prices increase the cost of operating the system. There's so much wrong with Rosenburg's argument it's hard to know where to start, so I'll just take his points in the order he presents them in.

First, Rosenberg argues that eliminating one-third of all bus routes would be a smart way for Metro to save money. Because on-time performance is low on routes, like his, that are heavily traveled, Rosenberg believes the obvious solution would be to eliminate routes that have fewer passengers.

Cut the lowest-ridership routes, let's say the lowest one-third, and re-deploy the buses and drivers to the busiest runs, where riders are most often bypassed. Where regulations require that regional sub-areas be apportioned a certain percentage of total Metro bus service, the King County Council should confront those mandates head-on. We could let politics undermine a common-sense re-deployment of limited resources. But let's not.

First of all, I'm not sure where riders are getting "bypassed"--my experience, in eight years of riding the Metro system all over the city, is that a more common problem is buses that arrive late or, in some cases, early. (Number 9 driver, scheduled departure from Rainier and Graham at 9:07, I'm talking to you!) Although I certainly agree that Metro doesn't always use its resources efficiently, cutting routes at a time when transit ridership is spiking (and gaining riders who've never taken transit before!) nationwide is asinine.

On a less market-driven note, let's not forget that Metro is part of a government agency. Its mission is to provide transit service throughout King County, including to elderly, low-income, and handicapped riders who have no other way to get around. Eliminating routes in places like Blue Ridge, where ridership is sparse, would leave people without a way to get around--as the recent controversy over Metro's Route 17 made abundantly clear. Rosenberg may not think those people matter--because they're preventing him from getting service every five minutes from downtown to West Seattle on his route, Route 21, which already runs every ten minutes at rush hour--but transportation agencies exist to provide a service to everyone, not just selfish Republicans. Moreover, Metro already deploys fewer buses on routes that don't get as much traffic; ever try catching the bus on Alki?

Second, Rosenberg argues that Metro fares should go up—way up—to reflect the true cost of riding the bus.

Currently, Metro fares pay for between a fifth and a quarter of the cost of running the system. Rosenberg would address this "problem" by raising one-zone fares (the fare you pay, for example, to ride from South Seattle to downtown) to $3.50 or higher, and raising the cost of bus passes by a third. (Rosenberg's own bus pass, he mentions elsewhere, is provided for free by his employer.) This is foolish not only because it's a sure recipe for depressing bus ridership, and thus reducing revenues (who's going to pay $7 to commute to and from work when driving their car costs less?) but because it ignores the fact that fares (or tolls, or gas taxes) never pay for the true cost of any transportation mode. Hidden subsidies for driving are estimated to run between $3 and $7 per gallon of gas; yet raising gas prices to reflect the true cost of all those free roads, sprawling subdivisions, emergency service, highway patrol, and free parking spaces--or charging tolls, or congestion pricing, or any number of fees and taxes to end subsidies for cars--is anathema to conservatives like Rosenberg. They want transit to pay for itself; but they want roads for free.

And those hidden subsidies I listed don't even begin to get into externalities. For example, carbon emissions from cars in the US cost an estimated $20 billion a year; wasted fuel and lost productivity because of congestion cost an estimated $78 billion a year; and car accidents cost an estimated $220 billion a year, for a whopping total of more than $300 billion. To pay for those externalities, which drivers currently create for free, drivers would have to be taxed at least an additional 10 cents a mile.

Taking transit instead of driving also creates a societal benefit that should be factored against its cost. Riding the bus instead of driving reduces the need for roads, highway patrol officers, and emergency service providers, and all the other subsidies and externalities I listed above. (Conversely, congestion pricing like the congestion charge implemented in London five years ago actually reduces driving.) Rosenberg's premise that a trip is a trip is a trip (Hummer, bus, Blue Angels jet) simply sweeps all that aside.

Finally, Rosenberg argues that Metro's bus service should be turned over to more "efficient" private companies—a standard Republican canard that one look at our "efficient" private health-care system should put to rest.

I do agree with Rosenberg that the 40-40-20 split (which allocates just 20 percent of all new bus service to Seattle) has got to be revamped, although probably not in the way he wants. Seattle has the highest transit ridership; it should get the largest share of new bus service. And I agree with him that pre-paid fares are a good idea--although, like everything government does, fare kiosks cost money, something conservatives like Rosenberg are hesitant to admit except when they're advocating for spending cuts.

Ultimately, unpredictable bus service is an argument for more government funding, not less. Improve the system, and riders will come; make it prohibitively expensive, and they'll stay in their (far more heavily subsidized) cars. It's also an argument for fixed rail like Sound Transit's proposed light-rail expansion, which has the advantage of predictability—something buses can never achieve as long as they're stuck on same roads as all those heavily subsidized cars

Tonight brings two good options for open-air revelry.

Option #1: Foxy Brown, the seminal '70s blaxploitation flick starring an ass-kicking, awesomely outfitted Pam Grier, which will be projected onto that huge white wall in the parking lot of Havana as part of their ongoing Movie Night series. There will be lounge chairs, drink service, free popcorn, and pre- and post-show DJing by DV One. Gates at 8pm, admission is $3 (or free with a stamp from the Saint). Last summer I attended Havana's parking lot screening of GoodFellas. It was glorious.

Option #2: The Belltown 'Night Out' Block Party, described thusly:

VINE STREET'S BELLTOWN ‘NIGHT OUT’ BLOCK PARTY

Please come! Join your neighbors on Tuesday, August 5th from 7-10PM for FREE food, fun, and friendship! A neighborhood gathering to foster community and build safety awareness will be held in front of the Beckoning Cistern at 81 Vine Street. Vine Street will be closed off from Post Alley to Western for the festivities. Part of the Seattle Police Department’s “Night Out” crime prevention event, public safety officials will be there welcoming attendees. Please come and join your neighbors there for an evening of fun, food, gifts, and friendship. This event is free and open to all.

So, yes, go to Belltown....if you dare.

It began with a simple query on West Seattle Blog:

Anyone see the Republican propoganda bus sponsored by Salty's owner? It quotes Hitler as a positive thinker.

The bus has been spotted all over West Seattle, and eventually WSB Key Master lowmanbeach provided photos, including the one above and this one highlighting the positive-thinking Hitler quote.

lowmanbeach also provides some eyewitness details:

The door of the truck says "The Kingen Family" followed by Wolfi's and Patriots. Salty's owner's name is Gerry Kingen.

..and some valuable history:

[Kingen] apparently does have a track record of [controversial] political involvement. This story came up from 2004.

So, apparently, the owner of Salty's (who's also owner of the Red Robin chain) is a Native American-baiting, Hitler-quoting loon. Who knew? (Besides the entire P-I editorial board, I mean...)

Thanks, West Seattle Blog! (And Slog tipper Explorer.)

West Seattle residents are in a tizzy over a developer’s proposal to temporarily block an alley near the West Seattle Junction (the intersection of California Avenue and Southwest Alaska Street).

Conner Homes wants to use less than half of the alley for one year while it constructs two buildings that would share a parking garage underneath. During that year, drivers entering the alley would have to drive around the block, and deliveries for some businesses—gasp—would have to enter through the front door.

Although the city is encouraging residents to submit comments, that’s not enough for the NIMBAs of West Seattle. They are discussing the alley, blogging about the alley, drafting a petition against blocking the alley, and gathering signatures to protect their alley! According to the petition, being circulated by the West Seattle Junction Association:

The project will impact our ability to do business and will have severe negative economic effects on the businesses in the Junction area…. During this time we will not be able to access parking freely at the rear of the business along the alley way. There will be the impact of not having the ability for customers to load and unload in the alley way and access the businesses. This also will make it very difficult for deliveries to take place during the construction….

The businesses in peril include Liberty Bell Printing, Curious Kidstuff, Elliott Bay Brewery, and Petco. Liz Schroeder, chair of the Junction Association's beautification committee, is the manager of the Elliott Bay Brewery, where signature gatherers drop off petitions. She says they are campaigning to save the alley "so the merchants can survive." She attributes the lethal threat to a loss of parking spaces, the potential for alley traffic jams, and a turnaround space offered by the developer that would be too small for 35-foot delivery trucks. But that defense is the same tired “If you do anything to inconvenience businesses then the entire industry will fail” argument. However, as of this morning, all of the businesses had front doors to accept deliveries. As of this morning, thousands of businesses in Seattle managed to get by without any alley at all. And as of this morning, businesses on MLK Way continued to survive despite the inconvenience of light-rail construction.

"Everyone knows that when it is done, it will look a lot better," says Schroeder. "That’s great, but what about all the businesses in meantime?"

Lest you think Schroeder and others circulating the petition are a bunch of anti-development reactionaries, West Seattle Blog reports: “The group stressed they are not opposed to this development in general. They believe it could be built in phases, one tower at a time, without alley closure required at any point.” Talk about crippling businesses.

Organizing to stop something inevitable and beneficial, simply because they dislike the inconvenience, is ridiculous. The city should accept those petitions with a smile, and insert them directly into the shredder. Losing part of an alley for a year is the sort of thing we have to put up with—we live in a growing city—in every neighborhood. West Seattle NIMBAs need to suck it up like everyone else.

We are still at war. AT WAR. WE ARE A COUNTRY AT WAR. This fact is not bold faced in daily life. But it is true. We are living in a warring state. Me, you, every American, and many others around the world. And today is my least favorite day of the year: the day I remember it. This morning, I awoke warm in my bed, brushed my teeth and shat, walked with my lover to the cafe, ate a croissant and drank a coffee, walked home and began the day's work, at my desk, by my window. The clouds that had been plaguing the summer started to break, and the sun shown. And then I heard the sound of death and became as mad and as scared as I had not been since this day a year ago.

When I last heard it, for the first time, I thought the ground was breaking under me. I cannot remember ever being so physically scared, so confused, so reduced to instinct before in my life. I felt inhuman. I felt naked. I panicked. I was waiting for the bus, on the way to work, and this gripped me, in public, in the world where I am confident and intentional, and made me less than I am in my worst nightmare, in the darkness of night, tucked weeping under the covers of my bed. And I still did not know what had happened.

I was telling my co-worker Stephan about the morning. How I had felt. How no one had reacted. They boarded the bus silently, listening to their ipods. What was it, this gripping, growling noise?

It's the Blue Angels. It's the air show. Sea Fair. Happens every summer. He paused. Its the sound you hear right before you die.

And I felt it was true. Part of me had died. I felt a force of anger as deep and startling as the jets' roar. We thought it our right to have and use instruments of death and more than that, to celebrate them as if that was not their purpose at all.

Stephan, who was usually quiet, continued. I remember a number of years ago, I was walking down E. John, on the steep part of the hill. An older woman was walking slowly in front of me. Old in the old-fashioned, old-world sense. She had a scarf over her head, tied neatly under her chin. I could see her going to market, on a cobblestone street, and coming home again with neat packages from the butcher and greengrocer. Her face was as wrinkled as a wet lunch bag and her thick hands curled around the small grocery sack she carried. And then the sound. Before the earth could fully split, this woman dropped with an instinct so urgent she didn't brace herself, she didn't clutch her bag, but she covered her head under her arm and laid on the sidewalk while the three blue planes looped in formation and the oranges in her sack tumbled down the hill and into the traffic at the intersection below.

Stephan went to her, helped her up. She was bleeding in several places, she had dirt on her face and runs in her stockings and the only thing she said was "I remember."

Continue reading "Letter of the Weekend" »

Slog tipper Jackie took this picture at Maynard Avenue South, between S Dearborn and S Charles streets, on the southern edge of the ID...

"About a dozen or so dismembered chicken feet strewn about the sidewalk and gutter," says Jackie. "These are going to smell fantastic by lunchtime."

I've been too busy working on our upcoming endorsement issue to Slog much today, but I have to take a break from studying the scintillating races for state treasurer and secretary of state to take note of the latest news out of King County: Sales tax revenues, which help pay for Metro bus service, are falling tens of millions short of projections. The shortfall--an estimated $45 million this year and next--combined with a separate $22 million funding gap due to rising fuel costs, means the 25-cent fare increase the county council was set to approve on Monday won't even come close to funding the shortfall. In lieu of raising fares now, the county council will spend a month coming up with a proposal to fill the gap between Metro revenues and costs. What does that mean to the average Metro rider? Higher fares, for sure--probably at least 50 cents higher, and potentially even more. The county is also considering deferring new capital investments--i.e., keeping old buses in service instead of replacing them--and, as a last resort, cutting service.

This problem isn't going away. Even if sales tax revenues get back on track, fuel prices aren't going down--certainly nowhere near the sub-$3 level the county assumed in its budget projections. And buses, unlike light rail, run on gas. (That includes Metro's hybrid buses, which have proved much less efficient in practice--stopping and starting on Seattle's crowded city streets--than in the county's projections.) Buses also take more drivers to operate than fixed-rail systems--say, 20 drivers for 1,000 passengers, instead of one or two. It's ironic, then, that at a time when Metro can't keep the buses it has in operation (and can't afford to buy any new ones) the solution King County Executive Ron Sims is proposing for our region's transportation problems is... more buses. That's not even short-sighted. It's blind.

Reacting to violence at Critical Mass rides in New York City and Seattle, Bike Hugger responds with this campaign...

Says Bike Hugger...

RideCivil™ is a Bike Hugger gift to the cycling community—our response to recent Critical Mass violence in Seattle, NYC, and elsewhere. You are free to remix, re-use, and share the RideCivil artwork as a flyer, shirt, jerseys, socks, thong bikini, tattoo, or whatever works. Please blog and link love it. We hope other cyclists RideCivil in their communities. Watch for a related website and ride plans to follow.

This past Wednesday, Mayor Greg Nickels announced a series of "car-free Sundays" to take place in August/early September along certain stretches of certain Seattle streets.

As the Seattle Times reports:

To get people out of their cars and onto their feet, Seattle will close down major thoroughfares on Capitol Hill, in Rainier Valley and Alki for several weekend hours this summer....The streets will be closed to cars, motorcycles and scooters but open to pedestrians, bicycles, skateboarders and Segways.

Today the plan was attacked by right-wing blow-up doll Michelle Malkin:

Welcome to Seattle’s enviro-nitwit checklist: Bullying residents into buying Gorebulbs and terrorizing pants off children as part of the mayor’s green brainwashing? Check. Anti-plastic bag policing and tax hikes? Check. And now…closing off streets to cars and pushing residents to jump rope and draw chalk art? Check. Yep, who needs drilling? Seattleites will just jump up and down on the streets until they find new energy sources—or draw them with chalk and imagine they’re real!

In other stupid news I'll report anyway, one stretch of road that will be closed on the Car-Free Sunday scheduled for August 24 is "the western loop of Volunteer Park," aka Boner Row, where unhappily married men from Kent sit in their Civics and rub their crotches while making horny-sad puppy-dog eyes at the non-closeted queers strolling/rollerblading/cruising by. It'll be nice to see these guys out and about.

Seattle Police have swarmed 14th and Aloha after another fight broke out on the cursed block just moments ago.

Last Friday, police were called to deal with a clash between cyclists and a motorist. This time, the scrap appears to be between two Sound Mental Health patients in a dispute over money.

The fight, described by SPD Spokeswoman Renee Witt as "fairly violent," appears to be over, but it can only be a matter of time until something else goes terribly wrong on 14th and Aloha.

...brought up in the comments to this post, by the enticingly named crk on bellevue ave:

Until Pike Place Market is open until at least 8pm, it is nothing more then a quaint tourist trap. I love the produce vendors there... but 6pm? Too early for me.

Spotted some kids on Capitol Hill marching around holding a sign on a long pole this morning on my way to work. I stopped and took a picture and the kids' parent came running out their house to ask me—pretty please—not to post her kids' faces "to any darn blogs," lest they wind up on FOX News. But here's the sign her daughters made...

I asked mom, who appeared to be a Capitol Hill liberal, if she helped her kids with their sign. Nope, she said, she didn't even know what they were up to until they marched out of their house with it.

Ah, the children. Teach them well and let them lead the way. Show them all the beauty that they hold inside, etc.

...now in attractive poll form.

What's the most offensive component of the Blue Angels' annual sky-rape?

Craft vendors in Pike Place Market, 1975

Madison Park beach, 1930

More more more at the hours-devouring Seattle Municipal Archives photostream of Flickr.

Last Friday, the Seattle Police Department delivered 12 ounces of medical marijuana to federal agents, according to an email sent by SPD attorney Leo Poort. Police had seized the pot on July 15 from Martin Martinez, a patient authorized to use marijuana for medical purposes in Washington, along with his computer and medical files. Officers returned the medical records and computer a couple days later—after the prosecutor’s office declined to press charges—but the department refused to return the marijuana.

In the email, Poort wrote that SPD "transferred" the pot to the Drug Enforcement Administration “[a]t the request or demand of the U.S. Attorney's Office."

“I believed the Seattle Police Department was on the verge of returning it,” says attorney Douglas Hiatt, who is representing Martinez. However, he isn’t necessarily convinced feds demanded the marijuana. “It could have been someone at SPD referring it,” he says, noting that the DEA or the US Attorney's Office could also have made the request. In the past, he says, “The US Attorney’s Office has left medical-marijuana patients alone.”

Hiatt says he plans to work with the ACLU, which won a federal case last summer to secure medical-marijuana patients' medical records, to negotiate with the US attorney’s office. “We may go to federal court and file a return of property motion,” he says.

“For the same reasons we were interested when the marijuana was first [seized], the ACLU is interest in making sure Washington’s medical-marijuana law is protected,” says Alison Holcomb, director of the ACLU of Washington’s Marijuana Education Project.

“To deny a dying person the only medicinal relief available is barbaric,” says Martinez, who suffers from intractable pain caused by cranial nerve damage in a motorcycle accident.

Because marijuana is legal for medical purposes at the state level, but illegal at the federal level, there is no legal obligation for the federal government to return the marijuana. Neither the SPD nor the DEA have returned requests for comment.

UPDATE: The DEA has released this statement:

On July 25, 2008, the Seattle Police Department turned over approximately three (3) pounds of suspected marijuana that had been seized the previous week and which field-tested presumptive positive for marijuana to representatives of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Seattle Field Division.

Pursuant to the appropriate provisions of the Controlled Substances Act, and more specifically Title 21 of the United States Code, Section 881(a), (f) and (g), marijuana is a Schedule I controlled substance which is subject to seizure, summary forfeiture and destruction and is designated as contraband. Accordingly, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has seized and processed the marijuana for destruction; that concludes this matter.

UPDATE 2: Emily Langlie, spokeswoman for US attorney’s office, says that US Attorney Jeff Sullivan asked the DEA to seize the marijuana and destroy it. “We’re not pursuing criminal charges,” she says.

This seems extremely unusual, given that the federal court usually doesn’t concern itself with marijuana possession cases. When asked if it's common for the feds to seize and destroy pot, Langlie told me, “The disposal of drugs is a fairly routine activity in the state and federal system." She added, "The DEA has done a number of cases related to marijuana grows and large scale marijuana operations.” Her office responded because the King County prosecutor’s office “would not pursue the case,” she says.

But it appears the feds got involved because this became such a high-profile issue. By Langlie's own description, the DEA handles large grow operations, so marijuana possession isn't usually their concern. Possession cases are handled almost exclusively at the state level, where Martinez's pot is legal. Martinez wouldn't be tried in federal court anyway. So they the did what they could: Seize the pot and destroy it.

The unanswered question is what role SPD had in handing over the pot to the DEA. No spokesperson has called back, so it’s unclear if the SPD intentionally refused to return the marijuana—again legal for them under state law—while waiting for the feds to come destroy it.

UPDATE 3: Hiatt says the discrepancy in pot weighed by the DEA--three pounds compared to the 12 ounces Martinez said he had--is because the 12 ounces was the actual smokeable bud. The remaining weight, he says, was leaves and stems.

This just in from Slog tipper/budding entrepreneur Honest Genius:

I want the thank the Mayor and city council of Seattle for opening up a huge money making opportunity for me! Starting in January, 2009, I plan to be standing outside your nearest grocery store selling bags, just off their property, next to a Democrats political sign and a homeless person, for only 10 cents each! For starters, I have purchased 50,000 of these at a cost less than one cent per bag. And I will be shopping just outside the city limits and will never shop in town again! And if you want to tax me for making a profit, and using public or private land to do it on, you will also have to remove the political signs for being placed on that property illegally and tax the homeless for making money also! So thanks again!

Mayor Greg Nickels just announced three streets that will be opened to pedestrians and cyclists (and closed to cars) three Sundays in August and September. They are:

•14th Avenue East from Volunteer Park to East Republican Street, from noon to 6 p.m. on Sunday, August 24.

• Rainier Avenue South from South Orcas to South Alaska Street, from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday, August 31.

• Alki Avenue from California Way Southwest around Alki Beach to the south end of 63rd at Beach Drive from noon to 6 p.m. on Sunday, September 7.

Additionally, the city is expanding its "Car-Free Sundays" program—currently in effect on Lake Washington Blvd. from Mount Baker to Seward Park--to include the upper loop of Seward Park and the western loop of Volunteer Park on Sundays throughout August. Restrictions on cars will also go into effect some weekdays--Mondays from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. for Volunteer Park, Thursdays from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. for Seward Park, and Thursdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. for Lake Washington Blvd.

Closing Rainier, even for three hours, is bold. Most days, the road functions more like a highway than like the 30 mph, four-lane arterial it is, as commuters from Renton and points south use it as an alternative to I-5. Nickels says the closures announced today are a precursor to more car-free days in 2009. My suggestion? Do something that will really make the point that streets are for everybody, not just cars. Close Rainier from 10 to 6 on a Monday.

The full city council just passed the ban on Styrofoam food containers and the 20-cent fee on disposable paper and plastic grocery bags. Only one council member, Jan Drago, voted against the fee, after attempting—along with council member Bruce Harrell, who argued that "leadership [is] the boldness to go slow"--to delay the vote. Drago said the council would be "better off offering incentives than disincentives," adding that taxpayers had too many burdens already. "When is enough enough?" Drago said. "I think it's time to give taxpayers a break and not add another fee." Seattle residents will be voting on a $17.8 million expansion of Sound Transit, a $73 million Pike Place Market levy, and a $173 million parks levy renewal in November.

Council member Bruce Harrell seemed sympathetic to Drago's point of view, although he ended up voting for the fee. "I wanted to fully explore aggressive recycling, and I'm not sure we did that," Harrell said.

Council president Richard Conlin, the primary sponsor of the new law, said, "Imagine a day in which no garbage is thrown away in the city of Seattle. ... Passing these two pieces of legislation gives us that day every six months. ... It is a small step, but it is one small step that could make a huge difference." Conlin noted that the council had amended the legislation to provide free reusable bags to low-income people and food banks, and added, "No one has to pay this fee. No one." Council member Tim Burgess added: "We're using market forces in the best possible way to change the behavior of citizens. I think we'll look back in a couple of months and wonder what the fuss was all about."

The new rules will go into effect on January 1, 2009.

Spotted this in a comments thread...

Off topic but on Whole Foods what pissed me off about them is they will only allow the reusable bags THAT YOU GET FROM THEM in their stores. You cann't use the reusalbe bags from PCC, or QFC for your groceries. There is a sign on both entrances to the Whole Foods on 65th and Roosevelt. So much for "being green."

So I called Whole Foods at 65th and Roosevelt.

"That's not true," said Mario, the store's manager. "We allow any reusable bags. The signs say, due to security reasons, we ask that you don't shop into your reusable bags. We had people using them to shop... and some people were filling reusable bags up and walking out the door, without paying. So we had high shoplifting and theft in the store due to people shopping into reusable bags."

If store employees spot someone using bags to gather their groceries, they ask the customer to please use a cart or a basket.

"But not at any time have we told any customer that they can't use bags from other stores," says Mario.

The signs outside the store, for the record, reads...

Dear Whole Goods Customers: Due to security reasons we require that you please shop with our green baskets or shopping carts instead of your reusable shopping bags. Thank you for shopping with us and your understanding in this matter.

Reading comments about the Critical Mass ride is like watching piranhas fight in a meat grinder. Everyone is predator and prey: The driver, who allegedly plowed through cyclists; the riders, who allegedly beat an unarmed driver after he got out of the car; the police, who portrayed the driver as an innocent victim; and the mainstream media, which regurgitated one-sided swill. But what does it mean for the future of Critical Mass? What’s it mean for un-permitted protests?

The problem is Friday’s fracas should have never happened. And by that, I mean, Critical Mass should have never let it happen.

Civil disobedience (i.e., breaking the law to piss people off and make a point) has a rich history in democracies: The Boston Tea Party, civil rights protests, the pot-smoking events in Seattle. Cycling through red lights isn’t about human rights, of course, but it's essentially the same form of political advocacy. Even the crazy Christians with their batshitcrazy signs will trespass, and they will let people get in their face, and scream and threaten them--but neither the insaner-than-though Christians nor the successful movements that used civil disobedience in the past let the temptation drive them to violence.

Breaking traffic rules—corking, running lights, blocking cars—could be a virtuous act. It could draw attention to the fact that cars often hit riders because drivers are oblivious to cyclists, cars are atmosphere hogs, and we should rely on them less and ride bicycles more. Taking over the streets once a month demands attention and hamstrings the almighty gas-guzzler. The idea is a good one. However, it comes with great responsibility.

Since Critical Mass’s method—jamming traffic on Friday rush hour—is clearly aimed at getting attention by pissing people off, and since they do this every month, and since it’s quite predictable that drivers are going to flip out from time to time, the onus is on Critical Mass to be prepared with some leadership and widely understood procedures when they actually succeed at the goal: pissing someone off.

But at that critical moment, Critical Mass made its critical error.

What if the story was about Critical Mass riders showing restraint? A driver gets irate at calm protesters, backs over two bikes, and hurts a rider. It would have underscored the need to raise awareness about urban cyclists. The riders still could have kept the guy accountable after he got out of his car (taking down his name and license-plate number).

But the posse of riders, rather than demonstrating self-governance, showed a total lack of preparedness. That’s a violation of the trust we give them to ride through the city streets breaking the law. Drivers, pedestrians and ordinary cyclists will be wary of Critical Mass from now on. Sure, maybe the ordeal escalated due to just a few hot-headed riders, maybe they were caught up initially (that’s no excuse for attacking the guy, who allegedly started the entire thing, after he got out of his car), but they need to demonstrate a preferable alternative. They failed. Seattle is right to be critical of the Critical Mass rides from now on. I just hope that they haven’t screwed it up for the good riders, the good message that was marred by poor planning, the good protesters, and Seattle’s heritage of civil disobedience for social change.

According to the King County Prosecutor's Office, the two cyclists who arrested for their participation in this weekend's Critical Mass melee are out on $1,000 bail. So far, no charges have been filed; their next court appearance is scheduled for July 30.

In case you weren't chained to your computer this weekend, here's a roundup of our Slog news and analysis from Friday's Critical Mass melee.

Sunday, July 27

I posted a list of contact information for local media covering the incident--including the Seattle Times, whose news contact information page went to a broken link.

Jonah Spangenthal-Lee got an exclusive first interview with the driver of the car:

While some cyclists I’ve spoken with have written Mark off as another indignant road-hog, Mark says he actually used to be a bike commuter when he lived in Seattle a few years ago. “I sympathize with [cyclists’] cause. I ride bikes too. I’m a liberal hippie Democrat,” he says, adding “I’m gay, the person with me was a lesbian and we were attacked by eco-terrorists. It’s the most Seattle thing that could have happened.

While Mark still believes this incident was sparked by hostility from cyclists, he does seem genuinely remorseful about what happened and is disappointed that cyclists are being charged for the incident. “What I did was probably a mistake,” he says. “I want to apologize to [the cyclists]. I didn’t mean for it to happen. It was terrifying for me. I was pissed off, I overreacted, I didn’t pay attention to what I was doing and I’m sorry for it.”

Saturday, July 26

Jonah interviewed one of the cyclists injured by the driver Friday night, who told a very different story.

[Cyclist Tom] Braun—a 35-year-old attorney who says prior to last night, he hadn’t been on a Critical Mass ride in years—says he was moving with a crowd of cyclists on 15th and Aloha when he says he heard the driver of a white Subaru yelling at his fellow riders. “I didn’t see anyone “surrounding” the guy’s car,” Braun says.”I saw some cyclists nicely asking the guy to wait.” Then, Braun says, the driver “just floored it” into a crowd of cyclists.

As the driver pulled away, Braun—who was not part of the group talking to the driver—was caught under the vehicle, and the car rolled over his leg. “I literally got run over,” Braun says. “I was hanging on the front of [the] car. I’m glad he made a left and tried to take off down the road. If he’d turned right, I would have been crushed.”

David Schmader posted an eyewitness account by one of the cyclists, whose bike was damaged beyond repair.

I arrived near the end of a Critical Mass cycling ride at the crest of the Aloha St. hill heading east to find the driver of a car with a passenger irately screaming at cyclists to get out of the way.

As cyclists were explaining to him that everyone was nearly past him, he proceeded to yell about being late for a reservation. He was parked on the grass and sidewalk, crookedly perpendicular to Aloha.

Suddenly, he sped into Aloha, directly into the crowd of cyclists.

The front right side of the car struck me and dragged along with my bike as I hung onto the front of the car. Subsequently, he ran over my right leg and bike as he sped down Aloha to the East, in what appeared to me to be an attempt to flee the scene. My bicycle has been damaged beyond repair (see attached pictures).

I waxed indignant about the way the media and police routinely ignore cyclists' side of these stories, taking police and drivers at their word?

Why, if the driver assaulted several cyclists with his car, is he being treated as the victim?

Why is hitting cyclists with intent to harm them—or “nudging” them, or throwing things at them, or forcing them off the road—not considered assault with a deadly weapon?

Why does SPD and the media consider harm to property—the Subaru, whose tires were slashed and whose windows were broken—a far worse crime than running over and potentially killing a defenseless person with a 2,000-pound machine?

Why, when cyclists pay for local roads just like drivers do, do some drivers assume they have more right to the road than cyclists do—indeed, that cyclists have no right to the road at all?

Jonathan Golob reflected on the pathetic state of Seattle's biking infrastructure (and the city's utter contempt for cyclists.)

East Aloha street is totally insane as a bicycle route. It’s narrow, barely wide enough for two cars let alone cars and cyclists. Cars are idiodically street parked along the length—half on the grass, half on the street. (The self-centered jackasses who park their cars on Aloha deserve to have their cars sideswiped more often.) The road twists and turns, ramps up and down, with terrible sight lines. Cars, particularly those seeking a rapid zip across the hill, naturally gravitate to this street compared to those North and South of it. Nobody should use it as a bicycle route. East Mercer street, East Republican street or East Harrison street are all better choices, despite being broken up and littered with shitty drivers driving way too fast for narrow residential streets.

The City tells you, as a potential cyclist, to use East Aloha street as your route of choice—via the Seattle Bicycling Guide Map, a delightful service of the Seattle Department of Transportation. The document pretty much epitomizes the city’s contempt for cyclists—on the part of the police, the drivers, the transportation department and the government. East Aloha street is designated the same as 12th Ave East, an excellent cyclist route.

Jonah got the first media interview with one of the Critical Mass cyclists, a 25-year-old car owner who was riding with her husband, her mother, and her stepfather.

From her position about 50 yards away, Wharton says she saw about four or five cyclists around a white Subaru that was being driven by a white, well-dressed man in his mid- to late-20s. She heard him yell at the cyclists, “Get the fuck out of my way! We’ve got reservations!” When the cyclists continued to block his car, “he just got really irrational,” driving his car into the crowd, knocking over two cyclists and backing his car over several bikes left in the road as cyclists jumped out of his way. Wharton says the driver then pulled forward again, forcing one cyclist onto his windshield (and possibly breaking the cyclist’s ankle).

Wharton says the initial report from King 5 news, which characterized the cyclists as aggressors and the driver as an innocent victim, was “totally inaccurate. They painted it as this mob of angry cyclists attacking the car,” which couldn’t be further from the truth, Wharton says. She describes public reaction to news reports as “they got what was coming to them.”

Dave recounted three early eyewitness accounts of the incident, sent by email.

The driver sped down Aloha with a mess of bicycles and cyclists in his wake, a cyclist on his roof, and everyone, including his pregnant passenger, yelling for him to “Just stop!” At the bottom of the hill, the driver stopped at a stop sign and the cyclists swarmed the car, slashing his tires and breaking the windows in order to make sure that he did not continue operating his vehicle through the city like a madman. His door was opened, the driver got out of the car in tears and walked, unmolested back up to where the cyclists were splayed out in the street apologizing to everyone. His passenger was relatively calm, also walked up the street unmolested, and explained that her friend had made a mistake and that she had been yelling for him to calm down and stop the car. While there was a little hysterical yelling by the frightened bicyclists, there was absolutely no physical confrontation.

Harry Petersen lives in Bellevue and doesn't think we should expand our light rail system because Harry's a clueless, selfish, short-sighted, myopic piece of—well, here's Harry in the letters section of yesterday's Seattle Times:

Sound Transit proposes nothing that will directly benefit me or my family: The light-rail system doesn't go to or from anywhere we ever go.

There's no direct benefit for Harry! No trains will go from Harry's front door to his place of employment and back! And what of Harry's family? Has sound Transit proposed a dedicated transit line that will whisk Harry's children from their bedroom doors to their schools to their soccer practices and back home again! NO! So what earthly good is Sound Transit?!?

Because, you see, Harry's children have no plans to grow up. (Their father didn't, so why should they?) They have no plans to move out of Harry's house—ever. In ten or fifteen years Harry's children will not be looking for their first apartments, or thinking about going to college, and Harry's children will not benefit—directly or otherwise—from an expanded light rail system that would allow them to choose to live someplace where they don't need a car, or don't need to use a car every day.

Because, you see, light rail lines may attract new development, and they may foster the creation of dense, walkable urban centers (the kind of places that are holding their property values as gas prices rise), but they will never attract Harry or his children or his children's children.

Because, you see, these light rail lines don't go anywhere Harry or his children ever go now, Harry can confidently predict his children and his grandchildren won't decide—ten years from now, twenty years from now—to move closer to where light rail has gone then. Unlike adults today in New York City or Chicago or Washington D.C. or Portland, Oregon, or London or Paris or San Francisco, Harry's children and grandchildren will never decide to buy a house or an apartment along a rail line, and so they will never, ever directly benefit from an expanded light rail system. So why build it?

...here's the dart pigeon.

From Hot Tipper Scott:

Hello Last Days,

Not sure how many dart-pigeon sightings you have received in the past few months, but I was working downtown yesterday and spotted this pigeon at the corner of 3rd and Union with two darts in him—one completely through his head and the other lodged in his wing. Looks like the same pigeon that was featured earlier—amazing that it is still alive.

I managed to take about 100 photos while attracting the curiosity of passers-by, who seemed to be having almost too much fun: 'That is fucked up!" (yes) and 'Did you do that to him?!' (no) and 'Take my picture with it! (huh).

I hate pigeons as much as the next guy, but this is wrong and effed up. I called Seattle animal control in case they were interested in obtaining the bird and hopefully catching those responsible for this. My call was met with indifference, though I suppose I can understand. I hung around for about an hour, but they never showed up.

I am one of the cyclists who was run over by the driver of the white Subaru on the evening of July 25, 2008 on Aloha St. in the Capitol Hill area of Seattle.

My perspective differs significantly from media reports by King5, KOMO, The Seattle Times, etc.

I arrived near the end of a Critical Mass cycling ride at the crest of the Aloha St. hill heading east to find the driver of a car with a passenger irately screaming at cyclists to get out of the way.

As cyclists were explaining to him that everyone was nearly past him, he proceeded to yell about being late for a reservation. He was parked on the grass and sidewalk, crookedly perpendicular to Aloha.

Suddenly, he sped into Aloha, directly into the crowd of cyclists.

The front right side of the car struck me and dragged along with my bike as I hung onto the front of the car. Subsequently, he ran over my right leg and bike as he sped down Aloha to the East, in what appeared to me to be an attempt to flee the scene. My bicycle has been damaged beyond repair (see attached pictures).

I saw at least 2 other people hit by his car, a woman, and a man who jumped onto the hood of the car to avoid getting hit head on.

Not until after these events did other cyclists become involved in apprehending the driver, etc.

I would have spoken with reporters, but they were apparently focused on where the driver fled to, and by the time they asked if I had any comments, the scene had been cleared, my wife had loaded my wrecked bike into our car, my right leg was swelling up, I had pains in my left back, and we thought it best to get me to the ER for x-rays and other tests. As it turns out, I had no broken bones, but did have blood in my urine from the trauma, a situation we’re still monitoring.

While two cyclists have been charged, it’s unclear whether the driver has also been charged for his involvement, and I cannot get that information from the Seattle Police Department until Monday. I will be pursuing civil remedies for this incident at the very least.

First off: I've been out of cell phone and e-mail range for the past day, so I just heard about last night's Critical Mass attacks this afternoon.

Having read numerous emails from eyewitnesses who say the driver in the incident deliberately drove into a crowd of cyclists with his Subaru, however, I have a few questions for the Seattle media and police.

Why, if the driver assaulted several cyclists with his car, is he being treated as the victim?

Why is hitting cyclists with intent to harm them--or "nudging" them, or throwing things at them, or forcing them off the road—not considered assault with a deadly weapon?

Why does SPD and the media consider harm to property--the Subaru, whose tires were slashed and whose windows were broken--a far worse crime than running over and potentially killing a defenseless person with a 2,000-pound machine?

Why, when cyclists pay for local roads just like drivers do, do some drivers assume they have more right to the road than cyclists do--indeed, that cyclists have no right to the road at all?

Why do newspapers and TV stations always take the cops at their word--and assume that people they can't identify with, like greasy-haired cyclists protesting car culture, must be lying?

Why do drivers see any impediment to getting where they're going as quickly as possible as an assault on their very being (see also: This month's traffic circle murder)?

Why do we consider it manslaughter or worse when someone carelessly kills another person with a gun--but sympathize with, and utterly fail to punish, someone who carelessly kills another person with their car?

Why do drivers so often regard their fellow humans as less than human the second they get out of their cars and become cyclists or pedestrians?

Why do we let these people keep getting away with it, and getting away with it, and getting away with it?

East Aloha street is the city's designated route for cyclists to get East and West across Northern Capitol Hill.

Roll that in your mind, if you're prone to think the Critical Mass people were asking for it. "The driver was in his right to run over, by accident or intent, several bicyclists. They were blocking Aloha--the major car route across North Capitol hill. The cyclists were intentionally blocking his way. And, he had dinner reservations!"

East Aloha street is totally insane as a bicycle route. It's narrow, barely wide enough for two cars let alone cars and cyclists. Cars are idiodically street parked along the length--half on the grass, half on the street. (The self-centered jackasses who park their cars on Aloha deserve to have their cars sideswiped more often.) The road twists and turns, ramps up and down, with terrible sight lines. Cars, particularly those seeking a rapid zip across the hill, naturally gravitate to this street compared to those North and South of it. Nobody should use it as a bicycle route. East Mercer street, East Republican street or East Harrison street are all better choices, despite being broken up and littered with shitty drivers driving way too fast for narrow residential streets.

The City tells you, as a potential cyclist, to use East Aloha street as your route of choice--via the Seattle Bicycling Guide Map, a delightful service of the Seattle Department of Transportation. The document pretty much epitomizes the city's contempt for cyclists--on the part of the police, the drivers, the transportation department and the government. East Aloha street is designated the same as 12th Ave East, an excellent cyclist route.

Let's say you're a decent, law abiding person citizen of Seattle who wishes to start commuting by bicycle--perhaps because gas, car payments and insurance have become too expensive to afford, because you're sick of being complicit in our increasingly disasterous oil wars, because you're sick of being out of shape and on the way to obese, or simply because you want to. You get a sturdy bicycle (with gears and strong brakes), a helmet, a light and rigorously follow all laws--laws you've read about in the city's guide. You plan your route using the City's suggestions and end up on East Aloha street as a result. Mr. I-have-a-dinner-reservation comes barreling up behind you. He attempts a crazy pass on a blind curve. (Aloha is all blind curves.) A car is coming the other direction, he didn't see. He hits you, slamming you to the ground. He has a dinner reservation. He keeps going. You're left bleeding on the street. You call the police. They laugh at you. You don't have insurance--or your insurance refuses to pay, since you cannot name who hit you--so you collect your smashed bicycle and go home and hope your injuries don't take a turn for the worse.

What a fucking joke. I don't care how obnoxious and idiotic a cyclist is acting--if every stop sign is ignored, if every law is flaunted, if he or she is on the most idiotic street imaginable (Westlake, the Ballard Bridge, Fairview, Rainier all included.) If you are operating a motor vehicle of any kind, you simply have no right to run the person down or even attempt to run the person off the road, to assault or even attempt to assult another human being because you find yourself inconvenienced by a situation. And, let's be honest: Even with the most heinous of cyclist behavior, the inconvenience is never more than minor. Nobody has the right to exact a death penalty. Whine, complain, bitch all you want. You are in the wrong for even threatening the act.

Driving is the single most dangerous thing we do, the most dangerous to ourselves and to others. When you get inside all those thousands of pounds of glass and steel and start moving, you are at your highest risk of causing devastating physical harm to yourself and others. Driving is a massive assumption of responsibility. Most of us take about as seriously as flossing. The effort taken to make the transportation infrastructure as safe as possible--for drivers--is the only reason more aren't harmed each year.

I both drive and bicycle in Seattle. I've been incredibly frustrated by the decisions and behaviors of some cyclists. Nothing comes close to the raw fear I've felt as a cyclists facing an insane and incompetent driver. As a cyclist, I want to live. I follow every rule, wear every light, stop at every stop, never pass on the right, take the safest routes at off times of day. Despite this, I've been assaulted and left to bleed or die by such inept drivers, without an apparent care. Nobody deserves such treatment. Yet our city's transportation engineers, law enforcement and politicians view the inconveniencing of a driver, any driver, as justification enough.

As a driver, I long for better infrastructure: Proper cyclist routes, with designated lanes and clear markings. Police that are as interested in the safety of the cyclists as the convenience of drivers. I'd be happier. The cyclists would be happier. The entire city would function better.

And so, "pro-cyclist" activism like Critical Mass doesn't impress me. Creating "awareness" has done nothing to get such an infrastructure in place. The clot of cyclists on East Aloha street this Friday, on a route that shouldn't be used by any cyclist at any time, did nothing to make my riding across Capitol Hill safer or more convinient--as a cyclists or a driver. Rather than dozens of cyclists in spandex on every first Friday of the month, I'd be far more impressed by four guys and gals in suits, down at city hall every day, demanding the only sensible thing: A proper infrastructure to match how our roads are used, and should be used.

Jonah just got off the phone with Abigail Wharton, a 25-year-old who was on last night's Critical Mass ride, along with her husband, her mother, and her stepfather.

From her position about 50 yards away, Wharton says she saw about four or five cyclists around a white Subaru that was being driven by a white, well-dressed man in his mid- to late-20s. She heard him yell at the cyclists, "Get the fuck out of my way! We've got reservations!" When the cyclists continued to block his car, "he just got really irrational," driving his car into the crowd, knocking over two cyclists and backing his car over several bikes left in the road as cyclists jumped out of his way. Wharton says the driver then pulled forward again, forcing one cyclist onto his windshield (and possibly breaking the cyclist's ankle).

Wharton says the initial report from King 5 news, which characterized the cyclists as aggressors and the driver as an innocent victim, was "totally inaccurate. They painted it as this mob of angry cyclists attacking the car," which couldn't be further from the truth, Wharton says. She describes public reaction to news reports as "they got what was coming to them."

After the man attempted to flee the scene, Wharton says, a cyclist or cyclists slashed his tires to stop him. One cyclist reached into the driver-side window and punched the driver, then opened the door and pulled him out. Later, as he was sitting on the sidewalk covered in blood, Wharton says, the driver asked one of the cyclists if it was his.

Wharton says the fact that two cyclists were arrested and jailed, but the driver wasn't, is "fucking insane."

Wharton, who owns a car and who was riding on her second-ever Critical Mass ride, says she doubts she'll participate in next month's ride.

Seattle Police Department spokesman Mark Jamieson told Jonah: "The driver at this point is being treated as the victim. He pulled out onto the street and was surrounded by cyclists. ... Why didn't they let him out into the street? The onus is on the people in the group." SPD has two cyclists in custody, and are searching for a third believed to be involved in damaging the driver's car. Despite numerous eyewitness statements that he ran over several cyclists with his Subaru, the driver has not been charged; Jamieson says that decision will ultimately rest with the King County prosecutor's office.

Last night brought a general query from Slog tipper John:

What's this about Critical Mass riders beating the shit out of a driver and his car at 16th and Aloha?

This morning brings a report from KING 5:

A demonstration turned violent Friday night after a group of cyclists taking part in the Critical Mass demonstration got into an argument with a driver on Seattle's Capitol Hill.

Critical Mass is a group of cyclists that takes to the streets the last Friday of every month to promote cyclists' right to the road.

It's wasn't clear what sparked the confrontation at 15th and Aloha, but witnesses say they saw about a dozen cyclists surround a white Subaru, blocking in the driver.

Apparently, the driver felt intimidated and tried to back up to get away, but he backed into at least two cyclists.

He then tried to take off, but cyclists chased after him, bashed in his car window and assaulted the driver. The driver was taken to an area hospital.

This morning also brought two eyewitness reports sent to Last Days.

Eyewitness #1 was a bystander:

I was just looking up news information about an event that I witnessed tonight and found a frighteningly misinformed article on the event on the King 5 news website. Their "Bicycle demonstration turns violent" article paints a picture of cyclist brutality committed on a vehicle, injuring the driver and scaring the passenger, who they describe as a pregnant woman. While there is no denying that the cyclists circled the car and trashed it, this was all an attempt to stop the car and driver from possibly hurting anyone else, as the scene they describe in their newscast takes place about 200 ft from the scene where the motorist accelerated from 0 to 40 THROUGH a standing line of cyclists at Aloha and 14th, luckily only injuring two of them as his car was pointed at a group of six.

I was standing about 20 feet from the scene and saw the entire altercation. I honestly cannot believe what I saw. Originally, the vehicle was trying to inch (westward on Aloha) into an oncoming mass of cyclists on a narrow road, where he had to pull into the oncoming traffic lane in order to get around the cars parked in his lane. About 6 cyclists peeled off to park themselves in front of the vehicle, explaining that he needed to wait and they would all be out of his way in a minute. The driver, however, remained agitated and expressed that they were "in a rush" and "would be late". When the cyclists asked what they were going to be late for, the driver responded, "We have reservations!", which left the group largely speechless until one of the cyclists again explained that he would save a lot of time and trouble if he just waited another 30 seconds for the rest of the cyclists to pass. At that moment, the driver suddenly put his car in reverse and backed up—5 feet into the sidewalk (now the car is parallel to Aloha—thank goodness there were no pedestrians behind him!)—and stopped. This strange behavior panicked everyone and no one moved except to shout "Stop." This is when his passenger started yelling for him to "Calm down and stop" as well. After staying put for about 10 seconds, the driver then said "fuck this" and accelerated into the line of standing cyclists. When he hit the first ones, he continued to accelerate, but steered into the larger mass of cyclists before turning the wheel and tearing off in the opposite direction (east on Aloha) with one of the hit cyclists still on the roof of his car.

The driver sped down Aloha with a mess of bicycles and cyclists in his wake, a cyclist on his roof, and everyone, including his pregnant passenger, yelling for him to "Just stop!" At the bottom of the hill, the driver stopped at a stop sign and the cyclists swarmed the car, slashing his tires and breaking the windows in order to make sure that he did not continue operating his vehicle through the city like a madman. His door was opened, the driver got out of the car in tears and walked, unmolested back up to where the cyclists were splayed out in the street apologizing to everyone. His passenger was relatively calm, also walked up the street unmolested, and explained that her friend had made a mistake and that she had been yelling for him to calm down and stop the car. While there was a little hysterical yelling by the freightened bicyclists, there was absolutely no physical confrontation.

The reason that I am writing you is that it seems alarmingly irresponsible that such a biased story would be printed and broadcast when King 5 admits that "It's wasn't clear what sparked the confrontation". Not that this is surprising by any means, which is unfortunate. I guess I just want to make sure that the real story is put out there before this damning misinterpretation gains any steam.

Eyewitness #2 was a Critical Mass participant:

Near the end of a particularly hilly ride, on Aloha E near 14th, a driver got pissed that we were blocking both lanes of the road and, after yelling "Get the fuck outta my way, we've got reservations!" proceeded to gun it into a crowd of maybe 11 cyclists! He then backed up and—with a young man on his now broken windshield—drove through the cyclists, some of whom had fallen on the road, again. He tried at this point to flee the scene in his car. The uninjured riders absolutely mobbed the vehicle, breaking his back window with a U-lock and stopping the car about half a block later by slashing the front tires. The driver was then pulled from the vehicle by the angry group of riders (a few, maybe 5 or 6?) and assaulted (I KNOW he was hit at least once because I heard a rider admit to hitting him,) though later he kept insisting that he was not injured. He did end up covered in blood but, strangely, it wasn't his. I know this because a few minutes later, after the confrontation, he sat by the car and asked a rider with a bloody hand, "Is this yours?" There was a passenger in the car and I'm pretty sure it was her birthday party they were headed to. The driver did apologize profusely once he was pulled from the car (maybe this is the reason he didn't get beaten beyond recognition?) and kept insisting that he hadn't meant to hit the gas pedal, that he thought it was the brakes. I don't believe that for a second, his actions looked absolutely intentional and he was angry when he did it, but he did seem genuinely shaken up and said he was sorry over and over. I think he was in shock. In the end, I believe only four cyclists were injured, there were about 20 witnesses to the crazy scene, and at least two bikes were totally wrecked. It took the police about five minutes to show up, by then people on all sides had calmed down a little and the officers handled the situation beautifully. Ambulances arrived less than two minutes after that.

Holy crap. Stay tuned.

UPDATE from Hot Tipper Ersa:

2 of the bikers got arrested for property damage, and they are booked to jail. THEY HAVE COURT TODAY STARTING AT 12.30 PM AT KING COUNTY COURT HOUSE, COURT ROOM #1. So we need people who saw what happened to contact us, because the driver is trying to pull off that he didn't do anything.

Channel 5 tried to interview us, but we refused to talk with them, and it seems like media is showing the incident like "Violent bikers attacked a car..." Bikers who got hit by the maniac driver, and bikers who got arrested need support from the community. Please contact via e-mail ekirgoz@yahoo.com, if you were witness or if you could show any kind of support, and share ideas...

Again, stay tuned.

According to a new SurveyUSA poll, 11 percent of voters who opposed light rail said King County Executive Ron Sims' opposition to this year's Sound Transit proposal would make them more likely to vote for light rail, compared to just 8 percent who said it would make them even less likely to support it.

I'm not quite sure what to think of that--has Sims's popularity dropped? Is this good news for Larry Phillips?--but there it is.

Yesterday I Slogged about the Sound Transit board's vote to put light-rail, bus and commuter-rail expansion on the ballot in 2008. At the end of my post, I wrote, "We told you so." As in: At a time when the consensus among transit supporters was that last year's roads-heavy Prop. 1 was our “last chance” to get light rail in the region, we at the Stranger said Sound Transit would be back in 2008 with a smaller, smarter transit-only ballot measure.

Well, I really meant it: We told you so.

Me, June 13, 2007:

No big deal, RTID opponents say—a "no" vote would allow Sound Transit to come back to the ballot on its own, unlinked to the environmentally damaging roads-expansion projects included in RTID. "Some people think we need to defeat bad roads right now and get light rail," O'Brien says. "We'd rather kill it all now and come back with light rail really soon."

Me, September 26, 2007:

[I]f the roads and transit package failed, pressure from groups like the Cascade Bicycle Club could make a re-vote on Sound Transit in 2008 a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Me, September 28, 2007:

Proponents of the ballot measure say if we reject it now, it’ll be years before we have another chance to vote again on light rail. They say the governor “won’t allow it” on the ballot in an election year and predict the following year will be too soon. Feh. First of all, the governor would be wise not to alienate transit-loving King County voters, who provided her slim margin of victory last time. Moreover, the last time Sound Transit was rejected, in 1995, it came back the very next year—and won.

ECB, October 9, 2007:

[Transportation Choices Coalition Director Jessyn] Farrell: [...] “The governor doesn’t want to run on a tax measure, [House Speaker] Frank Chopp doesn’t want a bunch of Democrats running on a tax measure, and there are a lot of legislators who just don’t like Sound Transit.” [...]

It’s interesting to me that TCC and other environmental groups that support roads and transit assume nothing is set in stone about the roads side of the package (“Sure, we’re voting for roads, but only because we’ll take them out later!”) but are absolutely 100% rock-solid certain that Sound Transit will never be back on the ballot if this fails. Seems like serious cognitive dissonance to me.

Stranger Election Control Board, October 17, 2007:

Supporters of the roads and transit package love to talk about all the light rail we'll be giving away if we don't vote for the $17.8 billion package. The SECB sees it differently. If we turn roads and transit down, the invaluable transit side of the package can come back next year (which would be great given that Democratic Party turnout will be huge), or else in 2009, when the light rail track from Sea-Tac Airport to downtown will be rolling out and making the on-the-ground case for expansion. True: Voters turned down a rail package in 1968. But this isn't 1968. This is 2007. Global warming is an international crisis, Al Gore just won the Nobel Peace Prize, and Sound Transit is already building a $5.7 billion line that will demand expansion in its own right.

Josh Feit, November 9, 2007:

Here’s Mayor Nickels in today’s Seattle Times in an article about polling that shows voters would have passed a transit package on its own:

"I recounted to (the Sound Transit Board) what happened in 1995 when the first Sound Transit plan was turned down, and I think that it offers us a pretty good lesson,” Nickels said. “We went back to the ballot in 1996, in a presidential election, with the second Sound Transit plan and it was very different than the first one … and we won going away.” [...]

The fact that Nickels is saying bold stuff like this also confirms what the Sierra Club was saying before the election—that this vote could reject conventional wisdom about political “reality” and let voters set the agenda. It also gets the ball rolling on the option we’ve been pushing all along: Expanding transit, not roads, transit.

Me, November 14, 2007:

IThe sudden show of support [among elected officials] for light rail is (promising) anathema to the conventional wisdom pushed by many environmental groups before the election, which said that this was the last possible chance transit advocates would ever have to get light rail in this region, and that Gregoire and the state legislature would "never" let light rail move forward on its own.

Josh Feit, December 13, 2007:

Light Rail is Dead. Long Live Light Rail.

Sound Transit obediently went along with the moronic marriage Gov. Gregoire and the legislature forced on them—going to the ballot with roads this year. Olympia’s harebrained idea was supposed to neutralize anti-transit and anti-roads opposition, but instead it compounded that opposition.

Sound Transit believes the legislature owes them. They’re right.

And just last night, one of the strongest proponents of the this-is-the-last-chance-ever-for-transit point of view, Horse's Ass blogger David Goldstein, printed a sweet mea culpa:

During their frequent appearances on my radio show, I routinely locked horns with The Stranger’s Erica Barnett and Josh Feit over last year’s “Roads & Transit” package. They opposed Prop 1, arguing that Sound Transit would come back the next year with a better package, sans roads. I thought they were being politically naive, and argued that the powers that be would never allow ST to come back with a transit-only package in 2008, and would be picked apart by the “governance reform” vultures well before 2009. I am not at all unhappy to admit that they were right and I was wrong.

Sound Transit's on the ballot in 2008--a presidential election year when young and progressive voters will be turning out in greater numbers than any year in recent history. Nothing's certain, but I think it stands a solid chance in November.

A helicopter is circling a tight circumference above my building, beaming a bright searchlight down onto East Pine and East Pike near Boren Ave. I wondered if Bauhuas was on fire and hustled outside with my laptop, but no, everything seems normal on the steets. The helicopter bears no obvious logo; probably not a news team. Lots of people are about; no one knows anything about the target of the search beam. Police cruisers are zipping back and forth, but without sirens or lights. It looks like a manhunt or vehicle hunt. One cop is stopped on Boren and E Pine with lights flashing. He's tapping away at his dashboard computer and I'm not brazen enough to rap on his window. Beneath us on I-5 another police car and a state trooper are stopped on the exit ramp. I'm looking for can but see no potential suicidal overpass lurkers.

There's nothing in the 911 logs besides medic responses. The helicopter has headed off into the night. Wholly mysterious. I'm going back to bed.

The Sound Transit board just voted 16 to 2 to place a bus and light rail expansion package before voters in King, Pierce, and Snohomish Counties in November.

The proposal includes light-rail extensions to Lynnwood, Redmond Federal Way, a 65 percent increase in Sounder commuter rail service, and a 25 percent in regional express bus service, with half of that front-loaded into 2009 and the other half scheduled to come online in 2014.

After a long, arcane discussion about debt service ratios (King County Council chair Julia Patterson worried that South King County, which she represents, has less of a cushion if things take a turn for the worse financially), King County Executive Ron Sims attempted to add $120 million to the package for bus service in King County. After an impassioned speech in which the county executive somewhat disingenuously avowed his "love" for "spines" (i.e. fixed rail systems, which he has consisently opposed), the board ripped Sims's motion to shreds. "I think it's probable that [the amendment] would offend voters in Pierce County," said Pierce County Executive John Ladenburg, pointing out that Sims's proposal would only improve transit in King County. Noting that the proposal would reduce Sound Transit's financial cushion in South King County, Patterson added, "I don’t want to vote for an amendment that speeds up [bus] service delivery at the cost of being able to get light rail to Federal Way." Finally, Sound Transit attorney Desmond Brown pointed out that Sound Transit is only allowed to fund express bus service, not local intracity service like most of Metro's routes, and the board scotched Sims's proposal. Sims, as expected, voted against the entire package, as did King County Council Member Pete von Reichbauer.

As an aside: When the roads-heavy Prop. 1 failed last year, everyone--from liberal bloggers ("Don’t assume you’ll get another chance to vote for visionary transit investment like this in the near future") to Slog commenters to environmental groups--told me and former news editor Josh Feit it was our "last chance" to get light rail in the region. If we didn't accept a giant roads package, they argued, we would never, ever, ever see transit in our lifetimes. The Stranger consistently said they were wrong—writing, for example, in our endorsement against Prop. 1:

Supporters of the roads and transit package love to talk about all the light rail we’ll be giving away if we don’t vote for the $17.8 billion package. The SECB sees it differently. If we turn roads and transit down, the invaluable transit side of the package can come back next year (which would be great given that Democratic Party turnout will be huge), or else in 2009, when the light rail track from Sea-Tac Airport to downtown will be rolling out and making the on-the-ground case for expansion. True: Voters turned down a rail package in 1968. But this isn’t 1968. This is 2007. Global warming is an international crisis, Al Gore just won the Nobel Peace Prize, and Sound Transit is already building a $5.7 billion line that will demand expansion in its own right.

And on that note: The light-rail package is currently polling at 59 to 36 percent on today's Seattle Times poll. Admittedly, those numbers are unscientific, but the number of people voting (nearly 5,000 so far) reduces the margin of error substantially.

So to those who insisted there was no way in hell light rail was coming back this year: We told you so. Apologies will be accepted in the comments.

This Saturday, about 35 people, some with giant fake cameras on their heads, will take photographs around Cal Anderson Park from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. to protest the city’s video surveillance program. Here’s what they’ll look like:

Local artist Paul Strong, Jr. says he’s holding the demonstration, called the Camerahead Project, to remind people that video surveillance cameras are recording their every move at Cal Anderson Park and three other parks around town. "The project not only raises the questions of who is watching who and who is watching the watchers, but also ... why we are being watched at all," he says. “There is so much going on in the news about wiretapping and data mining, all these little thing that happen locally go right by."

The mayor’s office installed the cameras at Cal Anderson Park in March and the city council ratified and expanded the program to three more parks in June—representing an unprecedented government surveillance of Seattle parks. The city code allows police, parks department employees, and city IT staff to view the recordings for broadly defined investigation purposes.

Strong hopes the council will take down the cameras, which cost the city more than $400,000, but he will have to be patient. The program isn’t scheduled for an audit until it’s been in effect for 21 months—in March of 2010. But the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington is already anticipating the review. “We want to make sure it is an objective and serious audit that looks at what, if anything, they’ve accomplished,” says spokesman Doug Honig. The group opposed the legislation when it went before the city council, and Honig says the ACLU will distribute fliers at the event this weekend.

As an example of a failed surveillance program, Honig points to England, where millions of cameras around the country the have had a negligible impact on crime. While crime did drop directly front of cameras, it rose outside their view. “The logic is to have more and more because they displace crime,” Honig says. “That moves us toward a surveillance society when government is recording and keeping records on our activities, even when they are legal and law abiding.”

Strong says inspiration for the project comes from the book cover of Cory Doctorow's Little Brother, which depicts a camera-head person and a kid winding a slingshot. And, accordingly, he fears the cameras could lead to an Orwellian society. “The next generation of these cameras may have facial recognition and they could just start tracking you everywhere,” he says.

The parks department did not respond to a request for comment.

So muses Slog tipstress Karla, about the Mariners'/Safeco Field's inability/unwillingness to host a gay night (as so many other clubs have done) but complete devotion to a night for peanut-allergy sufferers.

The Seattle Police Department and the King County prosecutor’s office have been pointing fingers at each other, trying to explain why the marijuana seized from an authorized medical marijuana patient last week still hasn’t been returned. (Background is over here.) In a nutshell, Seattle police searched Martin Martinez’s storefront on The Ave on July 15 looking for pot plants. They didn’t find any, but they did seize 12 ounces of Martinez’s pot, a laptop, and hundreds of pages of medical records for patients involved in a medical-marijuana group.

But, in a statement last week, King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg announced that “no criminal charges should be brought against the person renting that commercial space.” He added, “[T]he amount of pot within Martinez’s possession was “arguably within the ’60-day supply’ permitted by [the medical marijuana] statute.”

SPD returned the computer and medical records last week. So why not the pot?

Yesterday, SPD spokeswoman Renee Witt told me that officers hadn’t returned the pot because Martinez’s cases was “an open and active investigation.” Therefore, she said, any further questions had to be directed to Satterberg’s office. I informed her that the prosecutor’s office wasn’t charging Martinez and they believed his pot was legit. Witt said she would call me back.

She left a voicemail, clarifying—but not really. Said Witt: “After making our initial arrest and drug seizure, we forwarded the case to the prosecutor’s offices for charges and they declined. So, at this point, again, any inquiries would be directed to their office.”

Does this mean SPD was still investigating based on evidence that hadn’t gone to the prosecutor’s office? That would be strange—the search warrant (shaky as it was) was based on probable cause that Martinez was growing pot. Even after ripping out a wall, police didn’t find any plants. But if SPD did recover additional evidence, they would have presumably given it to the prosecutor’s office and there could be an ongoing case. So I took Witt’s advice and called the prosecutor’s office. I asked, "Is your office pursuing this case?"

“No,” says prosecutor’s office spokesman Dan Donohoe. “We’ve already decided that there will be no criminal charges.” That’s what I thought, I told him, but SPD says calls about the unreturned marijuana should go to his office. “On the return of the marijuana,” he says, “you need to contact SPD on that question.”

Seriously? I just talked to the SPD and was told to call Donohoe. So Donohoe said he’d get back to me. And moments later, my phone rang. It was Sergeant Sean Whitcomb from SPD.

“The marijuana is still in our evidence section,” says Whitcomb. “We are reviewing the marijuana’s final disposition.” He can't say exactly how long it will be until SPD returns the marijuana to Martinez, who suffers from intractable nerve pain caused by cranial damage he suffered in a motorcycle accident, but estimates it will be within a week. He says the pot wasn’t returned along with the other items because it is a controlled substance; the SPD is investigating whether returning it would conflict with any laws. In an email plea asking supporters to call Chief Kerlikowske, Martinez wrote: "There is no investigation, and the property must be returned. We will be forced to sue for this action if police do not comply with the law."

The SPD will be no doubt happy to know that they needn’t face a lawsuit nor ponder the issue another moment. Courts and police departments in medical marijuana states have been returning marijuana without any legal problems. So if Martinez doesn’t get his pot back within a week, he should do what these medical marijuana patients are doing: sue.

4:40 PM UPDATE: I just got a call from Douglas Hiatt, the attorney for Martin Martinez, who is prepared to sue. "I think it’s pretty clear from precedent in other states that the marijuana should be returned," says Hiatt. He cites cases in California and Oregon that indicate no conflict with federal law. "I expect to file a motion next week if they don’t return it," says Hiatt. "Probably wait until next Monday."

King County Executive Ron Sims and Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels have dueling Sound Transit op/eds in today's Seattle Times. In his piece, Sims argues that what we need is more buses, not expanded light rail.

Sound Transit's bus capital program is only 2 percent of the total expenditure plan for Sound Transit, Phase 2 (ST2). The estimated $17.8 billion dollars for this plan provides just 60 new buses for the three-county area, half of which will not be in service until after 2015. That adds just an average of 1.3 new buses per year in each of the three counties for the next 15 years. [...]

Rising gas prices already have had a profound effect on increased bus ridership. At the current pace, we will reach $8 per gallon by 2013. The landscape has shifted; we can't wait until 2023. We need more congestion relief and better transportation choices sooner.

Imagine the possibilities if a significant portion of the $17.8 billion were invested in immediate bus service. We could add hundreds of buses to alleviate overcrowding and provide more frequent bus service all over the region.

The problem is, Sims used rising gas prices to make exactly the opposite case in his letter requesting a Metro fare increase from the county council earlier this month. Sims:

As worldwide petroleum prices reach record levels, King County Metro Transit is facing an unprecedented increase in diesel fuel costs. These spiraling fuel costs have created a serious financial shortfall in Metro Transit’s current 2008-2009 biennial budget of a magnitude that requires us to make tough choices… Metro Transit purchases about 12 million gallons of diesel fuel each year to run its buses. That represents 8 percent of Metro Transit’s annual budget for bus operations. Additional diesel fuel is used to operate the agency’s ACCESS program. For 2008, Metro Transit is currently projecting an average per gallon price of $3.86 based on year-to-date actual price plus an average of $4.25 for the rest of the year. Compared with the budget of $2.60 per gallon, this change adds more than $14 million in additional costs. Looking to 2009 and beyond, price projections estimate fuel may stabilize at about $4.32 and then grow at the rate of inflation. Compared with Metro Transit’s 2009 budget assumption of $2.70 per gallon, the new price would add more than $22 million to ongoing system costs. For the 2008/2009 biennium, Metro Transit is looking at increased costs of $36 million over what was anticipated just a few months ago. By 2014, these inflated diesel prices will have added a cumulative $140 million to Metro Transit’s costs.

With Metro struggling just to maintain bus service at current levels (the 25-cent fare increase Sims is requesting would only make up half Metro's funding shortfall), one might argue that this is the time to be expanding transit service that doesn't rely on oil, not expanding the region's gas-guzzling fleet of buses.

The city council just voted unanimously to put a $145.5 million parks levy on the November ballot. The parks levy will join a $9 billion proposal to expand Sound Transit north, south and east, and a $73 million levy to make major maintenance and seismic improvements to Pike Place Market.

Council member Jan Drago, head of the council's transportation committee, was the only council member expected to vote against the levy, which she worried would siphon support from Sound Transit. In voting to put the levy on the ballot today, Drago said:

My reservations are not about the need for open space and parks; my concerns are about the lack of prioritization of ballot titles. In the past, councils have tried very hard to prioritize ballot issues, both in the city and in other jurisdictions, and that’s clearly lacking in this process. Because of that lack of prioritization, I believe that we will have three competing ballot issues, and for me the most urgent priority is the Sound Transit ballot... I think Pike Place Market is urgent. It’s way overdue for major maintenance. ... So in terms of timing, I think the parks issue could wait. ... It’s less urgent. ... Having said all of this... I will join in placing the levy on the ballot and hope and work to see that all three levies pass.

Given the higher-than-usual, younger-than-usual, leftier-than-usual voter turnout expected this year, I wouldn't be at all surprised if all three do.