Olympia to Seattle: Drop Dead

What I meant was, apparently while Seattle Voters said they wanted a good rate of return on any public money for a private sports team, the sports teams feel that city's name still has meaning even if bloggers and trolls feel they can trash it online(as is their right, 1st Amendment, it does not say only acceptable speech is free), Kent Thunderbirds, South King County Thunderbirds. When the Sounders were playing in Tukwilla when they were still in the USL First Division, they were called the Seattle Sounders, not the Tukwilla Sounders. In fact, when they put it to a vote of the fans who the MLS team would be named, Seattle Sounders was not even an option, it was a write-in, and one.

Seattle was being asked to fund upgrades to the KeyArena at the expense of fixing the Mercer Mess, which by the way. Arena traffic contributes to when there were events, like an NBA team in town, that generated a lot of traffic.

36)If you wanted to be constructive, and get Republicans elected in Seattle, got end the Liberal Bashing. Same with Democrats bashing Conservatives. Also, got to abolish Winner Take All and go with Single Transferable Vote, in a way, Legislative Districts are already one step toward that. It can be accomplished with three seat districts, just would need to expand them to 3 seats, but possibly not have to increase the size of the state house.

By the way, if anybody says F Seattle like that, better not be a fan of our sports teams. In fact, I noticed something about the Seattle Thunderbirds, they play in Kent now, possibly because of my fellow Seattle Voters with the reactionary anti-stadium initiative that went after the Sonics, but the Thunderbirds did not become the Kent Thunderbirds.

36)Sounds like the mentality of people that think that the US should be divided along ideological lines. It did not used to be the F Seattle issue, in fact, Before Chopp, their had not been a House Speaker from Seattle in decades, at least since the late John L O'Brien.

CalltheWaaambulance, where are you from so Seattlelites can say the same thing about your city, and insult everybody there.

I saw this summer on TV graphic images of where the Liberal vs. Conservative ideological divide left us. A Conservative shooting up a church because of it's Liberal positions. A State Democratic Party Chair assassinated, although since the gunman was later killed in a shootout, motives unclear. I am sick and tired of Liberal Bashing, Big City Bashing, and to tell the truth, I am tired of bashing the Conservative side too, but people like you and Mr. Cynical make it easy for those to bash the right. Your side stiffled desent, attacked any media outlet that put it on, practically threatened anybody who spoke out with the word "traitor".

We are not the Liberal States of America, we are not the Conservative States of America, we are the United States of America. We'll never be perfect, in fact, the Constitution begins with "We The People of the United States of America, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, to provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America"

Washington is a state of many people, and so is Seattle. I am sick and tired of the painting of Seattle with a broad brush. It is time to get beyond that.

Fuck Seattle.

Now if the rest of the state wants to demonize Seattle, maybe Mr. Speaker ought to play hardball. Found this article, about people in Okanagon County being gouged to cross railroad tracks at private, unprotected rail crossings on the Cascade and Columbia River RR. It is owned by RailAmerica, which is owned by Fortress Investments.(I got problems with them, they buy the Florida East Coast RR(A seperate transaction) and then fire the head of the FEC who had built up the Railroad from the doldrums to make it worth buying) I wonder if the Palouse River and Coulee City RR does that, wait they better not be gouging property owners. The owners of that line between Coulee City, Cheney, and Pullman? You and me, the State of Washington bought it a few years ago. Before the complaints about socialism break out over that one, we own it, the engineers and conductors are not state employees, it is contracted out to an operator, or actually three operators. One branch is operated by the former owners, another branch is operated by the Washington and Idaho Railway, another is operated by the Eastern Washington Gateway RR. I had been following the aquistion over the past 6 years, and it was in need of an upgrade, and the results of abandonment would have meant thousands of more trucks on Eastern Washington highways.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews...

http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/Projects/rail/PCC_Acqui...

18, Artfart

Here is the info on what has been ordered to replace the Steel Electrics. The bidding war, or the one-sided bidding battle was more like it, saw only one bid, after both rounds of it, that the state had to accept what was offered just to get this one built, that there is talk of abandoning the requirement that the boats be built here in the future. That is for boats that carry less than 65 cars. The Jones Act will still apply, last time I checked Seattle and Vashon Island were in the same Country, making Fauntleroy and Vashon "U.S. Ports" The boat design chosen was designed by for Martha's Vineyard by local Naval Architects.

http://www.evergreenfleet.com/newkeystoneferrie...

As for political labels, I doubt in Australia people like Mr. Cynical would be saying bad things about the Liberal Party, they would be attacking their own. The Liberal Party is the Opposition party, but they are right wing. The Labour Party is the left-wing party. At the provincial level in BC, the Liberal Party is the Conservative Party, as some of the seats they control in Victoria are represented at the Federal level by Conservatives. Whether the Liberal(Conservative) PM in BC that lobbied so much for the Olympics will be there as Premier next year at the Opening Ceremonies, don't know. Dissolution of the BC Legislature is approaching, an American Concept, the fixed election date was adopted, for them, second to third week in May. BC adopted the concept partly to allay fears of the Liberals using their 77-2 majority to set the next election date when it was advantageous to them. Thankfully, our General election date is set in stone, I am sure that some on both sides here would love to have that advantage. Also in May in BC, they are going to have a second chance to switch from Winner Take All to Irish-style Single Transferable Vote. One side affect in Ireland, Finna Foil does not call their opponents trashy names, it would alienate half the electorate.

The Pavement Lobby is a strange thing. Right now, shovel ready gives them the advantage, not too many rail projects are like that. The Trucking industry, through the American Trucking Association, is now feeling threatened by a resurgent rail industry, running a ad campaign promoting their being the last mile. Only fair, CSX and Norfolk Southern, and other railroads are running commercials touting their fuel efficiency. It will be years before anybody in America is going to try this:

http://www.citycargo.nl/voordelen_eng.htm

The stimulus is everybody for themself, the Surface Transportation Bill(AKA The Highway Bill) usually sees the Trucking Lobby and the Rail Lobby get together to get it reauthorized, then they spend the next 6 years trashing each other until the next reauthorization.

Mr. Cynical, I see you are still being the Pinhead.

Mary Margaret Haugen has a chip on her shoulder. Judy Clibborn is a tool of Frank Chopp on this topic.

What they announced today was a money grab by the state highway department in a good bit of old fashioned pouring of money to their buddies in the asphalt business. The highway lobby, which owns the highway department, hoodwinked the legislature, the governor, and most everybody else.

Obama's change turned into old time earmarking in Olympia by the pavement lobby.

The legislature has had months to pick the best projects. They could have spent this money on most anything: roads, transit, ferries, almost anything transportation. They chose to pour more pavement in places most people never go.

That's why Obama wants to completely reform the way transportation dollars get spent, by taking the power away from a few powerful legislators and the highway lobby in every state capitol. They'll fight it tooth and nail.

But we have just seen exhibit A for why things must change in the pavement bill announced in Olympia today - standard issue pavement pouring politics with no regard for building a better future where the jobs are.

Explaining to a PINHEAD what a PINHEAD is...man. What I go thru to try and help you KLOWNS from falling off the LEFT side of the Earth!

Evergreen Railfan--
Point of clarification...
Leftist Pinheaded Klown does not mean you have a hole in your head...it means that the sharp little point on the top of your noggin where your brain is supposed to be has very little room. Comprende?

Hope that makes you feel mucho better!

28)What I meant by unlike AK, Hawaii would never see it, was that their are on again off again on again studies on closing the 800 mile rail gap. It is possible, but I doubt it will ever happen in anyones lifetime, nor the ultimate goal that could see the Port of Seattle, and Tacoma, and LA bypassed, a Bering Strait Tunnel. Hawaii, unless the Matson Line revives their passenger liner era, never going to see an alternative to flying.

One of the magazines I read, TRAINS Magazine, does do articles on the business of railroading besides the fan and technical stuff, and I read those too. It's interesting to see that in a time when the revenue was coming in to finally allow CSX to do some track upgrades, there were activist investors trying to do one thing, expand their dividends, and ignor much needed capital investments. Their was a British Hedgefund trying to just that, and for the most part, they got their seats on the board, but the CEO has not been fired, yet. It did not make much of the national news, don't know if even Lou Dobbs covered it, it had some of the hallmarks of his brand of populism.

I am open to changing my mind on some issues when I learn more info. Sometimess on the many forums and blogs I surf, I post articles I find on one, on another. Sometimes it does not go both ways. Don't want to contaminate one with some from another. One time on a railfan board, I was painting Republicans with a broad brush as entirely anti-Amtrak, but a moderator reminded me that there were a few Repbulicans in Congress that were for it, and a few(fewer than Republicans that were for it)Democrats that were against it, but what I get in our hyper-partisan media is just one message. When Stevens lost, Amtrak lost a great supporter. It was a condition on getting some of his pork,. the classic, I scratch your back, you scratch mine. Hawaii's two Senators did the same, even though unlike AK, they'll never see it. After that discussion on the railfan board, I stopped entirely painting people with broad brushes, for the most part.

Q: why did Seattle get no money?
A: there is only one seattle legislator on the transportation committee.

Poli Sci 101 folks.

25
Cynical's tiresome, incessant, and uncreative references to "LEFTIST PINHEAD KLOWNS" bear testament to the man's inability to even recognize that there is another side to every argument. The man is too partisan to even acknowledge the possibility of being wrong. Fortunately, what we see is that what is left of the Right in this country is formed of people like Cynical. They don't understand the opposition, so they cannot compete. Let's just pray they stay in their ideological cocoons.

Proud Leftist, I myself, one of the reasons I am taking offense at the Pinhead label, is that it implies somebody might have a hole in their head. As one who has had one, I can tell you, it is not all it is cracked up to be!

22)I wonder, with WSF naming practices, if the Kittitas, Yakima, Hyak, Wenatchee, Walla Walla, and Spokane were so named to get Eastern Washington legislators to approve them? Although the names have multiple meanings, they could have named the Yakima and Spokane after the tribes, and not the city, county, and river that share the same name.

I have been following the off and on again talk of expanding the successful Vancouver B.C to Eugene Oregon local Intercity Passenger Rail service to Eastern Washington. Even I agree that without investment, it's not going to happen. What WSDOT has invested in Amtrak Cascades, pales in comparison what is needed. Yakima Canyon is constrained, pretty much all the track needs to be replaced, stations need to either be re-opened or new ones built in Ellensberg and Yakima, and to top it all off, the signal system between Auburn, Ellensberg, and maybe Pasco, is what railroaders and the FRA call "Dark Territory", no signals at all, except for a few islands of CTC(Centralized Traffic Control). When no passenger service and no freights on a regular basis were running between Auburn and Ellensberg, no need to put CTC in the rest of the corridor. Too much investment to give an iron alternative to the ashphalt ribbon that connects the state.

As for my part on No New Highway investment as sprawl inducer, I am not totally against that either. There are places where like it or not, new freeways might be the answer. North Spokane is one. U.S2/U.S.395 both share the same city street in North Spokane that the North Spokane Freeway is supposed to replace, North Division. At least get the traffic off of the North Spokane's major thoroughfare. The Albuquerqe model for alternative transportation, not applicable in this one.(Build the alternative before 3-digit Interstates, and when the alternative is built, build first, then ask the voters. I doubt it is legal here, the latter. As for the Santa Fe Extension of Railrunner by the way, they built a single-track commuter railroad in the median of I-25, with room for a second track if demand picks up. I don't see too many highways having that option).

When are the trolls going to learn that their opinions are irrelevant and that no one in power pays any attention to them? The poor fucks just keep posting; I suppose they do so to try to maintain some sort of support group amongst themselves.

What do we need I-90 for? Why not build a dam across the I-90 corridor and fill it with water to provide hydropower and drinking water for Puget Sound's future growth? And lop off eastern Washington as a separate state while we're at it. Then they can pay their own fucking taxes instead of living on Seattle subsidies.

11)I don't care if you give an expletive deleted about what I say. I just give my opinion, and try to put facts in there, and I even do something you seem to not do, think, when my blood stops boiling after reading your hate-filled ramblings.

18, It still is broken? It was when I went through there on Sunday. Usually the Bainbridge run gets the top priority. They are thinking outside the box for the new Keystone boat(no name for it yet), taking another design from another ferry operator, and adapting it to WSF needs. They are replacing the Island Home(the name of the boat being used as the baseline)'s enclosed Car Deck with WSF's traditional but functional picklefork design. I wonder if they got the idea for the standardized big boat design from Southwest Airlines using only 737s. Although there is some diversity in that fleet. During the 80s and 90s, Southwest had a mix of 737-200s, 300s, and 500s. Some were longer, some were shorter, but a baseline. Sometimes functionality trumps standardization. Amtrak does not use Superliners on Northeast Trains, as 1) nobody would be able to get aboard them in Penn Station, and 2), they would not be able to fit through the tunnels. Although there have been 2 Federally Funded Debacles to come up with a fast train to run on it.(The Metroliner was a success, the Acela Express, jury still is out on it)

Evergreen Railfan @ 11--
You must be confusing me with someone who gives a shit about your rambling musings.

16 I rode the ferry from Bainbridge to Seattle this morning just past the rush hour. The cars that accumulated in the 45 minutes or so since the prior sailing were hardly backed up past the toll booths. The mechanism for the overhead pedestrian ramp is presently broken, so they had the foot passengers assemble on the dock and walk onto the car deck before they loaded vehicle traffic. Between this and running the boats way below "normal" speed to save fuel, it takes half again as long to get across as it used to.

The ferry management basically screwed the pooch. They've been planning bigger boats and bigger terminals, myopically focused on the Kitsap Peninsula, apparently expecting in the Age of Eyman that the money to do it all was going to fall like manna from heaven. They also haven't taken into account the fact that steel-hulled vessels deteriorate a hell of a lot faster in salt water now that you can't slather them with red lead. So now they're renting the Steilacoom II from Pierce County to maintain a sorry excuse for service between Port Townsend and Whidbey. The Steel Electrics' hulls are Swiss cheese, the Evergreen State and her sister ships are not far behind, and even the Hyak class boats are getting pretty frayed at the edges.

I have a cousin who works for Todd Shipyards who I have to get in contact with in the next couple days, and I intend to pick his brains about whether anybody's given any thought to the idea of taking the superstructures and mechanicals from the Steel Electrics and putting them on new hulls, and how that would compare cost-wise with building all new boats. Most likely, the SE's and the Oly and Rhody will either be scrapped here or some idiot will buy them, try to tow them somewhere and lose them in the ocean swells.

BTW, here is a little better background on the Issaquahs, and it is not the WSF official vessel info page.

http://www.evergreenfleet.com/issaquahs.html

The Viaduct definately is going to need something done. As for I405, I noticed they are doing something to it at Oakesdale in Renton. I walked under it there on Saturday, and one of the overpasses looked like there were cracks all over it. So yes, I do see the need for road maintenance at least. Adding an extra lane to alleviate a choke point, I can go for that. Building highways to open up undeveloped areas(what there are that is left), that is where I draw the line.

I was commenting on another blog a few weeks ago about something I observed at the Fauntleroy Terminal. We were headed out to visit a cousin in Port Orchard(actually miles beyond Port Orchard), and the ferry seemed odd. There are more like 2 boats covering sailings(and this was on Sunday, by the way) on that run. One carrying the majority of vehicles on that sailing going to Vashon(the Klahoya, built in the 1950s, Evergreen State Class), and another going to Southworth but making an intermediate stop at Vashon(Issaquah, lead ship of a multipurpose class built in the late 1970s and early 1980s, a Ferry fan website called them the Citrus Class, due to problems they had with new technology WSF was using, mainly Controlable/Variable Pitch Props). THe Issaquah had two variants, a 130 car class, and a 100 car class, most are the 130 design. The Evergreen State as built, 100 cars, but carries less due to the changes with cars over the years. What I was suggesting, is a variant of a JUMBO Class(Walla Walla, Tacoma sub-classes). The reason it will not work, is that the boats can carry all the cars you want, but it is in the staging. That stared me in the face that day and I did not notice it at first. Colman Dock has plenty of staging space, but this is Fauntleroy. It has a few staging lanes, but on a busy day, the overflow parking is the shoulders of city streets, including Fauntleroy Way. That puts Seattle(seeings how you right wing reactionaries out there that called Seattle a bunch of Pinheads paint us with a broadbrush) in the same boat as Bainbridge Island, Vashon, Southworth, Talequah, Clinton, and other rural or small city ferry terminals. The diamond lane on the highway leading up to Bainbridge Island Ferry Terminal is not for carpools. Their is no overhead ramp for walk-ons at Fauntleroy, just like Vashon and Southworth, which puts that lesser known Ferry Dock in the same boat with just about every other Ferry Terminal on the Washington State Ferry System except for Colman Dock, Bermerton, Bainbridge Island, Kingston, Edmunds, and Annacortes(Is the overhead bridge for walk-ons still there, haven't been on the San Juan Ferry in 15 years?) The last time I was at Bainbridge Island going off to Clearwater, I looked over at the Eagle Harbor Ferry Maintenance Base, noticed the cupboard for fleet flexibility there, just the floating relics that WSF is in the middle of selling off. THey can't sail anyway, the Coast Guard forcibly retired them. Unsafe to carry passengers anymore.

Artfart

I work in a bldg right along Mercer. If a paving machine came by at 5:30, they could easily add a new layer of asphalt with few bumps.

As for the RHT ... Seattle would be a 1000% better off now if it had been built. Using 23rd Montlake Rainier as a freeway is sheer idiocy. Few do it, increasing traffic on I5.
Moreover, the number of homes affected in NE Seattle as (and still is) very small. There are a lot of small houses from 65th to 85th, but then it gets pretty spread out until Lake Cit Way. South of that the "neighborhood" is Husky stadium. Things get congested again from the Montlake Bridge to ~Pike/Pine, but for a good part of that, say Montlake to John, the slope of the hill already creates a community divide. After Pike PIne there is quite a bit of land even now though the area is sprouting townhouses. Moreover. it seems likely that a boulevard (not an expressway if I had my way) would do great things for the CD, the ID, and the relatively desolate areas at the North end of Rainier.

NIMBY is an effin lousy citizen.

Calm down.

Leaving the entire metro-Puget Sound region aside, let's just look at King County. Seattle represents about 1/3 of the total population but is the central city with a strong mayor and a lot of public relations and outreach employees. Plus two city newspapers (at least, that was the case when I came to work today). All cities outside of Seattle represent over 50% of the population, but are fractured into 38 different governments.

No one is targeting Seattle, as much as that makes good political theatre. The state stimulus list does NOT include any LOCAL projects. There are other buckets for the Mercer Street project to dip into, not the least of which is the PSRC bucket.

So Moscow slipped the digit to St. Petersburg. So what? It is all being done under the fraternal goodness of the Party, isn't it, comrades?

Meh. I worked in South Lake Union (or, "the Cascade District" as some called it at the time) for the first few years of this millenium. I was really surprised, having heard for at least 25 years prior that it was the worst traffic nightmare on the planet, to find that it was really no big deal. Getting in and out of that area during the rush hour was a walk in the park compared to negotiating 520 or even getting through most of the rest of the downtown street grid. It seems that it's like the much-heralded but not at all missed "R H Thompson Expressway", which would have been a blight on a large portion of northeast Seattle had it been built.

Better to put the resources into stuff that's about to fall down, like the Viaduct and several other aging hunks of urban infrastructure.

Suburbanites are fast turning into thieves. First you steal Seattle's Bus Funding with the 40/40/20 split, then you go after more of what is left, and now you want the road money too, and then hurl insults at the city. I am sick and tired of hypocritical pinheads calling people pinheads.

Mr. Cynical, you are one of the biggest hypocritical pinheads. I usually ignore you, but you insulted nearly 600,000 people by doing the usual right wing painting with a broad brush. I am sick and tired of punish, punish, punish mentality. And before you call me a leftist criminal caller on that one, I have been mugged on the mean streets of Seattle, and I am alive today because of people tax money pays for, and lucky the mugging occured in Belltown, close to the West Precinct, near shift-change, and also close to Fire Station 2. In 2003 when I voted for the Fire Levy, I was more concerned at the time over a decrepit fireboat fleet and stations that in one case, were making the firefighters taxpayers pay to protect them sick, and in another case, the engine was parked at an angle because of a settling foundation, one station near where I live. Unlike you that always criticize government, I understand that there are needs for those services. Sometimes my father had the need for Medic One, but in some jurisdictions, it's funding is up to the whim of people who might think it is worth cutting, and then will scream when it is not there.(I am one that thinks the guy that invented the Kidney Dialysis Shunt deserved the Nobel Prize for Medicine, but that was for personal reasons(Dialysis bought 8 more years with my father that he never head when he was in his early 20s with his father)) I voted against the Bridging the Gap levy, and not because it was a road levy(Turned out King Street Station renovation was on that levy too), but because it was punishing Seattle Property Owners making them pay for roads that some people from out of town use, but don't have to pay for because Street Utility Fees were struck down, can't have a County Gas Tax even though state law would limit it to 10% of the State Gas Tax, and it would be shared with the rest of the cities in the county, because the County Council is too scared to try to excercise the local option because of the fights at state level to get the gas tax raised. That left the city with only the property tax. Some of the projects funded by that levy are getting done. Dexter Ave repaving, Denny Way repaving, and the King Street Station Renovation, I got a bone to pick on that one. They fixed the clock so it tells time for first time in years, but then remove the hands for renovation. It is a waste, but there is another angle to that, a sign something that was done. Union Station, which ceased being a train station when Amtrak came into being(a stub ended terminal, would never have worked as a true union station), had a working clock on it's face.

I am willing to share transit resources by the way, on an equitable level, and come July 3, some Seattle bus service will be redundant, and it will be revised, and made more effective. I am one that would like to see more competitive tendering of bus routes, by the way. Even forbiding Community Transit from bidding on ST Express routes if they are going to continue to subcontract those routes to First Transit. If First Transit will be operating the routes, why have CT, whose board every time the state raised the sales tax cap, went for the max, be the middle man? Competitive Tendering works in other cities that have tried it, and it in the case of Denver, it is no longer a unionbusting threat(the ATU represents the contractors too, but usually with agrements that they will not cross the RTD's picket line. There is talk of extending the practice to Light Rail there. The RTD is dropping one rail line, but the tracks will not be empty. The G Line is covered by other Denver based Light Rail Lines, the G Line itself was an experimental suburb to suburb shuttle, that failed).

Random notes

I thought that the largest project in the state right now is the I-405 widening. I'm just sayin'...

Transportation improvements in the state's largest city, largest port, and commerce hub have a larger multiplier effect. Improving road design and speeding up throughput in Spokane won't get goods from Asia to state customers any faster--fixing Mercer might.

If only we had Republicans in charge, they could be turning down that stimulus money right now! Right, Cyn?

Looks like the largest three projects are in Tacoma, Bellevue, and Lynnwood, those of you crying for Seattle, like she never gets anything, may want to recall where the largest project in the state is underway right now (hint: I-5 lane closures).

Good. It's high time the morons in Seattle get a reminder that they are not the center of the fucking universe. There is a whole lot of other cities in WA. other than pretentious, snobby, and mostly ignorant Seattle. Bitch-slap to the leftist Democrat KLOWNS!

This is idiocy ...

1, The potholes need to be filled. If money is going into those holes, it should free up the money that would have gone there.

2. I 90 potholes do not provide any long term stimulus .. another goal of the stimulus. Mercer does.

Was no money allocated for ferry work and expense?

Josh--
This is funny stuff.
I guess it's not true that Washington State revolves around Seattle even though it is true that Seattle is the Anal Canal of the Universe!
Why don't you LEFTIST PINHEADED KLOWNS get into a big, time-consuming, money-wasting fight over "free money"??
If you fight long and hard enough, the porkulous money is sure to disappear...just like a lot of the gas tax money disappeared due to lack of leadership and indecisiveness.

Turn this into a real blood bath...the Gettysburg of Progressivism.

You KLOWNS are too much.

@3,

That's a great idea Elliott. We'll take that up.

Any chance you guys could break down stimulus money by congressional district? It would be interesting to see how much goes to districts whose Reps. voted no vs. those who voted yes.

Team Nickels says, the Mercer project meets the Obama-guidelines: It’s shovel-ready...

That's right -- bury it!

Once again suburbanites are perfectly content to make the residents of urban areas bear the costs of urbanization in spite of the fact that the urban areas are what make suburban areas economically feasible. We should charge a toll just for admittance to our city.