Posted Thu, Apr 19, 8:12 a.m.

Excellent article. I am terrified at the end game of the "you're on your own society" under President Romney. I fear this because we the American people voted for Bush (the shrub) twice, and we are fully capable of voting for voting for another multi-gazillionaire who will kick the economy ...

Posted Mon, Apr 9, 8:57 a.m.

A couple of corrections: Kitsap Mall was built in Silverdale in 1985. In 1995, The SuperMall of the Great Northwest was built in Auburn near the junction of SR-167 and SR-18. Both of these malls were built on wetlands, and at least one stream appears to have been existed near ...

Posted Thu, Mar 22, 9:58 p.m.

Chuck has raised an interesting point about the frequent gap between design and constructibility. My favorite architect is Zaha Hadid, who designed amazing things for many years and won lots of awards without her designs actually being built. During that phase of her career many people said her designs were ...

Posted Thu, Mar 22, 8:50 a.m.

I love the floating jelly bean. Its renderings show that it can morph from a Plain Jane white bean into a paramecium, and even a limp flying saucer that perfectly complements the Space Needle. If the Bean is selected, it should definitely be equipped to slowly pulsate various colors to ...

Posted Tue, Feb 28, 8:11 a.m.

The solution is obvious: Smith Tower. It's 70% empty and scheduled to go into foreclosure next month. King County could seize it for back taxes owed--$23,000,000--and sell it to some angel arts organization for conversion to residential, studio and gallery space. Think Tashiro Kaplan on steroids.

Posted Tue, Feb 21, 2:21 p.m.

Yes, common1sense, I do realize that the City of Seattle stiffs everyone equally. From booting and towing homeless people's cars to citizens who pursue the city's byzantine approval processes for things like building a an ADU or getting a makeover of a neighborhood park, to mega developers, the city's approach ...

Posted Mon, Feb 20, 11:33 a.m.

"...consider the Amazon deal to build 3 million square feet of office space, creating thousands of jobs, including the revenue that will create new shops and restaurants, and real estate excise taxes (REET) for the city. This is a huge long-term commitment that will continue to pay huge economic dividends ...

Posted Sun, Jan 15, 12:47 p.m.

I'm with Pythagoras on this. Abuses perpetrated by the financial industry and their political enablers are indeed an ethical issue, and I'm glad the faith communities are taking action to sever their ties with TBTF banks. However, this situation also has a psychiatric dimension that makes it extremely slippery to ...

Posted Sun, Jan 8, 11:11 a.m.

"Lincoln, Churchill, Hitler, JFK, MLK, and, maybe, Newt Gingrich." Surely this list of mentally ill leaders is incomplete without including George W. Bush, who occupied the White House for eight years in spite of suffering from severe narcissism and delusions of grandeur, e.g., the notions that the US could "liberate" ...

Posted Mon, Jan 2, 12:02 p.m.

Anyone who doubts that Puget Sound is still very sick after decades of cleanup and habitat restoration efforts should watch one of the PBS Frontlines eye-opening special, "Poisoned Waters" hosted by Hedrick Smith, which can be checked out at the library or streamed on Netflix.

Posted Sat, Dec 31, 8:21 a.m.

The fourth factor that made SLU "happen" is the stunning architectural mediocrity of the vast majority of its new buildings. SLU could have been a showcase for architectural creativeity (think Zona Diagonal Sur in Barcelona and buildings such as Torre Agbar, ZeroZero), but instead we got stuck with a cluster ...

Posted Sat, Dec 31, 7:50 a.m.

Seattle stopped being funny when it started touting itself as a "world class city" when in fact it's a hick town at the end of the road with a jaw-droppingly beautiful backdrop.

Posted Tue, Dec 20, 9:05 a.m.

First of all, Seattle does NOT love coordinated public transportation. That's why there are a plethora of transit agencies in our region: Metro, Sound Transit, WSDOT's and King County's ferry systems, Pierce Transit, Snohomish County's Community Transit and Kitsap County Transit. The City of Seattle must be called out for ...

Posted Tue, Nov 15, 7:52 a.m.

"If large numbers of people believe in freedom of speech, there will be freedom of speech even if the law forbids it. But if public opinion is sluggish, inconvenient minorities will be persecuted, even if laws exist to protect them." -- George Orwell

Posted Mon, Nov 14, 9:53 a.m.

There is no such thing as "sustainable meat." According to a 2006 United Nations report entitled “Livestock’s Long Shadow,” livestock is a major huge contributor to climate change, accounting for 18 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions (measured in carbon dioxide equivalents). That’s more than the entire transportation system. With ...

Posted Sat, Nov 12, 2:33 p.m.

An example of real reform would be reducing or eliminating corporate tax breaks so that increasing numbers of people in our state who are living in poverty can subsist. Microsoft is sitting on approximately $50 billion in cash reserves. Real reformers would push to end Microsoft's entitlement to state tax ...

Posted Sat, Nov 12, 2:26 p.m.

Another "Reform" idea is that the über-rich should be entitled to pay lower tax rates than the working and middle classes. This is quite a far cry from actual reform in the tradition of Franklin Roosevelt. After four years of the Great Depresssion with no end in sight, FDR lead ...

Posted Sat, Nov 12, 2:09 p.m.

The Reform Party is an oxymoron, as is the term "non-Union Democrat." Regardless of their party affiliation, these people make excuses for growing inequality and promote it whenever they can under the rubric of efficiency. They come up with stupid ideas like Gov. Gregoire arranging for Washington State penitentiary prisoners ...

Posted Sat, Nov 5, 12:12 p.m.

"...no salmon has spawned above the Elwha Dam for more than 90 years. No fish now living remembers the smell of vegetation and minerals in a stream above the dams. What will take anadromous fish back into the upper watershed isn't homing but straying." This is certainly true, and George ...

Posted Sat, Nov 5, 10:50 a.m.

As a taxpayer, I feel like I've already sacrificed a lot to fund the longest war in American history in Iraq and Afghanistan, and a military budget (including military pass throughs to our client nations like Israel and covert ops, which have an unquantifiable tax burden on US citizens) that ...

Posted Sat, Nov 5, 10:21 a.m.

"The cuts are quite painful." Of course, not nearly as painful as cutting back on corporate welfare in the form of tax breaks for corporations, including Microsoft, which is sitting on cash reserves of approximately $50 billion.

Posted Mon, Oct 31, 7:44 a.m.

Because of Seattle.gov's obsession with process SDOT will drag itself through years of of planning, public outreach and policy development and eventually come with something dysfunctional--e.g., a "Motorcycle Master Bicycle Plan" that is years in the making and will take decades to actually implement. I say this because at its ...

Posted Fri, Oct 21, 7:28 a.m.

This situation is a poster child example of why we need to get $$$$ out of politics. Every person and corporation should be able to donate a maximum of $50 to a political race or ballot initiative campaign. This would shorten campaigns, tone down divisive political rhetoric and promote better ...

Posted Thu, Oct 20, 7:44 a.m.

The idea of reducing the size of the council is intriguing as is the idea of having the mayor elected by the council. For decades Portland has had a more functional, less process obsessed city government than Seattle, and the King County Council seems to be more focused and less ...

Posted Sat, Oct 15, 9:28 a.m.

Thank you for this absolutely fascinating account of how Westlake became so ugly. I bet that most readers didn't know that it was originally a larger chunk of public land that got sold out instead of being a truly inviting public space. I cut up my Nordstrom credit card (what ...

Posted Sun, Oct 9, 11:24 a.m.

jmrolls, I couldn't agree more with what you said, but I do want to make one important correction. Not only are these wars the longest in our nation's history, according to Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz their costs--largely unpaid for, so far--are $2.5 trillion, and will likely total at ...

Posted Fri, Oct 7, 9:38 a.m.

Excellent article. Medicare is a non-profit entity with extraordinarily low administrative overhead of only 5%. One way to defang the health insurance industry is to replace it with Medicare for all. A single payer option would have been a huge step toward this goal but our elected officials sold us ...

Posted Wed, Oct 5, 8:41 p.m.

Tina Podlowski attended The University of Hartford, which these days charges $29,440 per year for tuition. Having gotten hers while the getting was good, it's hypocritical for her to recommend that young people get their degrees "wherever," including online degree mills such as the ones described in this Frontline expose: ...

Posted Wed, Oct 5, 8:38 a.m.

"While there is no direct cost that comes with tracking energy use, Low said, the amount of time spent collecting and reporting the information is an expense to the company. 'We are talking about a lot of time when it comes to 300 properties,' he said." Dear Mr. Low: The ...

Posted Mon, Oct 3, 7:58 a.m.

The impacts of social inequality on various parameters of public health, are explored in interviews woven an interesting film entitled "Zeitgeist: Moving Forward," which posted here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z9WVZddH9w Spoiler alert: This film is very long (2.5 hours) and expresses quite a number of poorly articulated viewpoints on potential solutions to urgent ...

Posted Thu, Sep 1, 11:32 p.m.

James Kunstler has been talking about this for quite some time. Readers can watch him skewer suburbia here: http://www.ted.com/talks/james_howard_kunstler_dissects_suburbia.html

Posted Fri, Aug 26, 6:29 p.m.

Population recovery efforts are underway for the Florida panther, for which road crossings have in fact been built.

Posted Fri, Aug 26, 6:27 p.m.

This is an excellent article on an ecologiclaly important topic. I commend our former Secretary of Transportation for his concern about the impact of roads on fish and wildlife. However, I must take issue with the concept of "jaguar crossings" in Florida. Jaguars are vanishingly rare even in Mesoamerica, and ...

Posted Fri, Aug 12, 10:07 a.m.

Our streets are falling into ruin, but let's look at the bright side. It's costing only $300,000,000 to gussy up 6 blocks of Mercer Street pretty for Paul Allen.

Posted Thu, Aug 4, 10:56 p.m.

Is the Amazon campus overcompensation or an Act of Contrition? I would argue it's neither. It's simply cheap and ugly, and very much in keeping with Seattle's taste in modern architecture.

Posted Fri, Jun 10, 1:43 p.m.

As a slightly off-topic aside, I'd like to add that the City of Seattle's broken parken meters is yet another reason not to use debit cards. The only times I use plastic are when I need a receipt, or I need cash. Whenever possible I get cash at one of ...

Posted Fri, Jun 10, 1:32 p.m.

I have two personal workarounds for this problem. 1. When it is absolutely essential to park downtown and I'm in a hurry, I don't use plastic. Instead, I carry a jar of quarters in my car. 2. When I have a bit of extra time I put my bike on ...

Posted Wed, Jun 1, 8:39 p.m.

Roger, I hate to pop your baloon but when exactly did we court the Olympics? Last time I checked we decided it wouldn't pencil or be worth all the bother. Yes, we did host the World Trade Organization, but that didn't exactly do wonders for our municipal image, nor was ...

Posted Wed, Jun 1, 7:32 p.m.

No one wants to check into or visit someone in a shabby old hospital. On the other hand, this trend toward hospital as Taj Mahal is ominous and does not bode well for getting a grip on relentlessly rising health costs at a time when wages are stagnant or declining ...

Posted Thu, May 26, 8:57 p.m.

Your wife's delight with her iTouch and rejection of the iPhone is a bit surprising given that these devices are almost identical, except for the phone element. There is something to be said for carrying a single device, but no one device has it all. I have a Galaxy Tab, ...

Posted Wed, May 18, 5:21 p.m.

The last thing this city needs is more architecturally bland, nearly empty buildings like the ones that form Paul Allen's tinker toy set at Lake Union, and more dumb ass, insanely expensive projects like the SLUT, the $300,000,000 makeover of 6 blocks of Mercer Street and South Lake Union Park, ...

Posted Wed, May 18, 5:12 p.m.

I hope orino is right. People in Europe are already rising up in mass numbers to protest the austerity measures demanded to compensate for what the zombie banks stole from most of the western democracies, starting in 2008 (with the notable exception of Canada, which never gave in to their ...

Posted Wed, May 18, 4:16 p.m.

I am a little troubled that Enfield may not have given him a chance to state his case before she made this termination decision in the first place. Nonetheless, I think it's to her credit that she listened to the community and backed off on this. Most people at the ...

Posted Sun, May 1, 2:50 p.m.

Oh, the unbearable whiteness of being in Seattle...

Posted Mon, Apr 11, 7:36 a.m.

The analysis above is very biased because the author is a shill for a right wing think tank whose board executive committee reads like the "Who's Who" of corporate Washington, with members who work for the health insurance industry, Puget Sound Energy, timber companies, Microsoft, business associations, Boeing, a corporate ...

Posted Sun, Apr 10, 9:11 p.m.

Thank you Ted, for this great article. Yesterday I watched an amazing film clip of a speech FDR gave in 1944 in the the midst of WWII in which he said, “Nowadays, certain economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. A second Bill of Rights under, which a new basis ...

Posted Sun, Apr 10, 7:37 p.m.

Go Netflix! I hope Walmart's effort to duke it out with Netflix fizzles in the same way Blockbuster ineptly could not loosen its embrace of brick and morter in time to save itself. For more reasons to kick Walmart to the curb, go to netflix and stream the documentary entitled ...

Posted Wed, Mar 30, 7:33 a.m.

The reason I don't buy the argument that US and Euro forces are intervening in Libya to support people who are fighting in freedom is that similar freedom promoting interventions could have occurred in any number of places including Sudan, Burma and Tibet, but didn't, and could be occurring right ...

Posted Mon, Mar 28, 8:54 p.m.

While admittedly Libya does not represent a vital American interest, rapid resolution of civil war there is of great interest to a number of our NATO allies, which need to maintain an affordable oil supply to Europe. Once again, this effort is being carried out under the rubric of "supporting ...

Posted Mon, Mar 28, 8:12 a.m.

Immigrants won't be surprised at all. Toll highways are ubiquitous in Mexico and Europe. Tea-baggers and other right-wing nut cases who promote privitazation of transportation and all other public services except maintenance of a standing army will be extremely pleased by these new tolls.

Posted Sun, Jan 23, 2:10 p.m.

I appreciate this article from the Native American perspective. A few days ago I listened to a recording of this incident on KUOW. I was stunned by how very little time elapsed the the time Officer Birk commanded Williams to drop his "weapon," and the time he pulled the trigger. ...

Posted Fri, Dec 24, 8:44 p.m.

Sharrows are a shameful waste of paint, and no match for actual bike lanes that abound in many European cities including Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Barcelona and several other Spanish cities. Our actual bike lanes (e.g., BGT, Pier 91-Myrtle Edwards) would greatly benefit from high quality reflective paint to mark the center ...

Posted Thu, Dec 23, 3:24 p.m.

The solution is simple: systematically purchase each parcel within Hamilton at fair market value as soon as it is placed on the market by a willing seller, and remove all structures from the purchased parcels. Over time, the entire floodway and flodplain where Hamilton formerly existed will become a nice ...

Posted Thu, Dec 23, 2:56 p.m.

"...a mere $30 billion in military aid?" $30 billion can keep a lot of Palestinians stuffed into misery and poverty. On the other hand, those Palestinians who perpetrate indiscriminate violence by blowing themselves up in public places have no moral legitimacy whatsoever. If I had any influence over this situation, ...

Posted Fri, Dec 3, 8:32 a.m.

In their infinite befuddlement, SDOT plans to hand out free umbrellas in an effort to lure shoppers downtown right after raising the Mayor and Council raised parking rates to the point where shoppers know they can save $$$ by driving to a mall and parking for free. LMAO.

Posted Tue, Nov 23, 11:45 p.m.

Seattle is notorious for not following its own master plans. Just look at the molluscan pace of the Seattle Master Bicycle Plan buildout, or the way in which SHA is hoggishly promoting dense, market rate development plus a homeless shelter in Magnolia on land vacated by the Army. I predict ...

Posted Sun, Nov 21, 4:20 p.m.

Well said, orino. Seattle is certainly the polar opposite of BCN, where people dance and let their dogs run loose on the ramblas. In spite of our passive-agression mindset, we will also never be more than a Singapore wannabe. But at least we can rightfully claim to be the Pothole ...

Posted Fri, Nov 19, 12:01 p.m.

lorenbliss has pretty much nailed it, but I disagree that this particular form of oligarchical business-oriented fascism has no human precedent. Franco pulled it off in Spain, where decades of economic fascism left the economy in a shambles and more recent examples abound in Latin America. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_fascism In "The Shock ...

Posted Thu, Nov 11, 1:41 p.m.

Obama has already caved to the Republican party and doomed himself to be a one-term president presiding over W's third term. I hope and pray that a large number of Dems run against him in the 2012 primary.

Posted Sat, Oct 30, 8:11 a.m.

Saving $6 million is a drop in the bucket compared to the lavish waste exemplified by blowing $300,000,000 to improve the visual appearance of 6 blocks of Mercer Street and $45,000,000 on a fish hatchery on the Cedar River. I doubt Seattle government will seriously focus on basic necessities like ...

Posted Fri, Oct 22, 5:53 p.m.

Bleak is the exact word that occurred to me too when I first saw the finished product. Years if not decades in the making, Lake Union park is a big turnoff, unless you're a fan of redundant concrete sidewalks... However, I do have to admit that Lake Union Park has ...

Posted Fri, Oct 22, 5:49 p.m.

Thanks for this very complementary article about similarities and differences biking here vs. Amsterdam. I agree with most of the assertions in this article, but after a recent trip to Europe I feel that our bike infrastructure is meager compared to that of many European cities (Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Barcelona, etc.) ...

Posted Sun, Sep 19, 9:49 a.m.

The City of Seattle decided what they wanted a long time ago, and designated a "citizen panel" to slavishly pimp Wright Runstad's moneymaking proposal. Next up: the Mayor's and Council's ratification of the forking over this small bit of public land to the private sector. Heaven forbid that the City ...

Posted Mon, Sep 13, 10:17 a.m.

This is an excellent article. Unfortunately, rebuilding America´s decrepit infrastructure is much less sexy to the Obama administration than bailing out the banks.

Posted Mon, Aug 30, 6:12 a.m.

Sorry, I meant "bang for the buck."

Posted Mon, Aug 30, 5:06 a.m.

I will never again vote for a Seattle Parks levy after the way people in my neighborhood were jerked around by Parks during and following efforts to get a dog off leash area established in a neighborhood park. After a massive public involvement process that that went on for YEARS, ...

Posted Tue, Aug 24, 12:44 p.m.

Actually, it would be a good start if Seattle actually emulated Eugene and Portland. SDOT doesn´t even do that much, let alone do what actual bonafide world class cities do with bike infrastructure. In addition to Manhatten, we should be getting clues from Amsterdam, Copenhagen and Barcelona, but instead all ...

Posted Fri, Aug 13, 6:50 a.m.

I would say "yes" in a heartbeat to a special taxing district for the Seattle Public Library, which makes excellent use of the funding it receives, and provides valuable services that I use on a daily basis. No freaking way will I ever vote for a special taxing district for ...

Posted Thu, Aug 12, 6:34 a.m.

The federal government--namely the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers--also claims that hosing all the native vegetation from thousands of miles of federal levees is not likely to adversely affect ESA species, including salmon. The federal government--namely the National Marine Fisheries Service and the US Fish and Wildlife Service, which are ...

Posted Mon, Aug 9, 7:19 a.m.

Welcome to Seattle, the city with green intentions, Houston of the North. LMAO, a hick town at the end of the road.

Posted Fri, Jul 30, 8:30 a.m.

"...rushing the process..."??? What are you talking about jmrolls? It's been 9-1/2 YEARS since the Nisqually earthquake, which triggered the need to remove viaduct, which has greatly exceeded its design life. It isn't just "downtown special interests" who favor the tunnel. It's ordinary people who are concerned about the devastating ...

Posted Mon, Jul 26, 8:54 p.m.

mhays has exactly nailed it. I hope the Council will stick to their guns and somehow manage to facilitate construction of the tunnel, but given the Seattle metro area's propensity for hand-wringing, I fear that the state will simply disassemble the viaduct and stick us with the ludicrous surface "option" ...

Posted Fri, Jul 23, 10:45 a.m.

Given that we Americans spend over 60% of the federal budget on armies, weapony, military pass-throughs to other countries and covert ops, this viaduct vs. social services spending debate is like two bald men fighting over a comb. No other advanced nation starves itself of infrastructure, health care, education and ...

Posted Fri, Jul 23, 10:14 a.m.

Seafirst used to have a beautiful art museum in what is now Seattle's office building at 700 5th Avenue. That went the way of the dodo when BOFA gobbled up Seafirst. BOFA's removal the last bits of its corporate art from the local landscape is akin to Chase's cancellation of ...

Posted Wed, Jul 21, 7:56 a.m.

Who does McKenna represent? Why, himself, of course. He's Ellen Craswell in a suit, posturing and preening to score points with extreme wing-nuts in his future race to become governor. As far as he is concerned, state agencies, not to mention average Washingtonians, can be brushed off like dead flies.

Posted Sun, Jul 18, 12:56 p.m.

Just because a site is eligible for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places doesn't mean it should be included on the register, nor does it mean that the site's existence can't be commemorated in ways other than physical preservation. As mentioned in this article, options include signage, a ...

Posted Wed, Jul 7, 2:41 p.m.

Local streets are chock full of potholes and there's a nine year backlog to fix them. In contrast, the $300,000,000 project to do over 6 blocks of Mercer Street is right on track. This is just one of the many reasons Seattle is The City That Doesn't Work.

Posted Thu, Jun 17, 8:04 p.m.

I thought it was just me, but now I can see that many other folks are turned off by KCTS' relentless fund-raising drives. Public broadcasting fundraising (and in the case of KCTS, getting out of debt) is a necessary evil, but KCTS has gone overboard. In the past couple of ...

Posted Fri, May 28, 11:57 a.m.

As reported here... http://www.seattlepi.com/local/231282_energyuse05.html ...back in 2005 The Stranger broke the news that Seattle's new City Hall was an energy hog compared to the old City Hall. Is this still the case? Time to 'fess up, Council Member Godden.

Posted Wed, May 26, 8:01 p.m.

Excellent post, serial_catowner Continued footdragging on the Snake River dams issue by NMFS (a.k.a. "not much fish science") exemplifies why increasing numbers of people are calling the President "George W. Obama." He promotes revitalization of the nuclear energy industry, touts "clean" coal, and until BP's little boo-boo in the Gulf ...

Posted Mon, May 24, 5:27 p.m.

In addition to lack of significant park space, the downtown core also lacks schools and supermarkets. City planners seem to regard everything from Belltown to Pioneer Square as a cash cow, and not much else. That's why they wish the homeless people would just go away. The brazen, boosterish way ...

Posted Thu, May 20, 9:43 p.m.

The City of Seattle has slashed library hours, raised street parking fees and removed trash cans from parks in an effort to reduce spending and plug city's looming budget gap. Nonetheless, the city has money to burn on a new sockeye salmon hatchery on the Cedar River. The cost of ...

Posted Thu, May 20, 8:07 p.m.

In contrast to Australia, huge numbers of people in the US are content to let retail banks keep right on screwing them, and won't be content until every last public sector employee has been RIFed, had their salary slashed and/or deprived of their "gold plated health care benefits" and pensions. ...

Posted Thu, May 20, 7:57 p.m.

I also want to second smacgry's comments about electric bikes. They can be an excellent way to ease back into biking for people who are older or out of shape. They basically make hills and headwinds go away, and can be a timesaver, depending on your route. I once got ...

Posted Fri, May 7, 7:23 p.m.

I like the idea of closing the Viaduct for safety reasons and turning over all of SR-99 within the city limits over to SDOT. That would lead to endless Manhattan-style gridlock on McGinn's watch.

Posted Thu, May 6, 2:27 p.m.

I would love to see more revivalist architecture in Pioneer Square, but regardless of what gets built, it's going to have to withstand the devastating impacts of sea level rise in the not too distant future: http://horsesass.org/?p=3449 Developers are salivating to build highrises on the Qwest Field north parking lot, ...

Posted Wed, Apr 28, 10:10 a.m.

"…given that this was the first vetting of something different from the master plan, that has had no other public vetting ... they didn't read about it in the paper or hear about it from legislation, we made a good start." This is Newspeak for "You Seattle park users are ...

Posted Fri, Apr 16, 10:06 a.m.

This is a wonderful and worthy vision, and it's nice to notice that World Vision, an organization often associated with over-the-top efforts to convert the people it tries to help to Christianity, is gaining clues that economic prosperity, public health and even basic sanity are closely related to environmental health. ...

Posted Fri, Apr 16, 9:52 a.m.

"No worries" is an Australian expression, meaning "do not worry about that", "that's alright", or "sure thing". "No worries" has been widely used in Australian speech for at least the past 20 years and represents a feeling of friendliness, good humor, optimism and "mateship" in Australian culture. The American expression ...

Posted Fri, Apr 16, 12:25 a.m.

How about instead of building a bunch more community centers we offload scaps of public land to people like Wright-Runstad and Dale Chihuly to build glittering new commercial galleries where starry-eyed tourists can pay $15 a head to look a big crazy globs of garishly-colored squiggly glass? Wouldn't that be ...

Posted Fri, Apr 16, 12:16 a.m.

Killinger is a sociopath in an industry riddled with sociopaths. Sadly, thanks to deregulation, what he did was all perfectly legal, so there will be no Enron-like "do not pass go, do not collect $200" for shareholders, and no "go to jail" outcome for the perps of this financial mess.

Posted Tue, Feb 2, 10:22 p.m.

LOVED, LOVED, LOVED this piece and the amazing film. Thanks, Knute!

Posted Tue, Jan 26, 10:24 a.m.

Most of us got excellent public educations because our parents paid school levies. Now it's payback time. I voted "YES" on both initiatives and mailed in my ballot.

Posted Fri, Dec 4, 3:59 p.m.

Good riddance! She will be a perfect fit for Clackamas County, which isn't exactly a haven for cyclists or environmentalists.

Posted Tue, Nov 24, 8:48 a.m.

The example of expansive, process-based restoration of the mouth of the mouth of the Nisqually River is very heartening to people who have watched much of the rest of the Puget Sound shoreline be devoured by an array of harsh land uses, including vast areas of public land that have ...

Posted Mon, Nov 23, 11:35 p.m.

Are you a newcomer, Joshuadf? Powells started as a dusty, musty exclusively USED bookstore in downtown Portland. In my minds eye I can still see (and smell) Old Man Powell clenching a stumpy cigar in his teeth while shuffling through his jumbled store looking for a book my mother my ...

Posted Thu, Nov 12, 7:41 p.m.

Excellent post, ddmiller.

Posted Thu, Nov 12, 7:59 a.m.

"Whatcom County assessed its valuation for tax purposes at $13,336,000. Those values assume a compliant city government will permit the high-density development." In accordance with logic, the land under my own house in Seattle could be valued at just about anything because someday (over my literally dead body) my house ...

Posted Wed, Nov 4, 2:31 p.m.

This grimly fascinating article illustrates how an unlikely federal agency, FERC, in some cases provides more substantive protection for salmon than NOAA Fisheries and the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the agencies ostensibly responsible for enforcing the Endangered Species Act. As the author points out, without management of water over-allocations, ...

Posted Sun, Nov 1, 8:33 p.m.

Boeing is saving $9,000,000 per year to move to a place where in September 1989, Hurricane Hugo, a category 5 storm, hammered the City of Charleston and nearby areas, causing $5.9 billion in property damage, leaving 50,000 people homeless and dozens of people dead. In recent decades, Hugo has been ...

Posted Fri, Oct 30, 6:18 a.m.

I so very much want to vote for the Seattle housing levy, but am unable to do so because of SHA's outrageous goal of developing a mix of housing types in the recently vacated portion of Fort Laughton that includes MARKET RATE SINGLE FAMILY HOUSING. In Magnolia, that means houses ...

Posted Tue, Oct 27, 8:24 a.m.

These new street signs are brown to underscore the fact that in spite of much rhetoric to the contrary by local politicians, Seattle is NOT a green city. BTW, SDOT's failure to return the reporter's phone call is emblematic of Seattle government's lack of accountability to its citizens. To them, ...

Posted Tue, Oct 20, 9:30 a.m.

How can anyone assert with a straight face that a $4 or $5 billion tunnel is a "boondoggle," when this amount is mere chump change compared to the $1 trillion so far on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? It's time we stopped shovelling grotesque amounts of money into the ...

Posted Mon, Oct 12, 1:38 p.m.

Here's some scary breaking news: A study by climate scientists at the University of Arizona finds CO2 levels similar to those now commonly regarded as adequate to tackle climate change were associated with temperatures about 3-6C (5-11F) higher, and sea levels 25-40m (80-130 ft) higher than today. Check it out ...

Posted Mon, Oct 12, 10:47 a.m.

It's funny how we could manage to build thousands of unoccupied, unaffordable, unsalable condos in Seattle in the past couple of years but couldn't manage to save these historic buildings.

Posted Fri, Oct 9, 3:35 p.m.

Building Howard Hanson Dam on a 10,000 year old landslide tailout was flat out bad engineering, not the result of "the Seattle Way" or anything like it. The engineers in charge of that project knew the area under the right abutment was geologically unstable, but they felt--oh well, let's not ...

Posted Thu, Oct 1, 8:46 a.m.

The flood threat facing the Green River valley cities is only the latest and most spectacular of many examples--the list would include North Bend, Snoqualmie, Carnation and Chehalis--of the Growth Management Act's schizophrenic mandate to identify critical areas including floodplains and grow, grow, grow your boat in spite of these ...

Posted Thu, Oct 1, 7:17 a.m.

Thanks for pointing out that Lord Mayor Greg Nickels isn’t quite the same species of lame duck as Triplett. I checked him out using binoculars and based on various field marks (agressively up-tilted chin, enormously bloated ego) and his call, which sounds like "I'm green--I'm green," definitively identified him as ...

Posted Mon, Sep 28, 1:15 p.m.

As recently as the late 1980s, the only sea level rise scenario available was one published by US EPA. Their high-end (maximum) scenario was 12 feet of sea level rise by 2100. Thereafter, that model was swamped by the IPCC's sea level rise scenarios, which are much less drastic. Each ...

Posted Wed, Sep 23, 7:10 p.m.

Although the tram from the Willamette River to Pill Hill was controversial, at no point was it MIRED in controversy. Compared with the glacial pace that public infrastruction gets built in Seattle, Portland's tram was constructed with breathtaking speed. If tram construction were proposed anywhere in Seattle, the "process" would ...

Posted Wed, Sep 23, 8:35 a.m.

To quote Leonard Cohen, "...wasn't it a long way down, wasn't it a strange way down?" Oh well, unemployed journalists have to eat, and I'm sure that Vulcan is keeping you well fed, Mr. Postman.

Posted Fri, Sep 18, 9:38 a.m.

It's hilarious that McGinn, the ebike rider, wants to light rail to Ballard, Interbay, Queen Anne, Belltown, downtown, West Seattle, and perhaps Fremont. It is possible for cyclists to travel with ease to all of these neighborhoods on their bikes, with the exception of West Seattle, which is a dicey ...

Posted Thu, Sep 17, 10:14 a.m.

Here's another idea. Livabording at marinas is another grand vagabond tradition. Why not rent a couple of these ghost ships and park them in Elliott Bay to house the homeless? http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1212013/Revealed-The-ghost-fleet-recession-anchored-just-east-Singapore.html A little fleet of skiffs could ferry folks back and forth to Coleman Dock, which is within an easy ...

Posted Thu, Sep 17, 10:05 a.m.

Even Walmart lets homeless people (not to mention bona fide RV-ers) park overnight for free in its parking lots nationwide. The fact is, people are parked in their RVs and converted school buses here and there. I notice some, mostly at night on my way home from work because I ...

Posted Thu, Sep 17, 9:54 a.m.

This article describes the boosterish way in which the City of Seattle has promoted a bubble industry—biotechnology—as a Trojan horse in order to extend massive commercial and residential development north from downtown to Lake Union and south from downtown into Pioneer Square and SODO. The Growth Management Act allows local ...

Posted Sat, Sep 12, 11:46 p.m.

I'm afraid that if we did get we get "comprehensive, integrated, whole-cloth change," the entire city would look like downtown Seattle--Manhattan writ small. What has become of Ballard is bad enough. Lex, you are flat out wrong to state that that factional footdragging combined with "poor planning" killed the Monorail. ...

Posted Sat, Sep 12, 10:45 a.m.

James Hansen certainly is a climate change modeler, and among the global community of climate change scientists he is regarded as something of an outlier, even a catastrophist. At least he relies on the most up to date information available. Hansen argues that cap-and-trade is essentially a sham, and states ...

Posted Fri, Sep 11, 9:20 p.m.

McGinn will be a warmer, fuzzier Nickels. How sad is that?

Posted Thu, Sep 10, 11:13 p.m.

Todd Myers is the environmental director of the Washington Policy Center, a think tank whose list of board members form something of an interlocking directorate of pro-development, pro-big business interests. WPC's policy stance include advocacy for a continuation of private market solutions to health care reform, production of a documentary ...

Posted Thu, Sep 10, 10:18 p.m.

Mayor Jowly and his henchwoman Crunican are trying to kick is in the ass on their way out the door. It's wierd how many people scream about Seattle's share the viaduct replacement project cost-->$900,000,000--but don't bat an eyelash over this wretched project, which is basically another piece of booty being ...

Posted Sun, Sep 6, 9:09 a.m.

Good one, Wells. The new Alaskan Way wide plaza will become a makeshift parking lot and driveway just like the chunk of the old Interurban right-of-way along Westlake, which is nothing more than a parking lot and a sidewalk for local businesses. SDOT hasn't even pretended that bikes should use ...

Posted Thu, Sep 3, 6:35 p.m.

I agree with all the points in this article. Sharerows are a joke, and in many locations the paint used to create them is already starting to fade. In an everage week I ride at least 60 miles on various trails and streets. It is profoundly depressing to know that ...

Posted Mon, Aug 31, 5:23 p.m.

I hate to break it to you, Sierra-Girl, but Myrtle Edwards and Pier 91 Parks were created more than 20 years ago, long before Mayor Jowly took office. The Bremerton waterfront revitalization may only be a few blocks long, but it is a haven of peace and quiet and includes ...

Posted Mon, Aug 31, 9:05 a.m.

To enrich and beautify the city by redeveloping its waterfront for all to enjoy? WTF??? Let's review how the central waterfront has been transformed during Mayor Jowly's watch. The waterfront remains blighted by condo development that got going under Mayor Schell, who was an architect/developer before and after he served ...

Posted Fri, Aug 28, 9:02 a.m.

NOAA contains a branch called "NOAA Fisheries," which theoretically implements ESA mandates to protect salmonid habitat. Protecting and, where possible, restoring wetlands, rivers and floodplains is thought to benefit salmonid habitat. In typical "right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing" fashion, the oceanic research branch of NOAA ...

Posted Thu, Aug 27, 8:19 p.m.

The data in this report show a disconnect between our stated goals of creating and sustaining cologically and economically sustainable communities and the extent to which we are actually achieving these goals. The following provide some interesting food for thought on why this is the case and the long term ...

Posted Tue, Aug 25, 8 a.m.

Seattle: a tax system encouraging investment and economic growth--partial credit for moderate tax subsidies; honest and efficient government (partial credit for the honesty part); a modern transportation system (partial credit for WSDOT's recent projects to increase capacity and the decades-belated liftoff of light rail; gridlock is temporarily dampened by the ...

Posted Tue, Aug 25, 7:39 a.m.

Here's a link to a review of an eye-opening, beautifully nuanced film that illustrates some of the themes mentioned in this article: http://movies.nytimes.com/2008/05/21/movies/21heav.html

Posted Tue, Aug 25, 7:30 a.m.

Nickels' natural agenda was fixing stony playgrounds? Mr. Brewster, you have GOT to be kidding! Nickels natural agenda was ordering neighborhoods to "assume the position." His adoption of green rhetoric was akin to Bush's adoption of evangelical Christianity: popular with voters but shamelessly sideways with the way they actually rolled. ...

Posted Fri, Aug 21, 8:18 a.m.

Can we really afford the bored-tunnel project? Yes we can, if we forgo luxury projects such as the $500,000,000 total makeover of SLU, about half of which will be aimed a gussying up 6 blocks of Mercer Street. makeover. SLU is Paul Allen's sandbox, so let him pay for all ...

Posted Wed, Aug 19, 12:01 p.m.

We also rejected the Seattle Commons. It could have been a 42 acre park in SLU. Instead what we have to show for ourselves are the SLUT, Paul Allen's cute toy train to nowhere, the prospect of a solid phalanx of 40+ story towers that will add to our glut ...

Posted Wed, Aug 19, 11:44 a.m.

More Nickels "greenwash:" Trashing wetlands in the headwaters of Hamm Creek (which had benefited from years of expensive habitat restoration projects downstream) at SFD's new Fire Training Center on Meyers Way. After committing to a $4 million fix for the damage after being cited by the Army Corps of Engineers ...

Posted Mon, Aug 17, 8:01 p.m.

"NMFS consultation letter did not address these Brennan study data showing significant Chinook presence in the Vashon/Maury near-shore areas well past mid-summer and into the fall. Instead, the Service adopted the conclusion . . that juvenile Chinook would be 'minimally present' during the work period beginning August 15." That's why ...

Posted Mon, Aug 17, 7:36 p.m.

I agree with smacgry's questioning why we even have for-profit health insurance companies in this country. The obscenely profitable doctor-owned hospitals and high tech diagnostic clinics described in Atul Gawande's riveting article in the New Yorker awhile back are even more disgusting. In case you missed it, you can read ...

Posted Tue, Aug 11, 7:36 p.m.

In spite of the current economic downturn, Seattle's penchant for overbuilding continues strangely unabated, apparently in the expection that economic recovery is right around the corner. What if it is not? What if the good paying jobs that used to be plentiful here don't come back? What if the economic ...

Posted Tue, Aug 11, 10:48 a.m.

Do we have infrastructure that meets Growth Management Act tests for concurrency? No, but we do have Paul Allen's cute little vanity train, and a $500,000,000 SLU makeover project underway (roughly half of which will be spent to beautify 6 blocks of Mercer Street) funded by the kind and generous ...

Posted Tue, Jul 28, 2:55 p.m.

Garden houses have existed for decades in countless communities in California. I had friends in the 60s living in these units in Berkeley, and I have also seen them in Oakland and Santa Cruz. It's wierd that the City of Seattle is so skittish about approving these, but has had ...

Posted Tue, Jul 28, 2:42 p.m.

If the St. Charles River were in the United States its banks would be a rock-covered lunar landscape just like the Green River levees in Auburn, Kent and Tukwila that the Army Corps of Engineers "repaired" last year. Although the Corps supposedly planted these project sites with vegetation, scarcely a ...

Posted Tue, Jul 21, 8:50 a.m.

Absolutely brilliant! This article explains many of the reasons why in spite of ways in which our "leaders" try to tout Seattle as being as "green," "vibrant," etc., it is instead in many ways just a hick town on steroids.

Posted Wed, Jul 15, 6:11 p.m.

Thank you Daniel Jack Chasan and Crosscut for posting this superb article on the Kafka-esque wringer USFWS, BLM, EPA and the Washington Department of Ecology have put the Icicle Creek Watershed Council and the Washington Wild Fish Conservance through for over a decade. Thank you Harriet Bullet, Icicle Creek Watershed ...

Posted Wed, Jun 24, 5:30 p.m.

Greg Nickels is George Bush. Tim Ceis is Carl Rove. It's as simple as that.

Posted Wed, Jun 24, 5:28 p.m.

As much as I love the idea of Washington's shorelines becoming National Maritime Heritage Areas, I don't see how this can possibly be anything more than a mere "look, but don't touch" verbal designation given that 10s of thousands of miles of shorelines are privately owned and totally inaccessible to ...

Posted Sun, May 3, 8:53 p.m.

mhays, you are correct. POS' HQ is indeed at Pier 69. Re the cruise ship thing, certainly each cruise ship docking triggers a "kaching," but it can hardly be claimed that POS has its act together in terms of providing a dependable facility for cruise ships, which seem to get ...

Posted Sun, May 3, 9:07 a.m.

The Pork of Seattle has been a real world class leader all right. I especially like the imaginative way in which the Pork symbolized Pacific Rim trade and Seattle as the Geneva of the Pacific by erecting its Japanese-themed "World Trade Center" on the east side of Alaskan Way. I ...

Posted Sun, Apr 12, 9:54 a.m.

The O's website has sucked from the beginning. Why don't they fix it????? I hope Portland's citizens will do whatever it takes to prevent the sad fate of the Seattle PI, which blinked out a few weeks ago, leaving daily journalism in Seattle in the the wing nut grip of ...

Posted Sun, Apr 12, 9:27 a.m.

How about Brian Sonntag for Mayor!!! If elected, he would end Seattle's "Move along folks, there's nothing to see here" culture.

Posted Sun, Apr 12, 9:09 a.m.

Why is Mayor Jowly wedded to the status quo? Good question. I think he and city council are disconnected from the fundamental reality that Seattle is facing a large--$43,000,000--budget gap that is likely to grow as the recession drags on. This hasn't stopped them from forging ahead with wasteful projects ...

Posted Fri, Mar 27, 11:01 a.m.

Stands of these trees are ecological deserts, with no understory, and bare ground underneath that is kept weed free by tilling (or....use of herbicides???). They are often planted in environmental sensitive areas including floodplains that have higher social value for production of locally grown produce or for salmon recovery oriented ...