Posted Wed, Oct 20, 12:32 p.m.

The bulk of government expense is in salary and benefits for those who work in government. This compensation is what needs to be attacked. We're paying high salaries and providing significant benefits to just about everyone who shows up to work in government creating a top-heavy bureaucracy. There are a ...

Posted Fri, Oct 15, 8:56 p.m.

Hey Taupe, I've read WAY too many books on business and economics. And have read too many Wall Street Journals and Economics mags not to have absorbed some inkling of what business is all about. I know how capitalism works pretty well. I've made lots of money working in high ...

Posted Fri, Oct 15, 12:55 p.m.

Does ANYONE have a plan that addresses improving and funding our education system? The Gates Senior plan seems to be a rational one that addresses inequities and regressivity in the existing system and taxes those who benefit most from our society and also those who most likely have benefited from ...

Posted Mon, May 24, 12:16 p.m.

Good idea on dehumidifying the balls. And we miss Branyan. Sure he had a bad back, but that's exactly what the M's seem to be looking for: older players who can hit home runs, but have bad backs and thus lower price tags. He had 31 homers in 116 games. ...

Posted Fri, May 14, 5:44 p.m.

Impact fees are a great idea for new development. As pointed out, they're not much use in addressing existing needs, which is where the real challenge is: How do you properly collect revenue for operation and maintenance of public commons such as parks? In general, parks almost always get shafted ...

Posted Thu, May 13, 9:50 a.m.

It's really, really, really, really simple. How about Metro charging enough at the farebox to cover its costs? And to provide a social safety net for lower income folks, allocate money from appropriate social services budgets rather than having Metro act as a social service agency. And to go really ...

Posted Wed, May 12, 12:42 p.m.

Solutions are obvious, but they require the powers-that-be to hoist themselves on their own petards. Most mega-infrastructure projects should be canceled or postponed until they have funding. We don't have the money. Why build a new 520 bridge? If we're going to build it, let's wait until it's fully funded ...

Posted Fri, Apr 16, 4:01 p.m.

Real responsibility and accountability would include using the $113M in compensation he received for his gargantuan irresponsibility to help those whose lives his company ruined. If you think about it, Killinger has probably caused more woe for more people than anyone ever in the State of Washington. In terms of ...

Posted Thu, Apr 8, 5:47 p.m.

A specter is haunting Seattle — the specter of Disneyland. Analogies come and analogies go. Licata's analogy of Disneyland to the Soviet Union goes way past me. The analogy that unfortunately makes more sense and comes to me like a specter is the bureaucratic analogy of the City of Seattle ...

Posted Wed, Mar 24, 12:03 p.m.

As AG, McKenna has taken on important but politically light-weight issues--e.g., who's not against identity theft? With this action he's stepping purposefully into the maelstrom. As many have pointed out, he's apparently taking an extremely conservative, right-wing position on an issue where independents expect and respect moderation. My hunch is ...

Posted Thu, Mar 4, 8:44 p.m.

Balancing the budge while maintaining services demands quite simply cutting the average compensation per state employee to a level that balances the budget. It's really that simple. Start with a graduated 5% reduction in salaries for a 5% reduction overall. Do this by cutting salaries 10% and adding performance bonuses ...

Posted Tue, Feb 2, 4:52 p.m.

In car racing they put limits on engines and wings and other performance drivers so that both safety and competitiveness are achieved. In wrestling they have weight classes for the same reason. No reason not to something similar in the NFL. For example, put an overall limit on the gross ...

Posted Tue, Feb 2, 4:29 p.m.

Labor's very slow in realizing that the economy has been reset and that a lot of their entitlements look a lot like a tub of lard that needs to be melted down to create more useful things. Labor and government are woefully ineffective at managing government and labor productivity. By ...

Posted Wed, Sep 9, 12:35 p.m.

The GMA doesn't protect agriculture, only agricultural land. As a result agriculture is always under siege. What's needed are agricultural subsidies for farmers. There's billions and billions available federally, but little, if any, makes it way to places like the Skagit and Snohomish Valleys. Without subsidies, farming is typically a ...

Posted Wed, Jul 15, 12:23 p.m.

Let 'em leave. Then the people left here can start a new aircraft company with the facilities left behind. New blood and local ownership would go along way towards reviving the fading behemoth. Let's jump start the exit by by eliminating all the blackmail incentives our state gives to the ...

Posted Thu, Jun 4, 10:19 p.m.

I've seen similar feuds, except between farmland and athletic field folks in King County. An unwillingness to compromise or work together characterizes these battles and is typical of any GMA-related fight. The GMA is pretty mushy about how to sort out the different claims upon open space. Because it is ...

Posted Sat, May 23, 3:50 a.m.

Matt, you start with the transportation "facts" of life. But projections and estimates aren't facts. Indeed, the issue should be how to manage population growth towards a particular number rather than how to pay and build for some arbitrary forecasted 25-year growth number. I've heard the PSRC people discuss their ...

Posted Tue, May 19, 1:04 p.m.

Indexing may be very useful or pretty much useless. Depends on how the index-less records are stored. If they're scanned images with unsearchable text using cryptic file names like ab345jgh.pdf and stored with creation dates that are the same as their archive dates, then they're useless. If the text in ...

Posted Mon, May 4, 11:40 a.m.

Most people just don't understand how ineffective and wasteful and misdirected King County government is. The rewards and incentive system doesn’t advance the interests of the people, but a matrix of salary slots (i.e., MOSS) for thousands of people. So in this respect, Mossback, King Count is the quintessential mossback ...

Posted Thu, Apr 30, 2:37 p.m.

Ballmer is also the guy who listed the state's priorities from the Microsoft point of view as "education, education, education." Somehow, this state has become obsessed with "costly transportation infrastructure, costly transportation infrastructure, costly transportation infrastructure." Sound Transit's Disneyland ride to the airport and the new Alaskan Way tunnel-duct show ...

Posted Mon, Apr 20, 12:23 p.m.

I will propose that our education system has become a mediocrity. The UW is mainly a research institution, the K12 system has been sliding downhill for decades, and the teachers' union remains unaccountable for educational outcomes and stymies experimentation and pay for performance in the schools. Basic education has become ...

Posted Mon, Apr 20, 12:07 p.m.

Even as a supporter of a state income tax and more health care I'm not in favor of a tax increase. The governor seems to believe that state union employees are an elite who, unlike the rest of the workers in the state, deserve salary increases and over-the-top health benefits. ...

Posted Tue, Mar 24, 7:09 p.m.

Sounders FC have risen out of the primordial slime of minor league sports to occupy the place left in our memories by the Sonics and our moribund Mariners. The first game was an exciting victory in a packed Qwest stadium of 32,523 fans (albeit without the upper deck). The skill ...

Posted Mon, Mar 23, 4:57 p.m.

A simple Cut, Hold, Target and Change Plan: 1. Don't Cut Jobs, Cut Salaries & Benefits. Let's immediately cut salaries and benefit packages across the board. Each union would have the opportunity to decide the ratio of salary cuts to benefit cuts. It's preferable to have everyone paid less, than ...

Posted Tue, Mar 17, 10:36 p.m.

Before the government came along and bailed the AIG bozos out (and I use that term to avoid stronger language), all those bonuses that were legally valid were unpayable because of the $160 billion prior claim of customers. So in essence AIG was $160 billion short in being able to ...

Posted Tue, Mar 17, 5:06 p.m.

A spectre is haunting the news business--the spectre of Marxism... I once worked proofreading want ads at the Seattle Times. Salespeople would take the ads over the phone, type them up on IBM Selectrics, and place them on a conveyor belt where they would be tumble down in a heap ...

Posted Thu, Mar 12, 3:47 p.m.

Three simple ways to control the spending and the budget: 1. Immediately cut payroll & benefits across the board to balance the budget. This way we RETAIN JOBS, PREVENT FORECLOSURES, and SHARE THE BURDEN. If unions insist on bankrupting government, then let them know that future cuts will be even ...

Posted Fri, Feb 13, 11:55 a.m.

This is bubble thinking and is likely to lead to another dot com-like bubble. Much better would be taxing capital gains at a 10% greater rate than the rate of people who do real work for a living. If businesses have merit and sound business models they will earn as ...

Posted Fri, Feb 6, 2:57 p.m.

Interesting article. The word "suburb" brings with it class-warfare baggage and an outdated view of a single, Emerald City sitting in the center of things, with suburbs sprawling outward endlessly. Seattle and the urban cities are all working to achieve concentrated urban cores that include (1) sustainable business and (2) ...

Posted Wed, Jan 28, 12:32 p.m.

The trend toward transportation infrastructure becoming a public utility ala water and electricity is a good one. Charging users for what we build and maintain makes intuitive sense. The technology will eventually be there to make this all happen, albeit with privacy concerns. The alternative is transportation via political concensus, ...

Posted Tue, Jan 27, 2:03 p.m.

A non-profit or L3C model may keep a newspaper from collapsing, but it's unlikely to stem the tide that has been receding at an ever increasing rate from the traditional advertising-based newspaper business model. A non-profit solution is a rearranging-the-deck-chairs solution, when a re-engineering the news ship solution is required, ...

Posted Mon, Jan 12, 10:54 p.m.

Only the nimble will survive. Here are some of the transitions that are occurring: Demographic: more online savvy, less bound to print. Old paper readers will die off. New online only kids will want everything online -- Xbox, TV, iPod, phone -- they don't care. But you won't catch them ...

Posted Tue, Nov 18, 12:41 p.m.

Without knowing the how the financial innards of Crosscut are digesting and consuming income, I've got to say that my own gut says that moving to a non-profit model is a mistake. Indeed, my hunch -- given the dismal financial reality of print-based news organizations such as the Seattle Times ...

Posted Wed, Oct 22, 12:40 p.m.

|//We're at about 9 cents on the dollar without Sound Move. With Prop 1 we'll |be about 10 cents on the dollar, depending on which local taxing district |you're in. // So suddenly ST2 is a 0.1% sales tax? Where'd you get that new |info? Did they change the proposition ...

Posted Tue, Oct 21, 10:29 a.m.

A vote against Prop 1 is--more-or-less--a 10% reduction reduction in our sales tax. We'd avoid the nickel increase, and someday Sound Move will remove most of the the current four cents when the cows start flying, pigs have wings and phase one is complete. We're at about 9 cents on ...

Posted Mon, Sep 29, 12:18 p.m.

RE: Add Up the Tax Burden, Current and Proposed!: Will you happily pay $250, $350, $500, $1000 a year for light rail, as the project doubles in length, the costs triple, debt service dwarfs those costs, and by the way, you and your family never never use the thing, and ...

Posted Fri, Sep 5, 12:27 p.m.

She's the Britney Spears of VPs: Apparently Republicans love to watch her, just like they love to watch Briteny. Like Bush, Palin has been selected from the dregs of the Republican bottle of competence. She's part of the proud Republican tradition of incompetent leaders who don't know how to govern ...

Posted Thu, Sep 4, 5:41 p.m.

Palin and the Reformation of the Republican Party: Martin Luther nailed his 99 theses on the door of the church when he became disgusted with the Catholic church. The result was the Reformation. Palin has (unwittingly I believe) done the same thing with the Republican Party. She's already exposed the ...

Posted Mon, Aug 25, 10:39 a.m.

Good analysis: I appreciate the insight on this critical legal terrain.

Posted Wed, Aug 13, 1:40 p.m.

How to Value Trees and Hug Them Too: Trees have Value, They grow on Valuable land. Trees sometimes obstruct Valuable Views. Trees fix carbon, so help to fix global warming and help to preserve a Valuable planet. Sometime trees are burned to create Valuable heat and Valuable energy, thus adding ...

Posted Mon, Aug 11, 6:13 p.m.

RE: The tax hike is permanent: We've seen how, when push comes to shove, the taxes don't end, and so-called promises turn into mush. Unfortunately, that's the institutional nature of a go-slow, make-work agency like Sound Transit, which has incentives primarily to perpetuate it's bureaucratic existence, and to offer up ...

Posted Mon, Jul 28, 10:41 a.m.

1950s Democrats with a 1950s Tax Structure Trying to Fleece the 2008 Obama Voter: You've hit the problem on the head. This is the big point against ST2: the practically criminal and unaccountable taxation of people who won't use the thing. Who's going to benefit? Mainly Republican property owners, rich ...

Posted Tue, Jul 22, 2:45 p.m.

Obama and the Sound Transit Tax Cow: As an Obama supporter I audaciously hope that local, regional, and state government will make wise investments in our transportation infrastructure. This requires coordinated leadership. What we have now in terms of governance and leadership guarantees enormous waste and irrational poiltical decisionmaking across ...

Posted Thu, Jul 17, 3:04 p.m.

RE: Assumptions: "Funding is so conservative it's not even funny." There should be little doubt that Sound Transit will spend every penny it collects. Given ST's unfunny Pollyannaesque track record, it's grossly irresponsible not to be horribly conservative. Anyone can finesse and deliver on interim milestones. ST has still yet ...

Posted Mon, Jul 7, 7:42 p.m.

A-to-Z Rod: A-Rod is a hero to many, but you gotta admit it'd be hard to B-Rod. You C-Rod is a hard name to deal with. You're running on all cylinders, and then suddenly you're D-Rodded by the press. Your image is electronically propogated across the country, making you E-Rod. ...

Posted Mon, Jul 7, 2:31 p.m.

The Pigs at the Trough Tax: I like my pork organic and free-range rather than warehouse produced in government pig pens. Here's a review of each of the potential trough residents named in David's article: Husky stadium renovation. The UW refused to allow Paul Allen to upgrade Husky stadium so ...

Posted Mon, Jul 7, 12:01 p.m.

Sustainable Soccer: Soccer is in competition with other pro sports. The competition in the media is the hardest nut to crack: exhibit A is Knute's past ban on soccer coverage; exhibit B is the voluminous coverage of recent dismal Husky football, Mariner baseball, and Sonics basketball teams. If the quality ...

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

Truth and Truthfulness: Bernard Williams wrote "Truth & Truthfulness," in which he analyzes accuracy as an attribute of a truthful message, and sincerity as the attribute of a truthful messenger. An anonymous messenger or pseudonymous messenger is not necessarily any less sincere or any less accurate than one with a ...

Posted Fri, May 23, 9:34 p.m.

No Matter Where He Turns, McCain will Ride Bush's Coattails Through The Mud: I agree that the few remaining Republicans have little better to do than rally around McCain. Everyone else is an independent, a Democrat or the member of some other modestly sane and rational party. George Bush has ...

Posted Mon, Apr 28, 8:07 p.m.

The Generalized Metastasized Seattle Process: It's gotten much worse since Royer was Mayor. The Balkanization of governance structures has itself become sub-Balkanized so that there are so many taxing districts overlaid by so many levels of law that there's essentially a power vacuum everywhere. The processed has metastasized like a ...

Posted Fri, Apr 25, 4:56 p.m.

RE: AND THIS IS BETTER THAN A GAS TAX BECAUSE...: Three forces are at work against using the gas tax as the only funding source for roads and bridges. First, improved gas mileage in cars (a goal of everyone's) means that we'll collect less money per mile driven as aggregate ...

Posted Thu, Apr 24, 3:46 p.m.

Competitive Comparison: The diversity of governance units (GU), in an open society, should give rise to competition and merger and acquisition, government style. If we had a clearinghouse for the effectiveness of all these GUs, we could compare the various school districts, water disctricts, library districts, feng shui districts, and ...

Posted Thu, Apr 24, 12:52 a.m.

Pike Place Bruise: Bad Faith Worst Efforts (part 2 of 2): Now Clay Bennent may not be George Washington's gift to truth-tellers, but the legal merits of the case will rest on the "good faith best efforts" language. In lot of ways, Bennent can claim "best efforts." Unfortunately for Bennent, ...

Posted Thu, Apr 24, 12:47 a.m.

Pike Place Bruise: Bad Faith Worst Efforts (part 1 of 2): David, having followed this pretty closely for a while, it's pretty obvious that the strategy you outline is exactly what Bennent had in mind, i.e., flip or move. In the flip scenario, he "in good faith" procures an arena, ...

Posted Sun, Apr 13, 10:08 p.m.

RE: Privacy: I agree that it's possible, by design, to get privacy right and to protect it. I also agree that implementing effective user fee systems is the key to creating a road system and ultimately a transportation system that is financially self-sustaining. Our current transportation finance system is broken, ...

Posted Fri, Apr 4, 9 p.m.

Earth to Arts Folks on Capitol Hill: There's an affordable housing crisis in this area! Subsidizing studios means displacing individuals and families. If people in the Arts Overlay District want to pay to subsidize artists in the Arts Overlay District, then I'm all for it. If instead, we're talking about ...

Posted Thu, Apr 3, 3:47 p.m.

RE: why the smear about john mccain?: Smear? The reference is to McCain's statement that it would be fine with him if we were in Iraq for 100 years, or even a million years, if our troops weren't dying and we were ensuring a stable Iraq. So mossback's reference isn't ...

Posted Thu, Apr 3, 3:01 p.m.

Sutpid Money and the KeyArena Yard Sale Emporium: How did the City of Seattle get in this mess? First it upgraded the old KeyArena at the behest of what was once a first-class NBA team named the Seattle Supersonics. The co-venture turned into failure because the corporate rich-folk boxes were ...

Posted Mon, Mar 31, 11:35 p.m.

Wolves in Sheep's Clothing: Fifty percent of all the land in King County is owned by government or land trusts. So there's plenty of land. The problem is zoning, growth management, permitting, and regulation which jack up costs due to scarcity (supply and demand), delay (time is money), and permitting ...

Posted Mon, Mar 31, 1:57 p.m.

The Tax "Concession" Stand: Let's see, next time I go watch a Mariner game, I'll see if I can get a hot dog, a coke, and a one billion dollar tax concession for my industry of choice. I promise to stay in the state and spend my hard-earned money. Tax ...

Posted Mon, Mar 10, 2:57 p.m.

RE: This One is Easy - Cut The Deal: As much as I whine about the NBA, David Stern, the Okies and giving away public money in my previous post, I mainly agree with you that net-net (after you factor out the false promises and the hyped up economic benefits) ...

Posted Fri, Mar 7, 5:27 p.m.

Blackmail, Appeasement and Thought Experiments: From a government perspective, this is a bad, sulfurous deal. There simply is no justification for government dumping $150M dollars into a speculative, unneeded, rat-hole convention center. $150M would be much better spent and invested in our schools. Or not spent at all. The economic ...

Posted Sat, Mar 1, 2:51 p.m.

Unions, Developers, Sales Tax, Mercer Islanders: David, you're raising the sort of ideas finally starts to make sense for financing our transportation infrastructure. Looking at how others do it, or intend to do it, is much more productive than trotting out the same starved sales-tax nags to run against the ...

Posted Sat, Feb 9, 11:55 p.m.

Some cutting and circuitous circumcision comments...: A few considerations not addressed above: 1. In the old old olden days, circumcision was used to prove one's allegiance to certain ways of thinking. It was physical proof positive -- the equivalent of DNA testing in today's world. Years ago I purposely chose ...

Posted Sat, Feb 9, 5:40 p.m.

Spitting in the Ocean: I don't understand what we'll be getting for the money. Apparently, the Sound looks great, but inside things are bad. By the way, the Sound is a huge, huge body of water, so it's hard to believe that we're really capable of destroying the place. Years ...

Posted Thu, Feb 7, 2:01 a.m.

Coyote Suffrage: Greg's piece is a great and hopefully seminal coyote tract. The truth--self evident to to some of us more political coyotes--is that we ought to be granted voting rights. We are indigenous, sentient, living creatures with inalienable animal rights capable of relentless hard work and group bonding, not ...

Posted Sat, Feb 2, 6:20 p.m.

RE: Good deal!: Good point about the wheat, because a lot of wheat has left the company, leaving, you guessed it, chaff. Still, typically when companies are acquired the "wheat" is identified, i.e., the star performers, and they are tied up in contracts that require them to continue working another ...

Posted Sat, Feb 2, 1:41 a.m.

Exemptions should be phased out: I believe the KC tax assessor once said that we could lower property tax rates by about 40% if we got rid of all the exemptions. And the fact that Boeing gets a pass on sales tax, while the small business person in a money ...

Posted Sat, Feb 2, 1:01 a.m.

Good deal!: Microsoft has absorbed many companies and knows how to separate the wheat from the chaff. The aQuantive acquisition combined with Yahoo's advertising know-how will give MS a substantial presence in the online ad business. Plus MSN has always been inferior to Yahoo, and the addition of Yahoo! will ...

Posted Tue, Jan 29, 12:03 p.m.

Obama Rising: Last night I watched talking media heads on Charlie Rose dissect recent events much to the tune of Van Dyke's analysis. Some points made by the punditry plus some of my own: 1. The media itself is very much down on Bill Clinton, and are leading the charge ...

Posted Sun, Jan 27, 11:09 p.m.

I got it wrong.: 100K not 100M. Worth spending the money to maintain our investment.

Posted Sun, Jan 27, 11:07 p.m.

This is not a priority.: This is not a priority of the people, and not on their radar screen. A recession is here. Money is tight. If KC has $100M in capital spending available, fix up schools instead. (I know, KC doesn't do education.) I'm convinced that education is the ...

Posted Wed, Jan 23, 11:57 p.m.

Albatross print news is hurting everywhere and will continue to hurt...: Relentless trends: - Online news readership keeps going up. - Online news content continues to increase in quantity and quality (including all print plus extended content including TV and photo galleries) - Online news is increasingly pervasive: readers now ...

Posted Mon, Jan 21, 11:25 p.m.

Whackadoodle Populism is Better than the Status Quo: Most American government has calcified into a special interest supported-&-supporting closed loop that ignores the people: 1. Special interests, such as trial lawyers, unions, insurance companies, corporations, builders, tribes, et al. contribute to political candidates. 2. Political candidates know where the money ...

Posted Mon, Jan 21, 10:36 a.m.

RE: Took my 3 year old son for a ride on the SLUT: Ditto the thrill on the mini-train around Woodland Park!.

Posted Tue, Jan 15, 11:52 p.m.

RE: those tolls: I'm a big advocate of tolls, but I'm an even bigger fan of your view of costs. In politics they call bills with lots of special interest legislation in them "Christmas Trees" because of all the "ornaments" of pork attached as riders to big appropriations. Well the ...

Posted Tue, Jan 15, 9:34 p.m.

RE: WHAT WILL HAPPEN: I agree with you here. The 520 tolling plan shows that traffic is reduced relative to an untolled bridge, which means that people in general will get where they want to go quicker. In a lot of cases, even for those with lesser incomes, this will ...

Posted Mon, Jan 7, 3:20 p.m.

The "Oh, I Forgot To Mention Them" Seahawks...: Nationally, we're a zero. No one's likely to take us seriously in any of the remaining playoff games. People root for underdogs, but not for teams they've never seen. The good news is that this breeds over confidence in the Seahawks opponents, ...

Posted Fri, Dec 21, 2:39 p.m.

The Port of Seattle: the 3rd Runway of Regional Politics: Knute, good report. Maybe five years ago or so, I recall reading about longshore clerks making $100K doing their work with paper and pencil instead of a computer, hiring based on nepotism, and coordinated port strikes all along the West ...

Posted Wed, Dec 19, 12:56 p.m.

For Whom the Bridge Tolls: Unless we have competent engineers running the transportation system instead of committees of politicians, we're never going to get anywhere. Electing members to committees is better marginally, but doesn't address the problem of competence. As much as I believe that ST is more or less ...

Posted Mon, Nov 26, 6:40 p.m.

I understand there's a stalemate...: ...but the challenge seems to be setting up a framework for balancing the trade-offs rather continuing a legal battle that seems to be resolving nothing. I'm sympathetic to both sides and would like to see some compromise. I personally think that the case for the ...

Posted Sun, Nov 25, 8:25 p.m.

RE: funny stuka: Steptoe.fan, I obviously like pricing and tolling. If I had a magic wand I'd wave it and all users of roads would be billed monthly for usage and the funds used to pay for all road construction, maintenance, and operations. That's not going to happen. Maybe some ...

Posted Fri, Nov 23, 9:31 p.m.

The Aaesthetics of the Seattle Center: You bring up a telling point. The beauty of those arches and the vision for the original Science Center is ignored, and too often trashed. This isn't really so much a problem of competing aesthetic visions, or even of tacky visions, but of a ...

Posted Wed, Nov 21, 1:29 p.m.

Soccer in Seattle: MLS has a better chance of success in Seattle than most US cities. The idea that the game isn't interesting vis-a-vis baseball or football or lawn darts is parochial, close-minded, and silly. Any sport -- take Texas hold-em or women's billiards -- can take hold if the ...

Posted Tue, Nov 20, 3:55 p.m.

Tolling is the Slam Dunk Right Way to Pay for Road Infrastructure: Tolling has a lot of advantages over the way we're doing things now. The elitist argument has a bit of traction, but not much. In any tolling plan the following is likely to be true: 1. The toll ...

Posted Fri, Nov 16, 9:26 p.m.

Remember Curtis Williams?: I was curious about what happens to college athletes who are paralyzed for life, as many feared might be the case for Jake Locker last Saturady. I found this in an old UW Columns magazine article from 2002: "Since Williams' injury, the UW has raised approximately $400,000 ...

Posted Tue, Nov 13, 9:38 p.m.

RE: Needed: reliable information: I agree with you on reliable information, but with Cameron too. I've seen some of the PSRC materials that project population and job growth and it's reasonable objective material, that is very useful for planning. Take a look at the PSRC for some of the info ...

Posted Tue, Nov 13, 1:41 p.m.

Strong Man #2: Mr. S.: Robet Moses is one kind of Strong Man. Another kind is the pragmatic engineer epitomized by India's Elattuvalapil Sreedharaning as described in the Economist below: Mr Sreedharan has a disarmingly simple explanation for his success: the ownership structure of DMRC. Half the equity is held ...

Posted Tue, Nov 13, 12:15 p.m.

Strong Man #1: Robert Moses: Mossback, I agree with you that we should be wary of the Strong Man; however, a transportation hero might be welcome, even at the risk of absolute power absolutely corrupting down the road. In Robert Caro's biography The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall ...

Posted Sat, Nov 10, 4:12 p.m.

As an outsider looking in...: ...on the Seattle School Board, my 10,000 ft level view consisted mainly of TV reports of acromonious meetings disrupted by people shouting about racism and a stolid Manhaus clearly uncomfortable with shout-down politics. At the 5,000 ft level I saw the School Board preoccupied with ...

Posted Mon, Oct 29, 2:10 p.m.

The State's Broken Educational Funding System: State's Broken Educational Funding System I blame the System more than I blame anything else. Education spending is divided into capital spending controlled mainly by school bond and levy measures, while spending for teachers is controlled by the State, This produces an uncoordinated, ineffective, ...

Posted Mon, Oct 29, 1:55 p.m.

Light Rail, Bus Riders, Elitism, Crime, the Poor, and the GMA: People on buses: Because buses serve a wide network of people, the indigent, the homeless, and the criminal are likely to use buses more often than more expensive modes of transportation. The routes they use are unlikely to be ...

Posted Fri, Oct 26, 1:43 a.m.

Prop 1. The Fleecing of the Lambs: With Prop 1. winners are developers, unions, property owners, big businesses (i.e., Microsoft) and city governments. Also winners are those who someday will live in expensive down-town condos or who now have cushy office jobs in downtown office towers. Unfortunately, these are not ...

Posted Sat, Oct 20, 9:57 a.m.

Public Official DUI Apologism 101: In this enlightening course we'll develop theories of alcoholism denial, drunken driver behavioral dynamics, and alcohol-related homicidal socio-pathology. Among the skills developed will be enabling by friends and family, public apology, and disassociation of one's self from one's behavior and its consequences. Prerequisites include election ...

Posted Thu, Oct 18, 11:43 p.m.

RE: The RAT Roads Package Generates 13X to 22X as Much Carbon as RAT ST2 Tunneling...: You're right that my ideas are a bit Utopian (read unrealistic) if offered as an alternative Proposition. On the other hand, I don't expect that we'll ever successfully vote on any grand Utopian visions. ...

Posted Thu, Oct 18, 4:24 p.m.

Computer Science, the UW, K12, Online Learning, and Funding: Lazowska has analyzed the data properly, but his older funding algorithms are failing him. Fortunately, they inadvertently point towards a better way of funding an educational operating system. The old system is the defense model of a military-educational complex from which ...

Posted Tue, Oct 16, 5:04 p.m.

RE: Why Prop 1 must be defeated: Willi, Good points. A simple action plan inspired by your list: 1. Do Least Cost Planning (as required by law), so that we consider major cost savings, e.g., your example of a 520 suspension bridge. 2. Increase Competition with design/build contracts and other ...

Posted Sat, Oct 13, 2:56 p.m.

Proposition 2 RIGHT NOW!: Let's develop a simple plan that focuses the energy of everyone on fixing problems right now, thus I suggest we call Proposition 2, RIGHT NOW! This will stand for Real Incentives Generate High-performance Transportation Now! Let's vote on it in January, and start building in June. ...

Posted Sat, Oct 13, 2:02 p.m.

Proposition 1 Needs Less Planning and More Performance: Why I ABSOLUTELY HATE Prop 1 (which I will continue to call RAT), is that the whole notion of performance is swept under the rug. Casey mentions logrolling. The RAT logrolling could power the City of Seattle for 50 years and still ...

Posted Fri, Oct 12, 1:31 a.m.

RE: law of demand: I agree with you totally here.

Posted Fri, Oct 12, 1:27 a.m.

Rossi will lose big time...: Gregoire has stumbled a bit, but Rossi's not really in the same league. Not raising taxes isn't much of a platform, particularly after 8 yrs of a President who ran on the same platform and delivered other such odious results, as now recognized by D's ...

Posted Fri, Oct 12, 12:30 a.m.

The RAT Roads Package Generates 13X to 22X as Much Carbon as RAT ST2 Tunneling...: ...if I read this article right. New roads add 116.5K to 186.5K tons of carbon per lane mile or 17.5 million to 28 million tons over 50 years. It's curious to me that 30,000 to ...

Posted Thu, Oct 11, 3:31 p.m.

RE: Memorial Sadium "opportunity": King County's interest in the Seattle Center is a major positive. Meshing plans to create something truly great is much more likely to happen when participants are willing and able to contribute. Both Memorial Stadium and Key Arena have comprised the "other" Seattle stadium location. The ...

Posted Mon, Oct 8, 11:48 p.m.

Sims calls out the RAT Emperor with No Clothes: Integrity can be a hard thing for a politician to maintain. Promises are the coin of the political realm, but in crises of conscience, the greater good should trump back-room deal-making pledges, as it has with Sims. Certainly, there will be ...

Posted Mon, Oct 1, 7:55 p.m.

Counting Down the Top 10 Reasons for Voting No on RAT [Reasons 5 thru 1]: 5. RAT is Government Subsidy on Steroids. We're still subsidizing everything from rails to roads rather than making costs transparent so that the market and us consumer-citizens can make our own decisions based on true ...

Posted Mon, Oct 1, 7:50 p.m.

Counting Down the Top 10 Reasons for Voting No on RAT [Reasons 10 thru 6]: Skip's take on things is dead on. His piece complements nicely these Top 10 Reasons for Voting No on RAT (aka Proposition 1. Roads and Transit): 10. RAT Costs Too Much. The worst case $157 ...

Posted Tue, Sep 18, 11:09 a.m.

Chicken Little Laurelhurst and the Great Nearby: I've gotta assume that the people of Laurelhurst are mainly good people. But their collective actions manifest themselves as a kind of corporate Chicken Little. First, we were all going to die of light pollution (even in Kirkland) because of lighted fields at ...

Posted Sat, Sep 15, 12:16 a.m.

The Evolving News Continuum: A lot of the this discussion is about managing the evolving news continuum. Take my news habits for example. They're probably not typical, but still, you will see how this consumer divides up his media dollars. I skew more towards the reading of magazines than of ...

Posted Fri, Sep 14, 10:22 p.m.

Tolls are the right way to go. After RAT loses that's what we'll do.: Here's why: 1. It used to be that the Feds paid 80% or so of freeway costs. Now, it's more or less reversed. This is just my sense of what I've been reading lately, I haven't ...

Posted Fri, Sep 14, 1:48 a.m.

Filling Up One Big Empty and Leaving a Big Seattle Empty: Speaking of Big Empties, I have a spreadsheet that I update from time to time that calculates how all the people in the world can fit inside less that three miles of the Grand Canyon with everyone getting an ...

Posted Fri, Sep 14, 12:55 a.m.

Poetry Critic Dies at Sea: Just when you think things are bad, And cannot possibly get worse, Along comes Palmer's jihad To make his audience read verse. One reader said "To Hell with this poem, I'm packing up my bags and riding my bicycle home." Thinking quite quickly, Greg in ...

Posted Tue, Sep 11, 6:55 p.m.

RE: Straw men abound: Tiptoe Tommy, you sound like a Sound Transit apologist. That's okay, but how about some numbers and rational discussion instead of ad hominem attack? Bundy didn't say the Minneapolis starter line was a failure. He questioned whether it was a wise investment in light of bridges ...

Posted Wed, Aug 29, 5:27 p.m.

Death of a Salesman -- A Moon for the Mismarketed: Let's see, a theatre is having fundraising problems. If fewer dollars are donated than expected, then either improve fundraising or cut expenses to balance the budget. Absolutely nothing new here. The Intiman's reluctance to go public with its financial difficulties ...

Posted Mon, Aug 27, 7:19 p.m.

Ichiros IS important...: ...and I fear the team as a whole is moving into one of its doldrums losing streaks. They play .800 baseball for a couple of weeks, then they cough up a 4- or 5-game losing streak. They're at 2 games entering the Angels series, so the past ...

Posted Fri, Aug 24, 12:47 p.m.

The Sonics will Stay: Two dimensions are at play here: public and financial. The Sonics are interesting to politicians because a pro sports franchise is a private entity with public attributes. Pro sports franchises stand-in for the private armies and militias of yore.. They do battle without killing, at considerably ...

Posted Tue, Aug 21, 11:38 p.m.

RE: It's all starting pitching: Good analysis of the starting pitching. I think Horacio's starting to come around. Pretty solid this last outing. And Washburn finally picked up another win, so he's working hard too. I wouldn't say it's all starting pitching, but you're very right to give them a ...

Posted Tue, Aug 21, 7:09 p.m.

Of Skateboard Parks and Power Brokers and the Application of Power: Much better than the current "process" would be a market-driven approach where people come to the table with ideas, and money and the Seattle Center Czar says yes or no and away we go. Personally, I want an enhanced ...

Posted Tue, Aug 21, 10:32 a.m.

The Priorities of Government: This discussion highlights how the fabric of moral decision making is woven throughout this particular instance of RV towing. Government, as usual, is just doing its job when it insensitively tows away a vehicle (or doesn't) or provides low income housing (but not enough) or tows ...

Posted Tue, Aug 14, 9:56 a.m.

RE: good for the goose, good for the gander: I agree with this sentiment. Let Eyeman's initiatives win or lose on their own merits. Undermining the voted will of the people is NOT a good thing.

Posted Mon, Aug 13, 11:06 p.m.

The Mariners are quietly the third best team in baseball...: Good analysis, although I think you see the glass as half empty instead of 56.9% full and getting fuller. The more one has followed the M's over the last three years or so, the harder it is to believe that ...

Posted Sat, Aug 11, 3:47 a.m.

RE: The Missing Link...: SEIKSUH CALTECH

Posted Sat, Aug 11, 12:51 a.m.

Larsen = Everett Homeport & Boeing, Dicks = Bremerton Naval Shipyard, Inslee = Bangor Sub Base: Thanks Will. My error. Thanks for correction. The maps inside my head were amorphous and my criticism of Dicks for being beholden to Boeing, in particular, doesn't make sense because of my bad geography. ...

Posted Thu, Aug 9, 3:10 p.m.

Dicks is a Jackson Military-Industrial Complex Democrat: That was great back when we were fighting the Cold War, but now it means pork-barrel politics and earmarks for military projects everywhere including our misguided Iraq war. IMHO, that's why the U.S. is so reluctant to wash its hands of Iraq: the ...

Posted Thu, Aug 9, 11:41 a.m.

Bold Plans, Stirred Souls, and Redeveloping Cities: Here are some grand and grandiose suggestions for a bold plan to stir souls in this City through redevelopment: First off, the City buys the property, as suggested, so that the Clise Redevelopment becomes a City project. Then we base tredevelopment on extending ...

Posted Wed, Aug 8, 3:50 p.m.

REET-1, REET-2 --> REET-A, REET-G, and REET-T: We can have both affordability and density if we use common sense. As Sarah Jane points out, accessory dwelling units (ADUs) have a number of positive attributes: 1) they increase density 2) they allow long-time residents who are now empty nesters the opportunity ...

Posted Tue, Aug 7, 4:11 p.m.

RE: Issaquah would be perfect...: ...if only it had a Sonics Arena, a monorail, a viaduct tunnel, a sculpture museum, and 9 or 10 light rail stations.

Posted Tue, Aug 7, 4:09 p.m.

Issaquah would be perfect...: ...a Sonics Arena, a monorail, a viaduct tunnel, a sculpture museum and 9 or 10 light rail stations.

Posted Tue, Aug 7, 1:49 p.m.

The Taste of Koolaid: Excellent article and insightful analysis. Although the People would prefer the Sonics stay, and despise the notion of subsidizing the wealthy, there's value to the City in having a major league sports team. So the People would concede that some modest empowering investment in the future ...

Posted Mon, Aug 6, 1:15 a.m.

FUBAR: Fat & UnFit Beyond All Recognition: Some people are FUBAR and are clinically sick because of too much food and too little exercise. They're close to death, although they may not realize it. We think it's perfectly appropriate for an ambulance to come to the rescue of someone who's ...

Posted Fri, Aug 3, 12:58 p.m.

Biasing the Rails: 1. The [$11.5 billion in investment in light rail] is certainly expensive. The $11.5 is just the tip of the iceberg. The taxing capacity we're voting on will cost us many tens of billions more than that. 2. [Next] to the cost of [520], light rail looks ...

Posted Fri, Aug 3, 10:07 a.m.

The Alternative...: Chris does a good job in laying out some of the overlapping factions in discussions of regional transportation. An alternative to the RTID is to fund corridor-by-corridor solutions through tolling revenue and local corridor-directed taxation. This means making the riders, residents, and developers who benefit from a corridor-based ...

Posted Fri, Aug 3, 8:58 a.m.

RE: Nice Job: Different areas pencil differently. Some don't pencil at all "depending on what you measure." Well, tell us what you measure. I think the "Freemanite" position (and not their "measures") is more that there's plenty that can still be done for the road system and must be done ...

Posted Thu, Aug 2, 7:06 p.m.

Doing nothing when doing nothing is the right nothing to do: A lot of general managing, and life in general, is knowing when to do nothing. As you point out, Bavasi's life has been made easier because doing nothing at the trade deadline was a no-brainer. But remember, his sticking ...

Posted Wed, Aug 1, 5:15 p.m.

Big Yellow Urban Terrorist Tax Taxi: (apologies to Joni Mitchell) They paved Paradise And put up a condo lot With a pink hotel, a boutique And a T-Mobile Hotspot. Don't it always seem to go That you don't know what you've got 'Til its gone. They paved Paradise And put ...

Posted Wed, Aug 1, 5:06 p.m.

RE: An Anguished Cry For a Lost City: The economic reality created by so-called growth management is that urban property owners have seen a Trojan Horse wheeled onto their property, doubling the value of real estate purchased 5 to 10 years ago. Inside that artificial steed are warriors intent on ...

Posted Tue, Jul 31, 10:39 p.m.

Common Book for a Common Cause in a Common World: Just maybe the UW's high Peace Corps volunteer rate is due to the UW's Common Book program. The UW's first common book was Tracy Kidder's "Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the ...

Posted Tue, Jul 31, 8:22 p.m.

Paul Allen - Misunderstood Good Guy: Let's not forget a couple of things about Paul Allen that put his life in context. First, it was Paul Allen who had the glimmer in the eye, who recognized the opportunity, who took the initiative, and who sought out Gates at Harvard to ...

Posted Sun, Jul 29, 3:57 a.m.

RE: Wunda Wunda: Was it really spelled Wunda Wunda? I never could bring myself to watch the show itself. The song "Wunda, Wunda is my name..." and her pointy hat was enough to send me running. And you're right, I left out Gertrude, although she's about as opposite a two-dollar ...

Posted Thu, Jul 26, 4:59 p.m.

True to Form...: We'll see if the Mariners play true to form this year. After several 5- to 6-game losing streaks, they've caught fire and laid out improbable win streaks of even greater length. It's a curious phenomenon, but you have to look at the team as an animal in ...

Posted Thu, Jul 26, 2:50 p.m.

My superficial take from looking at websites ...: To calibrate my comments below properly, please realize that I dislike Republicans as a species, and that Democrats are on a nearby Galapagos island: Satterberg seems to be in the midst of many current issues as befits his current leadership role. He ...

Posted Thu, Jul 26, 1:22 p.m.

Why Be a Republican at All -- Let them die out like the Whigs...: Timothy, you make a good point. The lock-step salute-the-incompetent-leader Republicans have essentially squandered their opportunity to exhibit moral leadership about much of anything. Even the great Dino's legacy is essentially "I balanced the budget with the ...

Posted Thu, Jul 26, 11:38 a.m.

RE: Where Do I Start: Rail must can only get the capacities you mention if there's density at both ends. Without the density, light-rail doesn't pencil, doesn't make economic sense, and is a waste of money. Light-rail should be built AFTER there is the minimum density to support it. I ...

Posted Thu, Jul 26, 11:22 a.m.

RE: Seattle is not a two-dollar whore: Yeah, if you morphed 'em all together as in a Conan celebrity morph Miss Seattle would have to pay, let alone receive a $1.75 gratuity.

Posted Thu, Jul 26, 12:05 a.m.

RE: Seattle is not a two-dollar whore: Seattle is an often high-priced, obviously high-IQ, good-looking principled woman who holds out for the best, sticks by her guns, and eventually gets what she wants because everyone loves her so much. She never sells out, though those around her may. Morph Patty ...

Posted Wed, Jul 25, 11:46 p.m.

RE: Missing the Point - Take 2: Oops. Posted before finishing my edits. Last para should read: Clearly modeling is the right way to go, and on a massive scale, since technology now should allow us to model reliably and visibly in many domains and dimensions. We should be able ...

Posted Wed, Jul 25, 11:21 p.m.

RE: Missing the Point - Take 2: I like the approach. Getting shared, reasonable, objective data is key. Would that all Sound Transit and other government transportation models and transportation were publicly available on the internet and sanity checked by objective outside analysts and scientists. As it is, because of ...

Posted Wed, Jul 25, 6:41 p.m.

RE: Apples to oranges: what about the carbon cost of building all those cars and roads: Mainly, Emory pointed out the carbon-cost of the tunnel. Period. Beyond that, a lot of different kinds of comparisons can and should be made to make a lot of different kinds of points. As ...

Posted Wed, Jul 25, 6:21 p.m.

RE: Crosscut establishing it's rightwing bonifides?: Posted by cwesley on Jul 25, 2007 9:50 AM richard morrill argues for more bus service and bundy argues for more bicyclists? What fascists! Speaking of comical fascism, I can hardly wait for the day we can ride the Mussolini Line into the UW. ...

Posted Wed, Jul 25, 6:09 p.m.

RE: You need help out with these today?: I think transportation policy will always be social engineering. But your point is well made. You show why automobiles are so important for daily life and will they will be for the forseeable future. Even if gas goes to $20 a gallon.

Posted Wed, Jul 25, 6:05 p.m.

RE: Support for buses?: I'd agree that it's time to fight for more bus transit, but in a lot of ways it's an internecine war between bus and light rail. Light rail will cannibalize bus traffic. I've seen, second hand, numbers that say that light rail will get twice the ...

Posted Wed, Jul 25, 5:36 p.m.

RE: Crosscut establishing it's rightwing bonifides?: A bicycle-riding, formerly Bullitt Foundation/KING 5 employed Emory is right wing? Kind of like you're Karl Rove. Hey Will, how much real debate has occurred over on Horses Ass? Any? This isn't a liberal vs conservative issue, or an environmentalist vs developer issue. This ...

Posted Wed, Jul 25, 5:28 p.m.

RE: The Carbon Cost of Bundy's Hot Air: RE: The Carbon Cost of Bundy's Hot Air Two cents? [The] best possible transportation mode is just walking everywhere. It's more cost-effective than cycling and pollutes less (no rubber skid marks on the pavement, you see) and you can actually carry grocery ...

Posted Wed, Jul 25, 5:13 p.m.

RE: Bundy and Bikes: Yikes!: Maybe 40% of trips to downtown Seattle are transit, but we're talking about a regional transportation plan, so you and Emory are comparing apples to oranges. And you seem to argue for virtually no investment in a better road system. We haven't built any significant ...

Posted Sat, Jul 21, 12:35 a.m.

Monopolies, Taxation, Tolls, Congestion Pricing, Public-Private Partnerships, Prediction: Knute, great articles. I read "The Political Calculus of Congestion Pricing" that you mentioned and it does a tremendous job of developing a framework for thinking about our transportation and political options. Your articles layout many of the particulars for our region. ...

Posted Fri, Jul 20, 10:06 p.m.

Not to be cynical, but...: Did pay-to-fly astronaut billionaire Charles Simonyi (Martha Stewart's Hungarian-born beau) just maybe write a check for most of the $2.8M. And just maybe did the 20 other donors write considerably lesser checks? I'd expect it isn't too hard to get money from Mr. Simonyi if ...

Posted Thu, Jul 19, 5:24 p.m.

RE: If we traded him, guess what will happen next?: Last year he hit .218 pre-All Star and 322 post-All Star. But it looks like they kept him away from lefties to get that average up. Pre-All Star he had 330 at bats. Post-All Star he had 261 at bats. ...

Posted Wed, Jul 18, 10:31 p.m.

Harmonizing Galloping Gerties...: Did the engineers look into the aerodynamics of TWO bridges side by side? In gale force winds will the two bridges vibrate in amplifying unison or in syncopation? Inquiring minds want to be in synch with any future disaster...

Posted Wed, Jul 18, 2:51 p.m.

Congestion Charges or Entry Fees: Congestion charges are a perfectly reasonable way to raise revenue, although, to be more accurate, I'd call them entry fees. Ultimately, if there's too high a tax, no one comes, and the tax is self-regulating. Without an entry fee, a city is giving its infrastructure ...

Posted Wed, Jul 18, 2:41 p.m.

RE: Should read "Let's GIVE Bechtel and their equivalents...": gotta proofreed befour I sennd...

Posted Wed, Jul 18, 2:39 p.m.

Let's get Bechtel and their equivalents build our bridges and trains: Give them design, build, maintain, operate, and TOLL responsibility. Hire 'em all tomorrow, everything'll be built in ten years on time and under budget. Both auto transit and light rail prices will pass on costs in tolls and tollboxes. ...

Posted Tue, Jul 17, 6:15 p.m.

RE: Well-Preserved Worries about Preservation...: Your points are well taken. You point out that standards are in place and that Preservation doesn't look a multi-headed Hydra run amok. However, I'm still not excited. When a place like Seattle doesn't have a 500-yr or 200-yr history to look back on (although ...

Posted Mon, Jul 16, 5:33 p.m.

Well-Preserved Worries about Preservation...: Worry#1: Why not just take pictures and movies of all the old buildings and put them in a museum? What is it that we're trying to preserve anyway? A way of life? A way of looking at life? A type of architecture? Unusual quirky buildings? I ...

Posted Fri, Jul 13, 1:27 a.m.

How About A Graduated Income Tax on Ichiro and Steven Schwartzman?: Ichiro is my favorite player. But does he deserve $20 million a year? $123 thousand a game? $61 thousand a hit? $24 thousand an at bat? $4 thousand a pitch? No way. (Assumptions: 162 games a year, 200 hits ...

Posted Tue, Jul 10, 10:58 a.m.

Mariners Report Card - Alternate Version: Team: A+. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts. After 40 games they were 19-21 and playing at a .475 winning percentage. The last 45 games, they were 30-15 at a .667 winning percentage. The last 20 games they've been 14-6, ...

Posted Sat, Jul 7, 10:30 p.m.

I like salmon, I like gold...: I feel I'm reading a fundamentalist tract with no room for discussion. Alaska's a large expanse. There should be room for both mining and fishing. I'm weary of salmon being God's fish and anyone who wants to use land other than as salmon habitat ...

Posted Thu, Jul 5, 5:55 p.m.

The iPhone is not your Father's land line...: Most cell phone companies are now parts of old-line phone companies and have had historically horrendous customer service for years. A case in point is my own experience with Verizon. Suffice it to say that Hell hath no fury like 10,000 customer ...

Posted Mon, Jul 2, 11:12 p.m.

RE: the old spanaway: I don't know much about Spanaway, but I've gotta agree that that's a city I wouldn't mind having removed. It's sort of like a spleen or an appendix. I have a friend who's been waiting for years to have surgery on his brain cancer, but because ...

Posted Mon, Jul 2, 11:04 p.m.

RE: Mossback is the new Napoleon: Yeah, funny name couplets should be easy. But too many and they're cloying. Mossback as the new Napoleon is a good notion. Have him run for a city Council seat or for mayor. I think your "Lake Washington is the new Central Park" is ...

Posted Mon, Jul 2, 10:47 p.m.

RE: Hargrove's resignation is not that mysterious: I think you have it exactly right. I think there's also a health factor in there, i.e., he seems to have gained weight and there's been quite a lot of stress on the guy for a while now. He hasn't had a winning ...

Posted Sat, Jun 30, 1:46 a.m.

Nice Guys, Backstabbing and Napoleon: Good essay. Napolean was supposed to have once explained to an inquirer, "There are four types of soldiers. The first are the dumb and lazy. These I make my infantrymen. The second are the smart and energetic. These I make my field commanders. The third ...

Posted Fri, Jun 29, 11:17 p.m.

This is a classy team.: Enough said.

Posted Fri, Jun 29, 6:39 p.m.

RE: fearing the police: You touch on several points that are all relevant: First and foremost is that we grant the police the right to use force when carrying out their duties. If you don't deal with the police much, it's not hard to have a hands off attitude towards ...

Posted Fri, Jun 29, 5:08 p.m.

City Metaphor Categorization: First off there are the local-to-local metaphors: Humptulips is the new Eatonville. George is the new Washington. Then the local-to-Middle East metaphors: Seattle is the new Baghdad. King County is the new Iraq North Bend is the new Fallujah Alki is the new Gaza Mercer Island is ...

Posted Fri, Jun 29, 4:04 p.m.

Creating Equal Schools - continued: (continued) Rich school districts will always tax themselves to build better physical infrastructure than poorer school districts. Insofar as education is dependent on high-quality infrastructure, then these districts will always be better. So, to compete with private schools and richer school districts on the Eastside, ...

Posted Fri, Jun 29, 3:48 p.m.

Creating Equal Schools: Now that race-based racism is out, the right way to ensure equal educational opportunities is to attack the problem of unequal schools by creating, you guessed it, equal schools! How do you do that? The main emphasis must be on making the weaker schools better. How are ...

Posted Tue, Jun 26, 4:15 p.m.

I just had to google googie...: Good gosh! Gagging gigabytes of gooey grotesqueness grandiloquently grown to giggling greatness! Gadzooks!

Posted Tue, Jun 26, 11:59 a.m.

RE: Mr Taylor I came back: "Sorry Mr. Taylor, wrong writer for this subject, and pretty blah reporting at that. Sort'uv a readers digest approach to what the dailies had already given us." Actually, Mr. Corr because of his disclosed/undisclosed history is nearly ideal for reporting on this subject. And ...

Posted Tue, Jun 26, 11:17 a.m.

RE: Can police police themselves?: The head-rotting tendency of all large organizations over time is an eternal problem. In any weaponized organization this can be exponentially more worrisome. In the case of SPD, and police departments generally, internal oversight is HUGELY important and absolutely essential. In conjunction,external oversight, particularly of ...

Posted Tue, Jun 26, 10:49 a.m.

Full disclosure...: In what sense is any disclosure "full"? Casey's link to the Times article about his dad was nearly full disclosure in my book. As a former political candidate and former aide to Nickels he may have presumed that his public life was, well, public. However, as you point ...

Posted Mon, Jun 25, 6:22 p.m.

Native American Asymmetric Guerrilla Warfare: Reverse Totem Pole Theft: When I was in high school we had a gym teacher who moonlighted as a security guard at the Space Needle. We used to joke that some night we'd come by and steal the thing. Years have gone by, but I ...

Posted Sat, Jun 23, 12:02 a.m.

RE: Comment for David Brewster and reply to comments to me (Morrill): Sean, your experience with charlatans also appears to be true for us mere mortals with opinions: "An individual's reality model can be right or wrong, complete or incomplete. As a rule it will be both incomplete and wrong, ...

Posted Fri, Jun 22, 12:50 p.m.

Funding light rail, LIDs, Tolls, and Large Checkbooks: Brewster's commentary makes a really good case for funding light-rail stations with incremental property taxes or through LIDS. That would significantly decrease the cost of light rail to the general taxpayer and potentially pay for MORE light-rail stations than currently planned. The ...

Posted Fri, Jun 22, 12:27 p.m.

RE: Things I'm (slowly) learning about discussing transportation in Seattle...: Sean, fyi, I think Brewster's article is a more or less direct response to your post on the Morrill article. As for your learning: 1. Always smiling can be pretty hard. Sometimes you have to grit your teeth. 2. Hyperbole ...

Posted Thu, Jun 21, 1:12 p.m.

RE: This isn't helping: Sean, the assertion that "trains don't work" is not meant to be taken literally, i.e., that trains are incapable of transporting people. Rather Morrill's assertion is simply that it is "insane to spend ... $24 billion out of $38 billion ... on trains which cannot possibly ...

Posted Wed, Jun 20, 10:54 p.m.

RE: Perceived School Quality - An Argument for Assigned Neighborhood Schools: Good points: - Your point that PTAs don't just materialize, they build slowly is well taken. That's another reason I'd like to see established PTAs providing guidance to PTAs at other schools. - I don't think I confuse struggling ...

Posted Wed, Jun 20, 10:36 p.m.

RE: Hey jamier ...: steptoe.fan, click on the number and you'll see jamie's source. he adds up three different numbers for the three different methods of transport. not clear that they are mutually exclusive, but they do seem to add up (I didn't actually add them, but they do appear ...

Posted Wed, Jun 20, 4:53 p.m.

RE: Perceived School Quality: The reasoning you've gone through to select a school should be of highly valuable to the School District. It highlights 1) the disparity in actual educational output in schools as measured by WASL scores, 2) demographic apartheid (i.e, what seems to me to be white school/black ...

Posted Wed, Jun 20, 3:33 p.m.

RE: Morrill Has It About Right: Pretty sane and reasonable proposal. And thrifty to boot. We should vote on it and not the RTID.

Posted Wed, Jun 20, 3:30 p.m.

RE: "From an economic perspective if it increases rents, then it increases livability.": I'm being simplistic and trying to say that ultimately you have to translate social values into a medium of exchange, i.e., money, and that the market will reflect those social values in the value of rents. This ...

Posted Wed, Jun 20, 1:07 p.m.

My Karl Marx Wobble-Head and Steve Schwarzman Bauble-Head Dolls: The Wobblies died fighting injustices and created a work environment that we now take for granted. That's the nature of progress. As time elapses, the injustices change, but INJUSTICE will always need to be fought. In the sense that Karl Marx ...

Posted Wed, Jun 20, 12:24 p.m.

re urban livability...: It's in the eye of the beholder. From an economic perspective if it increases rents, then it increases livability. This means that it increase property values and property taxes and so property owners and government both benefit. Indeed, they're the ones who should be footing a large ...

Posted Wed, Jun 20, 12:18 p.m.

RE: There is no Silver Bullet: There's no silver bullet, but mostly what you're describing is things that have some semblence of economic reality. The free market, if allowed to operate, will build what is needed. Government should sit back and bless what entreprenuers and concessionaires propose to build or ...

Posted Wed, Jun 20, noon

RE: Rapid transit is a mistake?: Jamier, In 1929 NYC didn't spend any $1.13 trillion on transit in today's dollars. You said they took 50 yrs to build it. So was that $1.13 trillion in 1929 dollars or 1979 dollars? So your numbers may be distorted by by a couple ...

Posted Tue, Jun 19, 3:40 p.m.

RE: I'm the Fresh Face of the New Middle Class and Here's My Plan: Your situation only highlights the travesty of the Real Estate Wealth Growth Management Act (aka "the GMA") which undeservedly rewards property owners with double and tripling of the value of their homes through constraint of land ...

Posted Tue, Jun 19, 3:03 p.m.

The Goal: "The Goal," here, refers to a book that articulates a "theory of constraints" that affect productivity. In the book a boy scout hiking trip is used to illustrate how a system can optimize its performance. The troop heads down the trail without considering the ultimate goal of getting ...

Posted Tue, Jun 19, 12:40 a.m.

Several forces have swept away the old middle class...: 1. Jobs off to China. High-paying manufacturing jobs used to exist. Most have gone to China. Good article by Fallows in this month's Atlantic on China's growth particularly in Shenzhen where practically all high tech products seem to be produced. (See ...

Posted Fri, Jun 15, 1:58 p.m.

I saw one of these shows in Phoenix...: I think it was the Bodyworks one. Very educational actually, and presumably all participating had, while living, given their bodies to science or with the understanding that this sort of exhibit would occur. Fifteen minutes of fame doesn't quite cover it because ...

Posted Wed, Jun 13, 10:03 a.m.

The Washington Transit Authority: Sims may be for tolling, but Sims doesn't care that much about roads, or about transportation. He and KC care mainly about Sound Transit, and revenue-generating propositions, and political capital. Tolling provides the revenue generating propositions that can fund Sound Transit, which he does because it ...

Posted Tue, Jun 12, 11:14 p.m.

RE: aising the I.Q. of the "stupid bus system": I'm a huge fan of tolls. It's direct payment rather than indirect payment through a weird set of political intermediaries that happens with taxation. You say that increasing bus frequency is not an option because the demand is not present. That's ...

Posted Tue, Jun 12, 10:48 p.m.

RE: Transportation indecisions: Sean, I agree with you whole-heartedly. Younger folks have a future orientation and a can-do orientation that overcomes obstacles. Older folks have a more conservative view of things and care about what people will think if things change. That's just the way of the world. And the ...

Posted Tue, Jun 12, 7:36 p.m.

It's ironic that about half of King County is locked up...: ...through GMA mandates that protect open space and "resource" lands such as farmland and forests, and in National Forest & Park Lands; yet because we have a sardine mentality in Seattle, kids don't know know nature. My own acid ...

Posted Mon, Jun 11, 11:13 p.m.

RE: A Story In Need of an Editor: Good read of the political pulse. The politicians keep trying to figure out where the people are going -- but they're just milling around -- so the politicians keep falling back on mega-infrastructure projects that are solutions in search of a problem: ...

Posted Mon, Jun 11, 6:20 p.m.

Raising the I.Q. of the "stupid bus system": The recent polling of citizens done by KC on their priorities of government revealed that what people want is MORE FREQUENT buses. That way you don't sit around waiting half an hour to an hour if you miss a bus. This is ...

Posted Mon, Jun 11, 6:02 p.m.

Cogestion Pricing is mainly just a tax...: In London it's relieve congestion somewhat, but the tax keeps going up and up unrelated to actual congestion. So it's really just a government financing scheme that Seattle will have to consider because we have no income tax and the property and sales ...

Posted Mon, Jun 11, 5:49 p.m.

By the way, the RTID is a disaster: Light rail takes the majority of transportation dollars and assures us all a broken road system for the next century. In the rosiest scenario, 4% of our transportation problems get solved by light rail. The upcoming Anna Nicole line to the airport ...

Posted Mon, Jun 11, 5:17 p.m.

Beyond Toll Booths: Google Tolling: Google revolutionized the internet by tagging all internet real-estate and then micro-charging for advertising access to users of that real-estate through its search engine. Our road system is easy to tag and the wireless internet makes charging a piece of cake. When a vehicle uses ...

Posted Sat, Jun 9, 10:44 p.m.

Weaver's weaving himself back into the fabric of the team...: ...threading the ball low and sewing up hitters like the head seamstress in a Nike shoe factory. Hopefully, he'll be sharp and at his sartorial best in a Mariner's uniform as, like last year, he wins the final game of ...

Posted Thu, Jun 7, 12:20 p.m.

Disinflating Economic Impact: Recently I read an analysis of economic impact studies that has me believing that the more outlandish impact claims overstate their impact on a region by an order of magnitude. Typically, impact studies are done with the simple purpose of laying claim to government subsidy using the ...

Posted Thu, Jun 7, 12:22 a.m.

Gore is a reasonable, but overbearing man: His analysis of the Bush Administration is run-of-the-mill, now accepted, mainstream stuff. He seems to now think that he's going to expose the Bush Administration for all the world to see through the force of reason. He's about 7 yrs late, but at ...

Posted Wed, Jun 6, 1:33 p.m.

More Fatted Citizen Sacrifice ...: (rest of rant...) If government were to give ST2 to Boeing and Microsoft and tell them to fix the problem they'd get it all done in under ten years for under $10B because they'd think like a business. Even And they'd want to make sure ...

Posted Wed, Jun 6, 1:32 p.m.

The Region Transportation Fatted Citizen Sacrifice District: The RTFCSD (sometimes called the RTID) through its bonding will create an enormous financial moral hazard, since those benefiting from the direct expenditures of such projects won't actually incur its risks. Thus the cost/benefit ratio is really a pay-me-more benefit ratio of increasing ...

Posted Sun, Jun 3, 1:44 a.m.

And Mr. Egan believes that ...: ...having the candidates utter bromides about education will improve education in what way? My view would be that the Gates Foundation is wasting its money in even trying to influence candidates, because influencing candidates is not what the Gates Foundation is about, and is ...

Posted Sat, Jun 2, 1:29 p.m.

RE: Great Concept, but: As for the BNF trail-for-Airport trade, and how to use that corridor I think it actually relates to this discussion. Essentially, the proposed swap is a proposal to spend HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS on bike infrastructure (depending on how you set prices here). To me ...

Posted Sat, Jun 2, 1:20 p.m.

How WOULD you make something like this work?: How much would it cost? Who would pay for it? Would cyclists need to be licensed? Would they pay for infrastructure with bike license fees? How about a special sales tax on bikes? How about passing a cyclists test so that all ...

Posted Thu, May 31, 9:21 p.m.

Mariner's a bit unlucky...: On Monday they walloped the Angel's 12-5. Tuesday, they only mustered one run, but Fierbend looks really good, though he doesn't have much of a fastball. If Ichiro hadn't lost the ball in the lights in that second game, the 3-run homer wouldn't have happened. And ...

Posted Wed, May 30, 5:56 p.m.

RE: 10-count, 'yer OUT!: At least professional boxing is more or less serious. This is more like watching the fights on cable where everything is fixed, and only the clueless don't know it. My take is that the Seattle Council so little understands transportation that they think an architect is ...

Posted Wed, May 30, 3:32 p.m.

Public Parenthood: I don't know much about Nickels as a parent, and presumably he's tried to do his best. Politicians of necessity spend a lot of time in evening meetings and fundraisers which can take time away from being parents. The crime that Nickels' son is charged with is ultimately ...

Posted Wed, May 30, 12:17 p.m.

RE: Mossback and Ursus arctos horribillis...separated at birth?: Bear with me. From DNA studies researchers have concluded that flies and people are more or less identical, so I bet bear and mossback DNA are 95% equivalent. Recent polling however shows that D's and R's--although just barely of the same species--are ...

Posted Tue, May 29, 1:32 p.m.

TKO: Unfortunately, the Council didn't come out for the final four rounds. I attribute this partly to their not having a very good case, and partly to the shrillness of the opposition. The Clownsil comment is funny up to a point, but on repeated usage it just seems like piling ...

Posted Sat, May 26, 12:26 p.m.

Related to sorting out the vision thing...: I saw Richard Florida on the cable Research Channel (I think it was). He's a prof from Georgetown who has a lot to say about the importance of the "creative class." Though I haven't read any of his books (The Rise of the ...

Posted Fri, May 25, 3:57 p.m.

RE: Decency, honor, and respect...: Norm Maleng's long distinguished career had many memorable moments as Casey illustrates. But much like Piper, the tragic loss of his daughter at the age of 12 was the event that defined him for me. The coincidence of his death now and my memory of ...

Posted Fri, May 25, 12:42 p.m.

RE: It has frozen over...: Connelly is realizing that the Seattle Dems as a group just aren't competent. It's similar to the Burning Bush that the Republicans have been trying to face up to lately. These reality checks can be Hell. By the way, Steven Wright has noted that heat ...

Posted Fri, May 25, 12:17 p.m.

After 8 Rounds....: Round 1: Brewster's article did a good job of discussing the notion of "slates" and introducing a couple of new candidates for the Seattle City Council. His thoughts on the "irrelevance" of the Council were a body blow. Brewster wins the round. Round 2: Licata's response is ...

Posted Fri, May 25, 1:31 a.m.

RE: jobs: MHays, We're more or less on the same wavelength, although there seem to be interference patterns generated when we think about Sound Transit: re $20B to schools to create endowments - A great iidea! The City should raise money to donate to the school district. I'm sure this ...

Posted Thu, May 24, 3:52 p.m.

Remember the old "fell while walking up the stairs with a suitcase" excuse?: Kazuhiro Sasaki was out for the rest of the season after than one. Herds of young males traveling around the country are likely to exhibit some behavior that you wouldn't expect from the Daughters of the American ...

Posted Thu, May 24, 3:09 p.m.

RE: jobs: Good info. I stand corrected on a lot of stuff. The rumor about the cranes is clearly exaggerated, although it may have referred to the Seattle area and not just Bellevue.. If neighborhoods are expanding, as I think you make clear they are, then that's good. And townhomes ...

Posted Thu, May 24, 2:36 p.m.

Ramtha Channeling Emmet Watson: You're on to me. From my grave I have two forms of communication with the world. The first is a Comcast cable internet connection that lets me keep up my MySpace and FaceBook accounts and also lets me use Skype to do a little reporting on ...

Posted Thu, May 24, 1:29 p.m.

A Competitive Slate: New candidates often end up fighting without sling shots against Goliath incumbents. The slate approach is a little like banding new candidates together like Liiliputians, who can then tie down slumbering giants such as the do-nothing sleepwalkers on the City Council. With this approach in mind I ...

Posted Thu, May 24, 11:07 a.m.

The Perfect Slate of Candidates: Dare I say a blank slate?

Posted Thu, May 24, 11:03 a.m.

RE: jobs: As you point out, Seattle is attractive to young employees. The growth you mention is good and a sign that MAYBE Seattle can pull itself out of its 25 yrs of doldrums. But two caveats: young employees and Bellevue. 1. Living in the suburbs is boring if you're ...

Posted Wed, May 23, 7:03 p.m.

The Master: Because of the GMA's draconian over-regulated, over-legislated, over-litigated nature, making any headway in actually developing homes in the region is virtually impossible without some sort of massive multi-party Rube Goldberg merger-&-acquisition-like transaction. That's the King County Way. Trails for railroads. Forests for houses. Parks for farmland. Airports for ...

Posted Wed, May 23, 11:49 a.m.

RE: No vision: Yeah, it must have been the Elks! They're big in the Vegas mob-connected paving industry. They're the one's that put severed Elk heads in the rental cars of out-of-town mass transit lobbyists...

Posted Wed, May 23, 11:35 a.m.

RE: What happened to safety concerns?: "Aesthetics trumps safety and mobility in the minds of the anti-viaduct zealots." Sad but true. Politicians see safety as a means of expropriating money for aesthetics. In some cases aesthetics can make that money back through increased economic activity, but the builders of the ...

Posted Wed, May 23, 11:23 a.m.

The Take Away: Naysayers to Knute seem to resent the fact that the failing Vegas Elevated Choo Choo is failing and Knute has reminded them of that failure. They seem to think it's really a success BECAUSE: - Knute apprently went to Vegas and was able to expense it - ...

Posted Tue, May 22, 7:31 p.m.

Qualifications for Governor: I AM NOT FRANK CHOPP!: Let's see, from this even-handed analysis we learn or can infer that Lisa Brown 1. Is Nicer than Frank Chopp 2. Has the ability to herd cats unlike Frank Chopp who whips cats 3. Is not a master puppeteer like that manipulative ...

Posted Tue, May 22, 5:14 p.m.

The Great Nearbyhood = Great Neighborhoods: My weird Seattle critique above reinforces the points made by SeattleJew: 1. Taxes. ... Developers ought to pay the real costs of adding to Seattle's population by subsidizing the infrastructure costs. This is precisely what all the Eastside cities do. 2. Services. One reason ...

Posted Tue, May 22, 5:08 p.m.

An Eastside High-Tech Perspective on Seattle: The high-tech affluent are now quite well served in Bellevue, thank you. Some may be attracted to live in Seattle by its cultural vibrancy, but this is mainly true for singles. To the Eastsider, Seattle is best thought of as a cultural service provider ...

Posted Mon, May 21, 2:37 a.m.

RE: Free standing arches???: I didn't mean to imply that the arches had ever moved. I'm not certain, but I think that new science center bldgs have been added in the intervening years. Some of the old photos of the Fair seem to show much more daylight that we see ...

Posted Fri, May 18, 3:08 a.m.

Nine Speculative Scenarios Listed by Owner: Sabey 1. Sabey partners with other Eastside (and/or Seattle) residents to buy the team. The price may be an issue because, in my book at least, the OK City guys overpaid and made the Schulz consortium look -- although shrewd -- like chumps for ...

Posted Thu, May 17, 11:41 p.m.

RE: If at first you can't succeed...slop at the public trough: Piper, I generally agree that government financing is bad. And I'm in agreement that the competition of free ideas in the marketplace will lead people to contribute to the candidates and causes that support the ideas that are best. ...

Posted Thu, May 17, 8:17 p.m.

Architecture and the Decline of Seattle Center's, Seattle's Center and the Seattle Center: Rybcyznski's connection to New York City architecture through Olmsted is eerily reciprocal to our own through Yamasaki, who designed both the U.S. Pavilion at the 1962 Seattle World's Fair and the World Trade Center towers, America's ultimate ...

Posted Thu, May 17, 7:49 p.m.

Rybcyznski's Perspective on Seattle Architecture: Witold Rybcyznski (not to be confused with Ryszard Kapuscinski because of their Polish names) wrote A Clearing in the Distance: Frederick Law Olmsted and America in the 19th Century. Given Olmsted's link to New York's Central Park and our UW and Arboretum, Rybcyznski's background gives ...

Posted Thu, May 17, 4 p.m.

Raising Funds, Raising Hell, and Raising Moral Standards for Fund Raising: Colby appears to be good at the fund-raising game, yet, the allocation of the candidate's time in dealing with donors is corrupting. That allocation makes grubbing for dollars more important that winning votes or thinking through issues, since money ...

Posted Wed, May 16, 6:27 p.m.

Howl for the Owl: "I saw the best owl habitat of my generation destroyed by human madness, starving loggers, hysterical naked power..." Blow your horn for the Owl not vegetable or mineral, but Fowl, preying on wee helpless mice, the Owl seems wise, but alas not nice. Not nice, the ...

Posted Tue, May 15, 5:49 p.m.

RE: Waiting for Weaver: I channel Mike Hargrove, so that's why I'm a bit slow to treat players as if they were less than human. Fortunately, being human isn't a particularly high bar to jump over.

Posted Tue, May 15, 5:20 p.m.

The Deckchair Times and the Deckchair Intelligencer: As the newspaper industry sinks inevitably into the business ocean, ownerships will be tempted to believe that individually they can avoid sinking through financial rearrangements atop the business-model observation deck. The gaping cash-flow hole in the newspaper advertising model will continue to widen ...

Posted Mon, May 14, 6:28 p.m.

Values and organic farming methods: Maybe organic farming methods are the answer to the problem of disappearing topsoil. But those methods need economic incentives to drive their implementation. If government chooses to allow for the consumption of topsoil at no charge, then that's the way it is. As with other ...

Posted Mon, May 14, 5 p.m.

RE: The big boys get all the press, but there is a lot more to it.: Interesting post. I stand corrected on the nature of the businesses that are thriving in Skagit County. Sounds almost idyllic! Your points about the need and usefulness of zoning make a lot of sense. ...

Posted Sat, May 12, 2:10 a.m.

On The Frustration of Saving Trout in America By Trout Fishing in America: From "Trout Fishing in America" by Richard Brautigan: The last page of the diary was the grand totals for the years running from 1891-1897. Alonso Hagen went fishing 160 times and lost 2,231 trout for a seven-year ...

Posted Fri, May 11, 3:13 p.m.

RE: The big boys get all the press, but there is a lot more to it.: You make some good points. I absolutely agree that lifestyle is a major sustainable factor. IMHO it's more important, ultimately, than either or both of Microsoft and Boeing. Having said that, you don't need ...

Posted Thu, May 10, 5:17 p.m.

RE: Waiting for Weaver: I take it all back. I'm comletely wrong. He just pitched again and it's same old, same old. Release him or send him to AA so he can learn to pitch again. He certainly doesn't deserve a spot on the team anymore.

Posted Thu, May 10, 2:38 p.m.

Waiting for Weaver: Certainly atrocious thus far. As Hargrove has noted, he did win the last game of LAST YEAR'S World Series, so he's not too far removed from having at least some success. I'm sure the guy is working hard so that he can hold his head up and ...

Posted Thu, May 10, 12:52 a.m.

Can do!: I love it.

Posted Thu, May 10, 12:46 a.m.

re silver bullet: we shouldn't make bullets out of precious metals, or houses either: Government could help out TREMENDOUSLY in creating affordable housing by increasing the amount of buildable land. That's a product of zoning and of prioritizing salmon hunting habitat over habitat for people. Growth Management limits building so ...

Posted Wed, May 9, 7:15 p.m.

re speeding up...: Yeah, Seattle's population has been increasing lately at a much greater rate than in the past. But realize that ups and downs happen cyclically. Remember the Dot Com bust? I believe that caused shrinkage, not growth. And Seattle's popular now, but how long will this upsurge last? ...

Posted Wed, May 9, 7 p.m.

A Modest Proposal: Vengeful Infrastructure: I know how we can keep up with the Dutch (who I'm sure ride around their doomed flood plain wearing wooden shoes). Build a velodrome in the middle of the Seattle Center. It would be connected to the Tacoma Dome parking lot by a "37-mile ...

Posted Wed, May 9, 4:58 p.m.

Seattle's compounded growth rate has been about 1% over the past 20yrs: This slow growth rate is one of the big things wrong with Growth Management and Sound Transit and the whole high density culture. It hasn't been happening, it isn't happening, and even the laws that are supposed to ...

Posted Tue, May 8, 6:14 p.m.

Yeah, I know the previous posts are pretty much off topic ...: ...but how else am I going to fit an elephant's foot into a shoe?

Posted Tue, May 8, 4:36 p.m.

Washington is Number Three in Nuclear Warheads!: Here are 2002 estimates showing the top five nuclear national states as measured by number of nuclear warheads: 1. U.S. 10,600* 2. Russia 8600 3. China 400 4. France 350 5. U.K. 200 The total for the top five nation states is 20,150. ...

Posted Tue, May 8, 3:52 p.m.

The Clueless and Amoral U?: Apparently my vague impressions about the UW have at least a hint of validity. See Leroy Hood's damning by faint praise. He may have an axe to grind, but his comments are born out by the UW's inability to compete with the Bay Area in ...

Posted Tue, May 8, 1:57 p.m.

RE: Democracy is great, unless its your ox being gored: Great post. Pretty interesting perspective. I'd never thought much about "speculative" art vs "commissioned" art. In some ways, they're just two different business models for art, with the speculative form requiring a lot of capitalization. In other ways it reminds ...

Posted Tue, May 8, 12:23 p.m.

Pandora's Box Has Been Open for a Long Time: The box has been opened. The information is out there, the technology is out there, the bad guys are out there, the social engineers are out there, the corporations are out there, the cops are out there, the terrorist are out ...

Posted Mon, May 7, 12:17 p.m.

RE: Policy wonks make like it. But how many policy wonks are there? LOTS!!!: Too quick with the trigger. Disregard extraneous text at end of previous post beginning with "I think a good compromise is the following plan:"

Posted Mon, May 7, 12:14 p.m.

RE: Policy wonks make like it. But how many policy wonks are there? LOTS!!!: I'm wrong in implying that we can eliminate bonding and interest payments completely. This can't happen unless we accumulate the entire replacement cost before building, which is actually a pretty smart idea. If we had been ...

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

RE: Policy wonks make like it. But how many policy wonks are there? LOTS!!!: "Perhaps you didn't live here when the 520 bridge was built. The original toll was 35 cents. About ten years later, the toll was reduced to 10 cents. The toll was lifted in 1979, TWENTY YEARS ...

Posted Mon, May 7, 10:07 a.m.

RE: tolls not ready for prime time here: "You can talk about tolls all you want. Just don't plan to mention that position if you want to be elected to the office you are running for." Granted, tolling of bridges isn't Mom and Apple Pie. On the other hand, a ...

Posted Mon, May 7, 12:48 a.m.

RE: addressing privacy concerns, how an infrastructure pricing system might work: Protecting privacy is an essential goal. Certainly there could be separate, privately contracted companies who would warehouse car/driver IDs and infrastructure IDs, respectively. These warehouses -- call them the CarWarehouse and the InfrastructureWarehouse -- would be required by law ...

Posted Sun, May 6, 4:31 a.m.

RE: berger, roadway pricing, sims, social engineering: eddiew, Excellent informed post. Three responses below: 1. Tolling and Its Uses. Managing our transportation assets well is a huge part of improving our transportation system. A key asset management method, as you point out, is dynamic tolling, which seems the ideal way ...

Posted Sat, May 5, 4:26 p.m.

Lots of Money Coming in, But Net Impact to Region is Like Cruise Liners Impact: I'd be a lot more impressed with the UW if it: - graduated MORE undergraduate students - graduated them at LESS COST per student - had MORE and BETTER teaching professors - generated more start-ups ...

Posted Sat, May 5, 12:46 p.m.

RE: soops and ST: I'm sure such a swap has been discussed many times. But last year Allen seemed to back away from off-loading the Blazers for some reason. Maybe he's sprucing up the Trailblazers for the swap, which will result in the Blazers in Oklahoma. I like the idea ...

Posted Sat, May 5, 12:28 p.m.

RE: A high standard: Ah, Richard Brautigan! I would argue, however, that Brautigan was ALWAYS a caricature of himself. Thus his picture on the cover of Trout Fishing in America. Brautigan committed suicide in 1984. Apparently he had gone through electro-shock therapy, which may explain the lack of affect in ...

Posted Sat, May 5, 11:55 a.m.

RE: For whom the toll helps: Some comments to a lot of really good points: - The social engineering project we now live in is one where we have free roads. As the road system becomes more and more overwhelmed it degrades in value and more costly to upgrade and ...

Posted Sat, May 5, 1:42 a.m.

Don't Shoot the Humorist: The reality is that riding a bike will always be dangerous if you're riding in traffic. We can improve cross-walks, give out more tickets, and better educate drivers, but the car/bike mismatch will always be a latent threat. I've had experiences nearly killing two different cyclists ...

Posted Fri, May 4, 9:24 p.m.

Here's the New Yorker article mentioned above.: GREEN MANHATTAN Why New York is the greenest city in the U.S. By David Owen Published in The New Yorker 10/18/04 www.walkablestreets.com/manhattan.htm

Posted Fri, May 4, 9:11 p.m.

The Trajectory is Upwards: After a 6-game losing streak, the loss of Felix, a sub-par Ichiro, and Weaver's problems you'd expect them to be anchored in the cellar. But look, they've won 8 out of 10, have scored 22 runs in the last two games, and have shown strength in ...

Posted Fri, May 4, 6:10 p.m.

Self-Funding Infrastructure not Skanky Skeleton Free Candy: Mossback calls tolling and congestion pricing the "skankiest skeleton" from the policy closet. A more accurate description of the alternative is "self-funding infrastructure." It's what we do for water and sewer. The model is akin to most of the self-regulating somatic processes in ...

Posted Thu, May 3, 11:43 a.m.

Why WOULD The Soncis Leave?: They'll lose less money in Seattle than they will in Oklahoma City. When they sell the team, they'll make more money here than there. If the Sonics want to shoot themselves in the head, we unfortunately don't have corporate mental health counselors to help them ...

Posted Thu, May 3, 11:25 a.m.

Deer Mr. Greg Palmer, Master of the Bike Spoke Word: I find your story about bike cycles not very very funny, so much that I was not doubled-over in uncontrolling liquid thru nose laughing. I ride an Aerogant bike cycle myself and don't want car people to hit me with ...

Posted Thu, May 3, 10:30 a.m.

Why not a Great Seattle Center?: Although there's a lot of disagreement about how to alter the Seattle Center, everyone seems to believe something should be done. I was looking at the Century 21 scenarios and they get the conceptualization ball rolling up the hill. But we've got quite a ...

Posted Tue, May 1, 7:52 p.m.

Some Like It Hot: Global Warming and Climate Change are now political animals, so regardless of what The Science says, we now have spin (or denial on the one hand by the right, and pointing to the denial as proof by the left). Michael Crichton (Harvard MD, medical thriller novelist, ...

Posted Tue, May 1, 12:31 a.m.

Results of GovGregGuar's Legislative Session: A couple of comments on the end of the recently ended, hugely successful legislative session: 1. I'm not overly impressed with any individual piece of legislation; however, I'm smilingly impressed that real, honest-to-God legislation is once again being produced by the legislature -- we don't ...

Posted Sun, Apr 29, 5:04 p.m.

RE: Rossi's prospects summed up in a single letter: Agreed that W. casts a ghostly pall over all Republican candidates. The sheer incompetence and inability to execute any policy except cutting taxes demonstrates such a panoramic failure to govern that it calls into the question the ability of any Republican ...

Posted Sun, Apr 29, 4:20 p.m.

RE: Skip's a nice guy, but he's wack-a-doodle-doo: A lot of whack-a-doodle folks, who grew up here and still live here, remember that the Seattle they grew up in ate up the future. These are the folks who gave you Dreamliners, Microsoft, a cleaned-up Lake Washington, and stopped clear-cutting of ...

Posted Sat, Apr 28, 6:59 p.m.

RE: Pseudo Picture Psychoanalysis: Trying to be objective about photo selection isn't easy. The Rossi picture is actually pretty flattering imho. I notice the Gonzalez pic also is pretty low res. But it's in a humor column.

Posted Sat, Apr 28, 2:34 p.m.

World's Fair Redux: re·dux -Etym. Latin, returning, from reducere to lead back 1. adj., brought back -- used postpositively 2. v., to lower the head or body suddenly a second time, "Public acrimony ducks to avoid the civic boosterism of the 1962 Fair, and then redux to avoid the transcendent ...

Posted Sat, Apr 28, 12:18 a.m.

Pseudo Picture Psychoanalysis: Why the grainy picture of Dino? Clearly a bias against him, intended or unintended. Crosscut should be more careful. But note the face, the logical right side of which wears a polite smile. Not uncommon for the logical brain whose heart isn't in smiling. Contrast this with ...

Posted Fri, Apr 27, 10:43 p.m.

RE: Plays Well With Others: You're right on with the fact that kids today want skate parks. That should be part of the design of any major overhaul of the Seattle Center. On the other hand, small kids of all ages love amusement parks. In a lot of ways the ...

Posted Fri, Apr 27, 10:37 p.m.

RE: Some Big Policy Changes: LAND OVER BUILT INFRASTRUCTURE BIAS Parks Depsts are biased towards cheap open space n parks and against built amenities. It's not so much the cost of capital infrastructure that is the problem, but the O&M requirement that makes an amenity emphasis hard. This doesn't mean ...

Posted Fri, Apr 27, 9:31 p.m.

RE: More Possible Solutions: walker, I don't sense that this conversation is widely read, but no matter. I think we're coming up with some reasonable paths for solutions of some of these problems. Here are some things I further agree with you on, plus some thoughts on bigger subjects in ...

Posted Fri, Apr 27, 8:34 p.m.

RE: WSDOT Secretary Doug McDonald resigns: I whole-heartedly agree that McDonald was a bastion of competence and smarts and reasonableness amidst the cut-throat cancerous bloated transportation bureaucracies we've created in the region. It will be interesting to learn what caused the resignation. I'd hoped we'd get a czar, namely McDonald, ...

Posted Fri, Apr 27, 5:44 p.m.

The EMP Roller Coaster...: Imagine getting Gehry to design an EMP roller coaster that started from the Fun Forest, circled around the EMP, and then back. It'd be both the poor man's and the rich man's monorail! And why not have a design compettition between Disney and Six Flags to ...

Posted Fri, Apr 27, 12:57 p.m.

RE: Rossi 2004 = Gore 2000, Rossi 2007 = Gore 2007: I've heard good things about Pflug and how she's bright and "gets" how our overall transportation spending is folly because of its imbalance towards light rail, which in even a wildly optimistic scenario will handle only a small percentage ...

Posted Fri, Apr 27, 3:03 a.m.

RE: best analysis i saw was at tomdipatch, link below: wouldnt it be somethin to see this whole bunch of gangsters disintegrate into free fall and for anarchy to rein. When Bush cuts off his head to spite his body, (i.e., vetos the Iraq spending bill) we'll see some disintegrating ...

Posted Fri, Apr 27, 2:50 a.m.

Sad...: ...that the transcript seemed plausible for way too long, which sez something about Gonzales, but also about me...

Posted Fri, Apr 27, 2:02 a.m.

Rossi doesn't have a prayer.: Gregiore will be able to win even if she screws up big time. Rossi doesn't have anything to talk about except losing last time. Gregoire is accomplishing her goals and executing her agenda in healthcare, education and the environment. All the Bush conservatives will vote ...

Posted Fri, Apr 27, 1:21 a.m.

Even Cynics Should Smile: Everyone has multiple motives in life. The same thing for pro sports team owners. Sure, owners want to make a lot of money. Sure they want to win. Sure they like the combination. On the other hand, sometimes an owner, say Paul Allen, has made so ...

Posted Fri, Apr 27, 1:04 a.m.

RE: Lighted FieldTurf Field Impacts - Possible Solutions: Okay, here are things that address the current impasse. I think addressing these issues can really lead to solutions. (As an aside, arguing about the make-up of the Parks Board is like arguing about the right military strategy in Iraq. One side ...

Posted Fri, Apr 27, 12:48 a.m.

RE: The City Needs Parks - Common Ground?: I agree with most of what you say: - lots of walkers and passive recreation folks, way more than active rec folks - many perceive negative repercussionsto expanded use of fields - lights and artificial turf are not necessarily compatible or conducive ...

Posted Thu, Apr 26, 3:21 p.m.

World Series Parade Critics: Jeez, before the 6-game losing streak they were in first place and had the third best win-loss percentage in the AL. Felix had pitched a one hitter. We'd won the opener and beaten the A's. So we lose six and suddenly the season's over. If my ...

Posted Thu, Apr 26, 3:04 p.m.

The City Needs Parks, NIMBY's Need Them Too, They Just Don't Know It: The Parks department is trying to carry-out the legitimate interests of the entire City in creating environmentally-advanced lighted artificial fields to serve a wide range of recreational interests. These fields can take 6X the use of a ...

Posted Thu, Apr 26, 3:37 a.m.

Enormous Possession vs Enormous Dispossession: Federal, state, and local government own huge chunks of America (including approx. 50% of King County). When you combine the discussed private property owners and their huge tracts, and the various environmental organizations who lock-up land to protect it from people, we end up loosely ...

Posted Wed, Apr 25, 12:21 p.m.

Halberstam, Hurry, HITCHes, High School Drivers, Cell Phone Hijinx and Hummers: The late great David Halberstam's death illustrates what happens when drivers are in a hurry. Apparently he was being driven by a student, who was in the midst of making a left-hand turn when the car was broad sided. ...

Posted Tue, Apr 24, 4:32 p.m.

In with the Rich, Out with the Poor!:

Posted Tue, Apr 24, 4:21 p.m.

RE: response to response to Stuka's comments above: [The bridge] needs to be replaced. There is broad consensus on this. There was broad consensus on the viaduct too. It was an "emergency." Yet we've waited years. EVERYONE who builds and plans wants to build something new. That's why there's broad ...

Posted Tue, Apr 24, 3:17 a.m.

"What Race of Brainless Aliens From Which Planet Are Paying for This?": ...he asked rhetorically. Sadly, the answer may be Seattlites from the Planet Earth. Will home prices go down because of this civic gathering place? Will schools get better because of this civic gathering place? Will civilians even bother ...

Posted Tue, Apr 24, 3:01 a.m.

THE SEVEN HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE 520s: 1. THOSE BRIDGES THAT LIVE BY THE TOLL, SHOULD DIE BY THE LACK OF THE TOLL The bridge was built with a toll. I see no earthly reason for REPLACING the bridge. It works fine now. Keep it maintained and operating as long ...

Posted Mon, Apr 23, 3:39 a.m.

Death to the Seattle Center! Long Live the Seattle Center!: As a kid, I remember the Seattle Center as practically the Center of Civilization. The fact that it had a Space Needle, a Science Center, a Monorail, and the Coliseum was utterly amazing, and with the International Fountain and the ...

Posted Sun, Apr 22, 7:38 p.m.

Label it clearly as humor...: Otherwise it comes off like an oddity from the "new" Weekly about Sci-Fi-Comix quarrels or malfeasance in the homeless community.

Posted Sat, Apr 21, 3:02 a.m.

Need for a Transportation Apical Meristem: What's becoming very clear is that piecemeal solutions to transportation problems such as the Viaduct, particularly complicated problems including freight, safety, lengthy rebuild durations, aesthetics, and multi-billion dollar finance must be justified in the context of a larger transportation picture. I don't mean just ...

Posted Fri, Apr 20, 2:56 p.m.

Game Plan or the Port: When nice little $339,841 golden parachutes are handed out at a whim, that's a sign that there's enormous waste at the Port, and that it's an unaccountable, rogue agency that needs to be cut down to size. Apparently, that's just peanuts in the annual $68M ...

Posted Fri, Apr 20, 1:29 p.m.

RE: pop growth: Seattle's growth has been marginal. The compound growth rate of Seattle since 1990 is less than 1%. It's not remarkable, it's unremarkable. Growth of the Eastside has been an order of magnitude more remarkable. As you point out, household sizes have shrunk-- presumably as parents have moved ...

Posted Tue, Apr 17, 7:19 p.m.

Seattle as the New New York: I read a good article in the New Yorker a couple of years ago using Manhattan as an example on how density both reduces infrastructure costs and makes for a vibrant city. I've failed to locate it in the New Yorker archives, but I ...

Posted Tue, Apr 17, 6 p.m.

RE: The Post-Modern Unintelligencer Siamese Times in Death Spiral: Sorry, I'm mainly saying that the news PAPER business is in decline and that I really like Crosscut. But gotta admit that the caffeinated hyperbole got a little out of control.

Posted Tue, Apr 17, 11:06 a.m.

All men are environmentalists, Socrates is a man, therefore...: These days everyone is an environmentalist. Claiming to be an environmentalist is like claiming to be mortal. The degree to which you can demonstrate you care about the environment is what counts, not unlike a religion in which members and priests ...

Posted Mon, Apr 16, 8:01 p.m.

The Post-Modern Unintelligencer Siamese Times in Death Spiral: The tree-based news duo lives to lose money another day. The settlement papers over their losses. In ten years they'll both be out of business. Crosscut will have mercifully merged their paper-based buggy-whip news organizations into its Starbucks subsidiary, where the joint ...

Posted Mon, Apr 16, 5:57 p.m.

Sprawl Great Neighborhoods Horizontally, Stack Offices Vertically: What used to be a great Seattle with a healthy middle class, great schools, good roads and a great environment has turned into a bizarre fish-worshipping, vision of utopia with a declining middle class, neglect of neighborhoods, and manure-headed boosterism projects such as ...