Yes!!

Prompted by I-933 some areSeeking a middle ground on property rights.

Nut unlikely to happen -- just count the votes. Urban voters don't care about rural property-owners' rights and probably rather like the idea of resticting urban development.

Comments

[Gomez]

933, like most initiatives, was not well thought out, and while it may have helped rural communities, it would've definitely hurt the cities.

[Kingsley S Hall]

Need a minimum of ten lanes (per 1961 needs study, This is 2007 last time I looked at calendar) on Elliott Bay floating bridge (least expensive and buildable faster and prettier per Initiative 964 ), on suspension bridge (more earthquake and terrorist sensitive), or underwater tunnel (I don’t advocate in seismic zone three but others do) for minimum vehicular traffic. A SURFACE TRANSIT SYSTEM WILL NOT REPLACE A MINIMUM VEHICULAR TRAFFIC FACILITY. WE NEED BOTH RIGHT NOW BEFORE THE EXISTING VIADUCT REMOVED. WE NEED 24/7 WESTERN WASHINGTON TRANSIT NOT RAPID TRANSIT. THERE IS NO NEED TO BUILD ANY MORE INFRASTRUCTUE JUST BUSSES FIRST. Will they run empty at times. Yes, of course they will but so is a expensive freeway or any other road empty in the middle of the night but you can still get back home on it at 4:30 AM or whenever.

Replace all existing transportation authorities with two Statewide bus systems. One Eastern WA and one Western WA. Abolish all public school bus systems to increase use of main system

Provide 24/7 hourly Surface Bus Transit (using 6 car articulated buses on interstate freeways, 4 car articulated on non interstate freeways, 3 car on boulevards or any road with four lanes or more, 2 car on major city arterials, single bus on rural county roads, Dial a rides to mass produced plastic kiosks like school bus stop sheds. Sheds have built in GPS solar powered cell phones. Commuter has debit/credit/transit card enters kiosk number he wants to get to. Printer in kiosk prints out routes transfer points and tickets. Thence dial a ride picks him up. If either end of trip to kiosk in the sticks it costs debit/credit/transit card owner more but less as divided by number of passengers from kiosk to transfer point or same drop off point within any one trip. (It is still cheaper to drive sometimes if more than one in car). Kiosks at end of cul de sacs and industrial plant entrances could be subsidized by users if demanded. There is a plant farm out here in the toolies that employs several hundred folks that it would be cheaper for them to do that than having to provide a bus for them. Casinos could do the same. Here at my theater I can have the American Legion Band rehearse at 7 PM arrive by bus but the senior citizen’s can’t get home afterward on public transportation. If DOT priority program system origin & destination studies justified a highway or freeway capacity improvement it justifies a bus line improvement. The entire trucking industry that has replaced railroads (look at UPS for instance) is based on this idea for packages why not people

It is not just a I-5 Corridor problem. I take an average five trips a week thru Seattle from Elma to Lynwood, Lake Stevens, Concrete, Everett but I can’t get back home. I have a friend that has kidney dialysis in Seattle. Somebody has to drive him up there and back because transit does not bring him home to Elma before last bus leaves Olympia etc. There are Boeing-Everett people I know that live South of Aberdeen that could make it to Aberdeen on Pacific County bus in plenty of time to get Grays Harbor #40 to Olympia but that bus gets to Olympia 5 minutes after Seattle Express and there’s no way in Hades he can get home in the evening.

Why does the Sounder stop in downtown Seattle instead of going on to Tacoma & Everett . And why does it leave and arrive downtown too soon before and after people get off work at 8:00 AM & 5:00 PM etc. Standard rail is the best infrastructure option because you can lease more standard cars for world fairs or other special events. You can add or remove spurs and switches as different area demands change. A spur into the Boeing Everett Plant can serve both freight & passengers. Their all over Chicago.

ANOTHER PURE MEDITATION OR BLOG SUBJECT

I may have some interesting thoughts to some folks about urban and city planning because of the unusual perspective I have by having been blessed with two generations of efforts (rarely but sometimes acceptable) by both my father and I within the sometimes intense involvement in related government and private sector processes.

First weird thought that comes to my mind is the difference between the number of professional planners that are public employees or private consultants involved with the administrative law part of planning as differentiated with the relatively few planners that are employed by either government or private sector with job descriptions that allow them to think with at least some creative initiative
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Most of our college education curriculums except as provided by those few institutions that have pioneered with contract studies programs have offered degrees in areas of expertise long after the area of concern identified as a potential career. This has effected many folks my age for instance; those of us like myself that worked in aircraft design at Boeing years before you could achieve a degree anywhere in the US (including UW) in Aeronautical engineering, those of us like myself that took courses in electrical engineering offering studies or degrees either in power or communications but not automation or computer circuitry etc., those of us that like myself went back to college in 1960 with my only intent to take the first two hour course offered in computer science. (Now you can get a doctorate and I believe that 2 hr. course was harder), and now we finally get to my formal education or lack of it in urban & city planning. It turns out I audited (while a student of EE) a college course (after which I was admitted by examination to a Associate Member of the then AIP not to be confused with my Father a Member of AIP) while my retired father was still alive in urban & city planning within the school of architecture. He looked at the text and my notes provided by the people who had never worked in the field and was horrified by the stupidity. Not about opinions but how opinions were at that time allegedly handled or not studied both in the past and present within the planning profession and administrative laws governing same.

He pointed out among other things that The AIP (American Institute of Planners) (of which he was a member while Tech. Dir of Chicago Plan Commission ) was (now non-existent) the only such organization that was ever admitted into the National Science Foundation. Only later when I entered the field both as a public employee (of Grays Harbor County, Clallam County, King County, City of Sumner, and as a private consultant to other private & government entities thence retire did I understood and concur with his various critical observations.

When my father worked as technical director of the Chicago Plan Commission Staff the Commission allowed him to utilize most of his departments efforts on development of research methods and production of various types of Comprehensive plans. One example of a result of this was the first (circa 1948) and maybe the only parcel by parcel land use study inventory ever produced for a major city by cartography within the two volumes still studied with envy as a model under consideration but never since attempted again anywhere today. The State of Delaware came close in 1969 when they borrowed a copy of this effort which was returned after I developed some similar computer software for them and the State of Washington but I went out of business. Chicago used Hollarith cards, tabulating machines, etc. in 1948 . I still used punch cards on a IBM-1130 system in 1969. It would be fun to but still not easy to attempt on today’s modern computers. But, this and many other such efforts are not done today because most planning department personnel spend most of their time enforcing the administrative laws. There are very few urban & city planners allowed to think out of the box. It’s not in their or anyone else’s job description. I think that now that I am 72 years old and totally retired I am for the first time allowed by both lack of any supervision and lack of any financial pressure from clients to be objective about my own or other peoples ideas, projects, environmental concerns, property rights issues, and a host of other concepts that are almost as bad as the military chain of command (I admit) must dictate. i.e “Your’s is to do or die. Not to reason why”.

It is wonderful that the internet and blog pages like this allow anyone that might have a great idea to throw in their oar but I think it’s sad to see this chance to share ideas for the good of mankind wasted on negative politics. I did not like Seattle’s Mayor’s idea about the tunnel but I did like his efforts to try to provide public restrooms downtown for which I have seen lots of critics comments. I wish those critics would concentrate on helping solve the rest room problem rather than dump fecal matter on his reputation. My deceased wife worked for the Laboratory of Clinical Medicine in a basement office in The Cobb Building with small ceiling windows looking out on a short alley off of University. It was amazing how many respectable looking emergency moons she and her fellow employees witnessed because there was no alternative for these otherwise law abiding citizen’s that I’m sure would rather not have probably caught their dress in a updraft.. You heard about the two fellows that came out of the tailor’s with brand newsuits only to have seagull hit one guys lapel. He asked “Oh! Do you have a piece of toilet paper.” His college replied “What for that seagull is miles away by now” Have a nice day.