City Comforts, the blog

Making the problem bigger is a way to do nothing

Some people, here, here, here, and here seem to be under the illusion that the "surface/transit option" has a chance. They are listening to the Governor and making much of a recent agreement between the State, the County and the City:

Gregoire said she has begun to think broadly about mobility and about Seattle's future as an "international city" — marked by population growth, a leading seaport and increased tourism — that needs a hospitable waterfront.

"If this is to be an international city, we'll have to look at the entire system. Once you do that, the surface option becomes an open question," she said in a telephone interview Tuesday.

The state Department of Transportation (DOT), King County and Seattle announced a new phase Tuesday in what has been a tortured history of viaduct planning. Rather than focus on serving 111,000 cars and trucks that now make weekday trips on the highway, agencies will study mobility improvements within a broader area, from North 85th Street to South Spokane Street.

I think that proponents are still dreaming — in fact they are even deeper asleep.

The Governor has just expanded the scope of the problem so dramatically that there can be no resolution:

Rather than focus on serving 111,000 cars and trucks that now make weekday trips on the highway, agencies will study mobility improvements within a broader area, from North 85th Street to South Spokane Street.

What a vast task. It's too big for any resolution which will be specific to the issue of how to deal with the Viaduct. Neither our collective intellectual abilities much less local politics are capable of encompassing such complexity.

Hers is an exceedingly astute political move. The Governor looks like a progressive, thoughtful student of urban mobility. But she has assured us — by expanding the issue to one which encompasses a vastly greater area with a myriad of other issues such as the Floating Bridge  — that there will be no possible resolution while she is in office to the Viaduct Conundrum, except the "do nothing" alternative.

Focusing on "mobility" sounds great. But it is a vote for the status quo. In the case of the Viaduct that suits me fine. But we should recognize it for what it is.

Fewer trees in Seattle now? Or more? Post #2

A week ago in this post I questioned the statement "Thirty-five years ago, tree canopy covered 40 percent of the city. Today, that's down to 18 percent." The statement is an official one from the City of Seattle.

Crosscut (where I found the statement, though I had seen it elsewhere too) follows up today with a very thoughtful post by Knute Berger titled Is Seattle's urban forest really in crisis? It's good. Read it, even if Knute can't quite admit that someone is cooking the books to further a particular goal.

Several comments. I don't question the 18% figure for today. What I doubt is the 40% figure for 1972. Moreover the 40% to 18% numbers might well be correct for the greater Seattle area including our suburbs. The issue on which I focus is "What has happened in Seattle proper?

My initial remarks here were based on my own memory. When I think back over 40 years about how Seattle has changed -- and not changed -- on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood basis I just cannot figure out where these trees were that have supposedly disappeared.

You old folks: just think about it. Go down through your mental list of the parks and areas of town with which you have been familiar and see if you remember that those places had more trees then than they do now:

Are there fewer trees at Greenlake and Lower Woodland? At Seward Park? At Carkeek? At Discovery Park and Magnusons Park? (Which two parks didn't even exist in 1972 but were in bureaucratic process of being transformed from Fort Lawton and Sand Point Naval Air Station respectively.) Did any of those parks have more trees 35 years ago? What about the Arboretum? More then? Not in my memory. I can't see any possible answer but that our parks probably have more or at least the same number of trees now as they did then.

Then consider street right-of-way which to begin with Seattle is somewhere around 50% of the land area of the city. (I am fuzzy on the number; it might be 40% or it might be 60% but it is a huge number.) Street right-of-way includes sidewalks and planting strips. That is a huge area. So ask some questions about right-ow-way. First are there a whole lot of new streets which have been developed on existing but never opened right-of-way in the past 35 years? I'd say no. Has there been a great deal (or any) cutting of street trees? I certainly can't think of much. Sure every once in a while we lose a street tree to a vehicle accident or to a disease. But those trees are replaced almost immediately. Moreover the City has had street tree planting programs -- either publicly-funded or as part of construction permit requirements -- for that entire period. So I find it hard to believe that we have lost many trees from public right-of-way.

Then consider neighborhoods. Did Capitol Hill or Madison Park or Magnolia have more trees then? Did Maple Leaf or Roosevelt or West Seattle? Or Wedgewood or Seward Park or Ballard? My memory tells me that with very few exceptions we probably have more trees in the neighborhoods because of those tree-planting programs I mention above and also because so many people in Seattle appreciate greenery and so we plant trees on our own property. When a new house is built or there is a major addition to an existing house, I would bet that new landscaping -- including trees -- is part of the development.

The one exception to my guess of "more trees now than then" might be the steep greenbelts surrounding Queen Anne and parts of Beacon Hill in which there has been some development over the past 35 years. But those are small areas of the city and the greenbelts are still largely intact. So development in the greenbelts could not be much more than a small part of the story.

Think about the downtown core from Lake Union to Jackson Street. Did it have forests in the 1970s? It had a few scattered trees here and there on the few vacant lots but it seems to me that street tree programs must surely have added more than were taken away by private development.

Also consider the substantial industrial areas of the Duwamish Valley and Interbay. They don't have many trees now and they didn't then.  But I'd bet again that because of street trees plantings they actually have more trees now than in the 1970s.

Do I have the facts? No. (And it will take some real historical geography to get it. For example, the street trees on upper Roosevelt in the Maple Leaf neighborhood were planted as part of the Forward Thrust bond Issue of 1968. Were they already in place in 1972? Were they planted afterwards? It makes a difference to the analysis.)

I am the first to admit that my skepticism of the City's claim is anecdotal and from my memory. My question from the outset has been exactly that: a question. Is this statement — "There are fewer trees in Seattle in 2008 than there were in 1972."— an accurate one? Who did the research? What was the methodology? etc. Maybe I am wrong and the research is dead-on accurate; I have been wrong many  times before. But I have a good memory and I have been looking at Seattle's environment for the past 40 years and if anything I see more trees now than then.

Now does any of this mean that we shouldn't have even more trees? And that street tree planting programs -- both public & private as part of development -- shouldn't be continued and even enhanced? Or that the City should not have some sort of stewardship program to take care of street trees? etc etc. No. No. & No.

I am in favor of such things. But I want them based on accurate facts and not on what I conjecture are dubious scare numbers. And again, if I am wrong and the research is soundly-based I will admit that I am both surprised and wrong.

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BTW my gibe at reporters was meant in all seriousness and not by any means at only Knute or Crosscut. I have just finished Woodward's State of Denial and am now reading Ricks' Fiasco. If there is one thing which we can all learn from this Iraq debacle is that we must be skeptical of governmental claims -- from a government of any political persuasion -- and the media must be skeptical most of all because that is their job. That goes for national politics but it also goes for local politics.