Recent Stories in News

Like most everyone in Seattle, I missed seeing President Obama at Hec Ed, the backyard summit, and Top Pot yesterday. Lucky for us, Mike Barthel was there as a volunteer. He documented the whole thing, from advance work to payoff for the Awl. Now you can read about it and feel like you were there:

Like the very attractive mixed-mixed-race couple in front of me, who take pictures of each other with their backs to Obama and then take pictures of themselves with their backs to Obama and then look at the pictures and comment on how attractive they look in these pictures of themselves with the President also in the frame, and everyone is doing this. They don't just want to document that Obama was here, they want to document that they were here, seeing Obama.

In addition to this, there are appearances by precious undergraduates, tourists, reporters, friendly police officers, and other meditations on politics. It almost makes you wish you'd tried to scam your way into the auditorium.

View from atop Mt. Catherine: That's Granite Mountain to the left, and the Kaleetan and Chair Peaks to the right.

Special to The SunBreak by Mt. Catherine correspondent John Hieger

Back in the '80s, when Blizzard of Oz was the coolest extreme skiing influence on the planet, my friend's snow patrol dad would regal us with stories of the Pass's off-trail downhill couloirs. Mt. Catherine's name often surfaced as the rumored higher step on the Hyak Ski Area expansion. Backcountry wild men had been skiing it for decades and it was just a matter of time before permits cleared and chairlifts went up.

But some 30 years later, Mt. Catherine is as pristine as ever and the only extreme skiers who bag her summit still come the hard way, on foot.

Making the most of the unseasonably blue skies afforded this autumn, I made my way back to Mt. Catherine. It's a modest day hike by Snoqualmie Pass standards that looks down over the Hyak ski area, and features an impressive display of alpine peaks from the typical cast of Snoqualmie Pass big shots that come out with the sun.

Mt. Catherine comes via five solid miles of rocky Forest Road 9070 that winds from the Summit East parking area off Exit 54. Your dying Civic might not make it. Like any hike that's kind of a bitch to get to it gives you a little extra altitude for free. It's a booster seat for your legs while a potential tire-killer for your car.... (more)

Storm-watchers will be packing up and heading to the north coast this weekend, as a major low may bump right into us on Sunday. It's "what we call an extratropical cyclone in the business," reports Cliff Mass, with barely disguised anticipation.

You can watch an animated model here, but the short story is that if conditions are right (or wrong, depending on your perspective), the coast will get hit with sustained winds up to 45 knots, with 30- to 40-foot waves. That would likely bring power outages from downed trees and tree limbs, and attempts by surfers with poor risk/reward estimation to hit the beach.

Meanwhile, inland, all we get is a pretty good chance of showers on Saturday, increasing on Sunday. Mass explains why it doesn't look like we'll get in on the action:

I should note a rule of thumb of local meteorologists: to get strong winds over Puget Sound and the southern interior the low pressure center must cross the coast south of central Vancouver Island (my book has more on this).

The Viaduct will outlive us all.

You know that phrase, "money quote"? This time it's literal:

"Both teams, and maybe the two teams that dropped out, expressed concern the [state's cost target] is too low. They couldn't figure out how to bid the project at that amount or lower," Dick Page told the Seattle Times, explaining WSDOT's decision to spend down its $415 million cash reserve by $230 million in concessions to the two bidding teams.

(Page is district leader for HNTB, the engineering part of Seattle Tunnel Partners, which also includes Dragados-USA; the Seattle Tunneling Group is a consortium of S A Healy and FCC Construccion, SA, with design by Parsons Transportation Group and Halcrow.)

Keep in mind that, as TunnelTalk reports, "Specifications within the bid documents are minimal. Much of the means, methods and risk mitigation measures are left to the expertise and preferences of the pre-qualified design-build bidding teams."

Projected tunnel costs have already increased by $60 million, so with this latest news, WSDOT's Cost Estimate Valuation Process has been on the low side by around $300 million on a $2.1 billion project.

Yes, the contingency and risk fund was included in the original estimate, but what we're seeing is that contingency and risk have eaten up half that fund a year before a single clod of earth has been moved. That's not a good sign; what's also not a good sign is that you can't seem to find a single tunnel proponent who is bothered by it.

They should be, because the merits of the project aside, the deep-bore tunnel could see a funding death by a thousand cuts. The state has resolutely capped its contribution to the entire $4.24-billion project at $2.8 billion (leading to a contentious debate over whether Seattle is responsible for any overages). Tolling will be needed to make up part of the funding gap (a tricky prospect, since the higher the tolls are set, the fewer people will use the tunnel).

And the state may have already bitten off more than it can chew. In February, the state's gas tax revenue was down $168 million for the 2009-2011 biennium. The state's Office of Financial Management has updated that number, and the decline has continued. Some $1.8 billion of tunnel funding is supposed to come from gas tax increases passed in 2003 and 2005, but over the entire 16-year forecast horizon for gas tax revenues, the forecast for September 2010 is down almost one percent ($180 million) from the June 2010 forecast. All transportation revenues are off almost $1 billion over that period.... (more)

I’ve heard this sentiment from Laurelhurst to Leschi lately: “I just can’t figure the [Huskies/Seahawks] out! One week they beat a good team, the next week they lose to a bad one! What gives?”

What gives, friends, is that both the Huskies and Seahawks have emerged from the muck of terribleness. Joy! However, they have not stumbled very far. They now gambol in the slightly damp ground of mediocrity. The move will take some adjustment.

“Good enough to beat USC on the road. Bad enough to lose all momentum at home,” wrote the Seattle Times’ Jerry Brewer of the Huskies. “The only characteristic of this team is that it's indefinable.”

Not really, no. You can define them pretty easily with SAT math: (Good+Bad)/2 = Average.

The Seahawks are almost exactly comme çi, comme ça: They have scored one more point than they have allowed.... (more)

This scarecrow and its crop of pumpkins illustrates the prevailing mood of cautious optimism. Photo: Flickr's Great_Beyond.

Umpqua Bank and the Puget Sound Business Journal welcomed area businesses to a crowded Four Seasons ballroom this morning, as Washington's chief economist Arun Raha, Michael Parks (editor emeritus of Marple's Letter), and Umpqua CEO Ray Davis held forth on the economics of the year ahead.

This morning's key pronouncement from Raha--"What we need now is just a few months of nothing going wrong," a big laugh line as it turns out--contrasted strongly with the suppressed panic of the last big economic forecast I attended in December of 2008. The mood now is one of growing impatience, having seen the worst, with the progress of recovery--though all the panelists were careful to emphasize that patience will be exactly what's required.

Raha led off with a short summary of where Washington state stands. We've seen a 6.1 percent overall decline in employment since the recession began (though, he noted, it technically ended a year ago), the result of a "castle of derivatives built on a foundation of sand." Community banks are still under stress (an assessment Davis backed up, saying he expected a number of bank closures still to come), and interest rates are likely to remain low, with "quantitative easing" being considered.

Currently we're somewhere at the bottom-right curve of a U-shaped recovery, which is why state unemployment has been more or less frozen at nine percent since March of 2009. (The recession, you remember, ended in June of '09.) If nothing upsets the recovery apple cart, we'll have "lost" five years to the downturn, which is not so bad as the 16 lean years following the Great Depression. Still, Raha doesn't expect to see much bounce-back in real estate until mid-2011.

Other areas (Boeing, Microsoft, exports) are showing definite signs of life: Boeing has six years of back orders to fill, and while the state lost 2,400 jobs in the software sector, we've gained back almost half that. Meanwhile, the export engine is only fueled by a weak dollar.... (more)

Connoisseurs will note that this studio condo's location, at the corner of East Union and Belmont, actually leaves it perching on the north shoulder of First Hill. But since the bustling Pike/Pine corridor is just down the street, I don't think people will sniff at you if you call it Capitol Hill.

This 377-sq.-ft. studio in the Belboy Condos is admittedly cozy, but it does come with 10 feet tall ceilings. In addition to a the benefits of a renovation of this 110-year-old building--intercom systems, updated electrical, kitchens, and bathrooms--you can enjoy a large full bath, a fireplace, and leaded glass windows.

All for just over $100,000, if you can imagine that. (If you can imagine bank ownership, more to the point.) HOA dues are $208, and property taxes are $996. There's an open house this Sunday, October 24, from 1 to 4 p.m.

"Short Sales, Foreclosures, and Bankruptcy Sales: Oh My!" is the subtitle of a section of Redfin's monthly real estate report, and that's partly a warning for bargain hunters:

Non-refundable costs needed up front, the stress of buying home as-is, and a process that seem interminable are all common issues encountered when buying distressed inventory. Sometimes the pain is worth the gain, it just depends on your constitution.... (more)

Tim Burgess

Of the public outcry that has so far greeted Mayor McGinn's proposal to raise on-street parking rates downtown, to as much as $4 per hour, the bulk has been from businesses downtown. Now City Council member Tim Burgess, saying the Mayor is on the right track, is suggesting the city "introduce demand-sensitive variable pricing as quickly as possible."

"Demand-sensitive or performance-based on-street parking rates are pro business," Burgess writes in boldface, to forestall the inevitable backlash.

As the Seattle Times explains McGinn's proposal, the $4-per-hour top price would come with paid parking on Sundays, and a new weekday cut-off at 8 p.m. (instead of 6 p.m.). In addition, the commercial parking tax for private lots and garages would almost double, to 17.5 percent from ten percent. The introduction to the proposed budget explains the rationale:

First, the increases better align the charges with the costs to the City to regulate and manage the parking program. Second, the increase brings parking meter rates in line with the current market rates for parking in private garages. Third, the existence of market rate prices for parking will better encourage turnover of parking spaces so that people can find a parking spot when they need one, thereby encouraging residents to frequent commercial districts and reducing congestion and carbon emissions. These proposed changes to the City's parking meter program will generate $6.6 million in net revenue to the City.

PubliCola spoke with Joe Quintana of the Seattle Business Coalition and Tango restaurant owner Travis Rosenthal, who argued that the higher rates and taxes would drive their customers elsewhere.

(Quintana sent me a spreadsheet detailing his argument that Seattle would be "paying the second highest taxes on parking in the nation"--though to make this point he also adds in Seattle's sales and B&O taxes. For context, Chicago and San Francisco have parking tax rates of 23 and 25 percent, respectively, and a $4-per-hour rate downtown is also competitive with Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Chicago.)... (more)

It's Community Day at SAM! Many, many things are going on, so head on down right now.

Pre-election, everything seems politically tinged. Nancy Pelosi dropped in on Microsoft. Regence and the insurance commissioner were sparring over child-only coverage. The Seattle Times reported a review board found the shooting of woodcarver John Williams was unjustified. (That's a preliminary finding.) PubliCola asked, Is Patty Murray leading Dino Rossi? A pile of money came in for a new South Park Bridge--just hang tight for three years.

Seattle Bubble tried to sort out the foreclosure documentation mess. Over in Bellevue, the Bravern has decided even more condos look better as apartments "temporarily." Finally, a reminder that the Viaduct is closed for inspection all weekend.

Now, a new look as we try out Neighborhood Headline News!... (more)

Two hours south of Seattle, just off I-5, lies the hamlet of Toledo, Washington, which, if it is known for anything at all (besides being a point of confusion for people more familiar with Toledo, Ohio), is known for being warmer, on average, than much of Western Washington. It's a small town, far from most big-city cares, but some cares--like getting attacked in class--are sadly universal.

Today the Seattle Times (actually, AP) is reporting all Toledo schools were closed for Friday because of a hot-tempered fight that spread to threats online. As a proud THS grad, I immediately got in touch with our Western Washington hamlet correspondent for further details:

From what I heard, yesterday a few high schoolers went down to the middle school and beat up a middle schooler right there in a classroom, in front of the teacher and everyone.

Then there were a threats made on Facebook, and now all hell is breaking loose.  News trucks are here and everything.

Terrific, great work! Anything else you can tell us?... (more)

The elation over the extension of the second daily Amtrak run between Seattle and Vancouver is shared north and south of the border, despite the contretemps being instigated by the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA), who wanted someone on the U.S. side to pay some $550,000 per year to defray customs inspection costs.

Washington's Governor Gregoire was "vexed" by the CBSA's original move, and U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and U.S. ambassador to Canada David Jacobson eventually bent ministerial ears in Canada as well.

Crosscut broke down those costs as $1,500 per train, which the Washington State Department of Transportation, which sponsors the route, was unwilling to pay itself, or try to extract from passengers in the form of higher ticket prices. WSDOT Secretary Paula Hammond estimated the economic benefit to Vancouver at almost $12 million. (The CBSA, in turn, argued that they'd only agreed to waive the staffing costs for a pilot project lasting the duration of the Olympics, and weren't sure the post-Olympics tourism would bring the same economic boost.)

The potential economic benefit played a large part in the announcement Canada's Federal Public Safety Minister Vic Toews that "the border services agency has reallocated about $800,000 to cover the cost of the second U.S. Amtrak train into Vancouver per day," as CTV News reports. Essentially, the train has a year to prove that it's a net money-maker for the province. Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson hailed the decision as a "no-brainer."

Through the rest of October, by the way, train passengers can snap up promotional offers from twelve different Vancouver attractions.

Mark it down: October 14, 2010, was the beginning of the post-Sonics era of pro basketball in Seattle. Tonight the Portland Trail Blazers held an informal scrimmage at Garfield High, alma mater of their star guard Brandon Roy. Had the Blazers held such an event two years ago, it would've been a flashpoint for aggrieved Sonics fans. But last night, Sonics fans were sparse--or at least not identifying themselves. I saw plenty of Portland and UW jerseys. I even saw a Shaun Alexander replica. But not a single Sonics jersey.

Instead, the Blazers, in partnership with their fellow Vulcan-owned sister squad, the Seahawks, took baby steps toward becoming what they inevitably will become: Seattle's de facto NBA team.

It started tonight with a scrimmage attended by a few hundred in an inner-city high school gym. Next time it will be an exhibition game at KeyArena. Maybe someday a regular-season game or two. And as young Seattleites with no memory of the Sonics grow up, they'll naturally adopt the team that's barely a three-hour drive away--just as Portlanders long ago adopted the Mariners and Seahawks.... (more)

Written by Diana Toledo; reprinted/posted with permission

How a “true” non-partisan candidate can bring real change to King County Council

Diana Toledo and family

In 2008 the public demanded greater bi-partisan representation in leadership on the King County Council and voted to make all King County Council positions non-partisan. The community, tired of status quo divisive party politics on both sides, recognized that problems plaguing our communities were not solved by engaging in party ideology or philosophical debates. Simply put, a pothole in our neighborhood is not a Republican pothole or a Democrat pothole; it is a pothole that needs to be fixed. 

But when the King County Council became non-partisan at the will of the people, nothing changed. Even now, two years, later we have yet to see any change in the way council members interact with each other; in fact, council members continue to meet (caucus) among the old party ranks, Democrats on one side and Republicans on the other. 

The reality is that there is only one true non-partisan in the race. My opponent is a career politician, backed by the political machine and bringing a 10-year history of voting the party line at the state level (resulting in unsustainable spending and huge budget deficits.). We simply cannot afford to vote the status quo any longer; we need new leadership that is willing to transcend party lines in order to do what is best for our communities and our region. 

For 15 years I have served King County, building a reputa­tion of integrity and professionalism by working with Democrats, Republicans, and Independents to imple­ment reform, stop animal abuse, and develop a responsible regulatory licensing policy such as the pilot program for accessible taxicab service. As a whistle-blower standing up for King County front-line staff, frustrated customers and your wasted tax dollars, I demonstrated the courage necessary to stand for real reform. ... (more)

When internet service goes down, who should know about it first? In Seattle, it's not internet provider Comcast. Their customers announce the outages.

This morning, The SunBreak HQ, like many offices around Seattle, was abuzz with complaints about our Business-Class High-Speed Internet from Comcast. Pages were stalling, IM clients weren't loading, everything was slowed down to molasses speed. After performing the usual rites and incantations (unplugging the modem and router, restarting the laptops), nothing had improved.

I had limited connectivity, so I checked on Comcast's status: all green! But it did say, "Please sign in to see local Network Health messages," so I tried that. Still all green. It was time to try online support. 15 people were in the queue ahead of me, so it took 5-10 minutes for my customer service bot to ask me how my day was. Slow internet service? Had I tried unplugging everything? Oh. I had, eh? Well, perhaps I could provide my name and account number. Now if I would just wait a few minutes while they pulled up my account...

While this was happening, I was watching my Twitter stream to see if anyone else was having issues, and TechFlash tweeted "Comcast outage in parts of Seattle." Never mind, I told the bot, the outage is on your end, and signed out. Meanwhile, ComcastWA was tweeting to TechFlash's John Cook that they were "checking to see what's going on." This was about an hour into my experience, and it was the first tweet from ComcastWA on the subject.

By 10:30 a.m. the snafu was resolved, and someone from @comcastcares sent me a tweet to let me know. (Which, you know, thanks, but I can tell when the internet is working.) What's not explained is why Comcast's status maps were all green throughout the outage, or why support staff were telling people to try unplugging their modems and routers first.... (more)

Mindy Jones is a Seattleite living in Paris for two years with her husband and two kids. Her daily life does not include romantic walks along the Seine, champagne picnics on the Pont des Arts, or five-star gourmet dinners. For a realistic take on life in a fantasy place, visit her blog, An American Mom in Paris.

Our troubles enrolling in the French health care system happened at the same time the health care reform bill was being angrily debated at home. If anyone from the States asked us how that dang socialist health care was treating us, we responded, "Fine."

We didn’t want to bemoan a system that, while not flawless, is certainly better than most. We were also afraid our frustrations would be used as ammunition at one of those town hall meetings where everyone yelled a lot.

French people are very happy with their health care system. They were therefore confused when an Obama is Hitler! poster made the front page of a French magazine. The French knew Hitler up close and personal and the French know universal health care. I don't think they got the connection. (I told as many who would listen that I don't know any Americans who got the connection, either.) 

But this isn’t a diatribe on health care reform, or a serious article on how to construct a perfect health care system with a few rubber bands and a can-do attitude. It's also a waste of time if you're looking for a comprehensive overview of the French system, or really any type of insight whatsoever. It's just what happened to us. 

We hadn’t even gotten our cable hooked up yet when I discovered I was pregnant. Getting pregnant moments after landing in Paris hadn’t been the plan but sometimes a bottle of celebratory French wine contributes to the complete forgetting of the plan.  

I was suddenly, miserably afflicted with intense nausea and sensitivity to smells in the land of stinky cheese, cigarette smoke and open-air fish markets. I attempted to speak French but mid-sentence decided I didn’t care and laid down on the floor to sleep. Harshest of all, just a few weeks into our lives in France, I could no longer partake in two of my favorite French activities: eating odiferous unpasteurized French cheeses and drinking the very French wine that had been complicit in my becoming unable to drink it. Is that irony? I’ve never admitted this to anyone but I don’t know the difference between "irony" and "a big bummer."... (more)

"FREE HOMES" courtesy of our Flickr pool's photocoyote

What's it all mean? The latest concern over messy mortgage paperwork injects more uncertainty into people's already uncertain lives. The Seattle Bubble reports "foreclosure notices are still rising rapidly year-over-year." FBR Capital Markets analyst Paul Miller says foreclosure delay losses could range from six to ten billion dollars. Any delay in processing will simply drag out the larger real estate market reset.

But the burning question once again--as with the subprime loan meltdown--is what the size of the problem is. Are these errors that can be corrected, or have lenders fast-tracked themselves into writing unsecured loans?

When I first heard that banks were halting foreclosures, I thought, naively, that they were attempting some kind of homeowner assistance program. But it turned out that banks have been illegally foreclosing on homeowners, through what's known as "robo-signing"or otherwise cutting corners.

In Washington state, Attorney General Rob McKenna says that investigators responding to complaints have found "inaccurate documents, conflicts-of-interest, faulty chains of title and failures to provide the disclosures and conduct mediations required by law." He's asked 52 Washington foreclosure trustees to suspend action on any "questionable" foreclosures.... (more)

In a live event at Microsoft's Silicon Valley campus yesterday, company officials were joined by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to announce their mash-up venture.

The two have created a new module that expands the amount of data produced on a Bing search. The module will show which results a user's Facebook friends have liked (see photo). The other add-on is in people search. Bing will lead with Facebook friends and allow messaging directly from the search engine.

Microsoft began shipping the module October 13th, and a pop-up on the Bing search page will alert logged-in users to the download. A Microsoft representative confirmed that there are further developments in the pipeline. Reps were also quick to assure the press that no data from Bing will be sent back to Facebook, and that not all Like information will be available. Facebook users will still have the ability to limit information distribution through the current privacy settings.

Representatives neither confirmed nor denied that money changed hands to cement the partnership, but smart observers might take that as an answer in itself.

Winning Smile=Winning Ballclub!

If you think of the "Hat Trick" as a revolutionary development in entertainment, you will love the Mariners' manager search.

When the Seahawks needed a new on-field leader, they identified the best possible candidate, offered him truckloads of money, and secured his services stealthily. The NFL rule requiring they interview a minority candidate? The Seahawks basically ignored it.

The Mariners' manager search, by contrast, shows the same lack of imagination evident in the franchise's between-innings entertainment choices.

Despite the availability of Bobby Valentine, far and away the most talented manager on the job market, the Mariners are plodding along with their traditional interview process. First round of interviews is this week, with Valentine coming to town along with four inferior candidates.

You may ask me: Seth, why is Bobby Valentine far and away the best candidate for Mariners manager? And I will answer you simply: "Because he got a team to the World Series with an outfield of Benny Agbayani, Jay Payton, and Timo Perez."

If Valentine were a political candidate, this would be my "It's the Economy, Stupid."... (more)

Photo of night paving project courtesy of SDOT/Allie Gerlach

From the north to the south, while the weather lasts, the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) will bring you to a crawl. It's for a good cause of course, but here's some fair warning so you don't get taken by surprise.

Look for paving crews to close the curb lane, parking lane, and bike lane on the west side of Roosevelt Way NE today and Thursday, October 13 and 14, from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. The sidewalk stays open.

"As early as" Thursday, October 14, expect to see partial traffic lane closures and parking restrictions on Rainier Avenue S and S Frontenac Street, says SDOT. They're making improvements to the sidewalks and street near the southwest and northeast corners. It should take about seven to eight weeks to complete, and lane closures and parking restrictions are around-the-clock:

• Southbound curb lane closed north and south of S Frontenac Street on Rainier Avenue S
• Northbound curb lane closed north and south of S Frontenac Street on Rainier Avenue S
• Parking restricted on S Frontenac Street east and west of Rainier Avenue S

There's going to be a little touch-up work on the NE 45th Street Viaduct on Thursday, October 14, and Friday, October 15. Crews are installing a permanent railing to the north side of the viaduct, so one northbound (uphill) lane will be closed.

We also have two inspections: today, SDOT has closed the right lane southbound of the Jose Rizal Bridge (the 12th Avenue Bridge). It reopens for traffic no later than 2:30 p.m. And this weekend, both decks of the viaduct will be closed from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., between Spokane Street and the Battery Street Tunnel.

Bill Gates just tweeted that "Melinda's TEDx talk has posted on the TED site," so of course we went right over to see what's what. The theme of Melinda Gates' presentation is that, incredibly, Coca-Cola manages to deliver a "serving" of their tasty beverage to what amounts to every single person on Earth each week. So she proposes that we study how exactly they do this, making Coke ubiquitous even in developing countries, when many more essential services and aid resources never make it to their intended recipients.

Mayor McGinn

Technically--technically--the news is that the Coalition of City Labor Unions have agreed to a new contract "in which thousands of city workers will accept lower cost-of-living increases for three years," says the City of Seattle. But given that the city is facing a $67 million deficit, and this move saves only $2.1 million, the upshot is that Mayor McGinn will be scrounging for every dollar from parking, permits, and licenses that he can find.

For the record, I am pro-union in general principle. Union jobs remain one of the few ways people can achieve a relatively secure middle-class lifestyle. Unions are a last bulwark against the corporate profit-taking that can decimate working communities.

But I choke a bit when, after what's clearly the mostly vicious economic downturn since the Great Depression, the Coalition of City Labor Unions "shares the pain" via a tiny raise, and (since they were promised a two-percent annual cost-of-living increase) it's characterized as accepting grim reality:

With today's announcement, 8,500 of the city's 10,600 employees, or about 80 percent, are taking some kind of reduction in pay.... (more)

Illustration courtesy WSDOT

"The average person might be surprised at how much roadway is proposed to supplement the tunnel," goes Mike Lindblom's story in the Seattle Times. But not you, the SunBreak reader, because it has always made me crazy when people argue that the tunnel's burial of SR-99 would keep cars from "choking up" the waterfront.

In a perfect world--of someone's imagining--the waterfront might be a wildflower-lined deer track, but that's never been on the table. The waterfront is already served by a multi-lane roadway for the simple reason that it's a busy area serving tourists, travelers (cruise, Clipper, and ferry), and freight, as well as Seattle residents, many of whom are already avoiding the Viaduct.

Given the tunnel's bypass of Seattle's downtown, the limits on the size and kind of freight that can use the tunnel, and the necessity of tolling to pay for the tunnel's expense, the ugly truth is, as Lindblom spells out, that projections call for the tunnel to handle 47,000 trips per day when it opens, and the waterfront boulevard to take on 35,000.* (NB: The costs for a deep-bore tunnel and a boulevard don't split along the same lines.)

From the ferry terminal south to SoDo, the boulevard would have six lanes; to the north, four; and traffic would tootle along at 30 mph.

It's counterintuitive, but in congested situations, 30 mph is faster than a limit of 50, because attempts at lane changes, exits, and entries at 50 during rush hour can easily bring everything to halt. (Of course, over one or two miles, even if you could drive at top speed, you're not saving any real time compared to 30 mph. It's a question of seconds.)... (more)

Type "rain" into the search box in our Flickr pool and you get great results. Thanks to :MPG: for the "red rain gear" and the reminder that inclement weather doesn't mean unfashionable weather.

I think this is the fifth rule of Fight Club: Don't lean on someone's parked car in Belltown. In horrific college news, the Medical Examiner's office has ruled a UW student's death this week a suicide, and about a dozen Central Washington University students overdosed at a party last night--worse, it seems the drugs were slipped into girls' drinks as part of a plan for sexual assault.

Money is too tight to mention; Susan Hutchison says even people who make $200,000 a year don't feel rich anymore. Also at PubliCola, Josh Cohen breaks down the Mayor's $13-million Walk Bike Ride plan to show that the lion's share goes to pedestrian improvements. Not that budget discourse is marked by an openness to reasonably "share the pain"--at this point, everyone's decided to hang separately. My favorite quote? "[E]ven though fewer people are watching public access, most people want it available."

HorsesAss knew the Seattle Times was going to endorse Patty Murray ages and ages ago. Just FYI. TechFlash chronicled Microsoft's crazy week (including this sign of the apocalypse: No more full payment of employees' health insurance premiums). What will it take to make Goldman Sachs happy?

Ballard stinks, let's just admit it and move on. Our Seattle Canoe and Kayak Club is at the Pan American Championships, winning stuff, reports My Green Lake. Speaking of North Seattle stuff, there's now a NorthSeattleGuide.com that offers local business deals. The UW does not wish to be known as the Fiery Couch college, please make a note of it. Wallingford: sucking the fun out of Halloween since 2010. Queen Anne seems really amped about their new Than Bros. pho stop.... (more)

I want to cover a few different, but related, story strands here, so bear with me. Typically with news, you dive in with laser-like precision, but here the goal is to step back from the news just far enough to see a pattern, which is not just that in Seattle race relations remain contentious, but that insisting upon fairness and equality will marginalize you.

The lesson is, Shut up and take what you can get.

You'll learn about Sable Verity's firing from Tabor 100 (an entity "committed to economic power, educational excellence and social equity for African-Americans"), and the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission report (pdf attached) that chronicles a substantial amount of back-pedaling and wishing it would all go away.

You'll also hear what got Sable Verity into trouble with the Mayor's Office--her crusade for equal police protection in south Seattle--contrasted with something funny that the City Council's Tim Burgess said the other day, that:

You just need to remember, where are the centers that they’re cutting? They tend to be, except for Alki, they’re in the north end of the city. You can see a pattern here of public policy decisions that the mayor has been making that, I’m not going to question his motives, but they are dividing our city.... (more)

Facebook offers a wide assortment of NAMBLA groups your prankster "friends" can add you to.

Facebook's 500-million-strong user base was built on the power of weak social ties; "friendship" got defined down significantly to include "anyone I've interacted with." But Facebook's new group feature lets all those low-bar friends decide what groups you are in. The blowback has been immediate, and in a twist, involves Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg.

Area resident Michael Arrington, upon discovering that he had been added to a joke NAMBLA group, added Zuckerberg as well. As a squeaky-clean new AOL employee, Arrington naturally wants this cleared up as soon as possible, so a little fuel was added to the fire. This is possible because since only "friends" can add you to groups, there is no query to you for confirmation. (Ironically, Zuckerberg pitched groups as offering Facebook members "more control.")

Meanwhile, Seattle's Health Month inventor, Buster Benson, made the rueful discovery today that any potential competitor of yours can claim intellectual property infringement, and Facebook will take down your page immediately without checking with you, or offering recourse. (Lifehacker explains what Health Month is all about here.) Benson has since discovered that the person who complained to Facebook about the "infringement" can be found in the comments section of various Health Month mentions online, remarking anonymously on the superiority of his product. [UPDATE 10/12/10: Benson reports his page has reappeared.]

On the plus side, perhaps even now Facebook ads are recommending local legal services.