What's going on at King County Jail? John C Magee/Getty Images

Comments

2

FFS, you can go look at the vision for the waterfront instead of posting a rendering of Vancouver next to a months-old construction progress photo of Alaskan Way.

https://waterfrontseattle.org/waterfront-projects/park-promenade-bike-path

3

@2: Do I think what the Seattle waterfront ends up looking like will be as good as what’s in Vancouver? No. Do I think the Stranger writers routinely go to the most hyperbolically depressing and pessimistic takes on a nearly daily level, and it has become exhausting? Yes.

5

Of course in Matt's anti-car vision for Seattle I don't see the ferry terminal anywhere so I guess anyone who needs to use that can just f right off? If you were to zoom a bit out from the Vancouver photo you'd see on the other side of the cruise port their ferry terminal, followed by the shipping yard complete with giant cranes, train track and oh yes a big road. The park there is nice but its one small part of the overall waterfront for Vancouver. You can just as easily take a picture of Myrtle Edwards and say Seattle already has a similar amenity.

7

God. Five people shot. And of course the dumb-fuck gun nut troll's big problem is the definition of "mass shooting."

8

Clearly our resident dipshits have never been Vancouver.

There is no comparing how Vancouver has redesigned it's waterfront and how Seattle has squandered every opportunity to do so. Despite a valiant minor league attempt with the 4.8-acre sculpture park (that is hard has fuck to access.)

Vancouver connects a series of waterfront parks and pedestrian friendly walkways, bike lanes and green spaces (the 7.3-acre new waterfront park is part of a 35-acre mixed used development where people are paramount over cars) with its crown jewel 1,000 acre Stanley park.

There is not comparison. And the new Seattle "waterfront" development being essentially an unusable median with soon to be dead shrubs is an insult.

10

@8: Right, there's no comparison. They're two cities that developed in different ways with different histories and that's why traveling is so much fun so no need to pout.

11

"The major findings are that HOV lanes reduce the cost of long distance commuting and lower commuting energy consumption. However, the reduction in transportation costs induces urban sprawl, which results in higher dwelling and numeraire good energy consumption."

It seems more like HOV lanes are more "part of a nutritious breakfast" than of "dubious" benefit. There's a lot wrong with how we've structured our cities and societies surrounding them, and inducements towards better choices can be as valuable as restrictions against worse ones.

12

@9:

There's a pretty simple answer to that: because, unlike most other civilized nations we've spent the last 200-plus years cultivating a population that to a disturbing degree perceives violence as the FIRST response to any particular problem they face, combined with easy access to tools that facilitate that violent response.

13

@8: I've been to Vancouver (BOTH of them), so you're clearly not referring to me.

15

"The major findings are that HOV lanes reduce the cost of long distance commuting and lower commuting energy consumption. However, the reduction in transportation costs induces urban sprawl, which results in higher dwelling and numeraire good energy consumption."

Couldn't you say the same thing about a major, more expensive mass transit system stretching from a large parking lot in downtown Everett to a large parking lot by the the Tacoma Dome?

16

@5 --Correct. Both cities have parts of the waterfront that are quite pleasant (or will be) and both have areas that aren't. From an automotive standpoint there are two main differences: We run the buses closer to the waterfront. Our downtown ferries carry cars. Lots and lots of cars.

I wouldn't change the bus routes, but I would send the car ferries to Edmonds and West Seattle. But that would be a huge project.

And yes, I have been to Vancouver many times. Their waterfront is much nicer ... now. In 2025, we will have caught up, more or less. The Pike Place Overlook will be nicer, but they have Stanley Park.

17

@14: ah, the classic "they'll just use another method" argument. never change.

18

"In 2025, we will have caught up, more or less."

Would you like to wager. of course that is awfully subjective for SLOG to be intellectually honest about. But I've looked at the Seattle waterfront plan a million times. It's not even close. So unless you know something I do not...

19

"Mass killers choose guns, because people like you will get more hysterical about the same body count, if it's accomplished with a semi-automatic rifle of a certain look, than if it's accomplished with some other tool, "

Yeah, I wouldn't suppose you've got a cite to back that up would ya?

20

@18 -- Yeah, sure, after we figure out who was better, The Beatles or The Rolling Stones.

Of course it is subjective. But my point is that the Seattle waterfront plans are fantastic. Pike Place is arguably the most interesting part of Seattle. There are tourists, but there are also a plethora of small local businesses that serve the locals as much as the visitors. It will be connected to the waterfront via a beautiful walkway. At the other end will be the remodeled aquarium. Pedestrians will be able to look up and see sharks and rays from outside --
https://www.seattletimes.com/pacific-nw-magazine/crime-and-community-define-one-of-downtown-seattles-most-complex-areas/. How fucking cool is that. From there you would probably walk north, by the sculpture park and into Myrtle Edwards. You can walk that a long ways (looking for sea life) but I would probably take the Third Avenue overpass. I would then skirt Uptown and walk through Belltown (if I was with visitors I would swing by the Science Center to get a view of one of the nicest buildings of that era).

Again, the big advantage of Vancouver is that it has Stanley Park. Discovery Park -- our equivalent -- is farther away. But overall they are comparable. It would be different if Gastown was seamlessly connected to the waterfront, but it isn't. You have to go through tourist-town to get to it. Or you have to navigate an anti-pedestrian landscape every bit as hostile as the cars lined up to take the ferry at the south end of downtown. Speaking of which, the freakout over that is way overblown. Folks are ignoring another gorgeous city with a similar (if not inferior) waterfront: San Fransisco. The Embarcadero viaduct came down and in its place is a much wider street then what we'll have.

Vancouver kicks our ass in so many ways. There are some areas -- like transit -- where it is unlikely we will ever be in the same league. But at least Seattle will have a downtown waterfront that is more or less the same.

21

More shootings, a waste of $1.4 billion on an HOV lane through Tacoma (as if traffic through Pierce County doesn't already suck), and a depressing-as-hell look at what's happened to Seattle's waterfront. SIGH
Another day in paradise*.
(* listen to The Eagles' song, The Last Resort).

22

@20 bud. Normally I respect your opinion but that is fucking delusional. Discovery Park is not a downtown park. So this disqualifies everything you said. Frankly I question your sobriety.

The entire point is to make cities livable by creating open spaces, living spaces with pedestrian zones and parks in city CENTERS. So people WANT to go there and live there for something more than the dying retail establishment. Discovery park is not part of that under any rational view of a downtown redesign. And nothing in this design serves this end.

The promise was to connect downtown with its most potential aesthetic public feature: the waterfront via A PARK.

Right now a stairwell here and there and a green median is an insult to that promise and doesn’t come anywhere close to the type large city parks in world class cities.

This not Central Park. It is not Hyde Park. It is not Phoenix Park. It’s not Stanley Park.

It’s NOTHING. It’s a road and a median and a patchwork of some shitty compromises.

Putting that idiotic massive surface Avenue will do nothing but cause more gridlock, pollution, and discourage use by actual human beings.

These are things people study. Its not subjective in urban planning and livability. It’s not a controversy to admit this design is a joke.


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