Mosquito Season
Met a political insider at noon on the 5th floor of a downtown parking garage, on the condition that I provide him with three packets of string cheese and absolute anonymity. On the subject of the Viaduct's fate, he expressed to me that formerly polarized interests at the local and state levels are coming surprisingly close to unanimously rallying around the surfact-transit option, which'd result in tearing the beloved-as-it-is-beleaguered concrete quake trap down. Awesome — unless you live in West Seattle, in which case losing the Viaduct basically means being marooned on Alki. As a longtime West Seattle resident, Mayor Nickels, who got surface-transit religion after his tunnel went down in flames, is ideally positioned to push for the only real solution to Westsiders' nightmares: Expanding the cutesy-tootsy water taxi service into a full-blown, year-round mosquito fleet of fast, frequent passenger-only ferries, buffered by expansion of the free Metro shuttle to get residents of the burgeoning Delridge corridor (yeah, okay, I'm now one of 'em) to and from the dock on time. This way, everybody wins. Take the lead, Greg.
10 comment(s)
J.R. says:
The Water Taxi is actually run by Metro, which is a function of King County, and the County Council voted a few months back to set up a King County ferry district, which will take advantage of a change in state law passed last session by the Legislature allowing for ferry districts to spend money on things like shuttle buses, but otherwise, good thinking Seely.
Posted On: Tuesday, Jul. 3 2007 @ 3:08PM
Seely says:
Am well aware of the jurisdicional nuances here, but appreciate the illumination. Still don\'t think the fact that the county has jurisdiction over the water taxi or ferry district means Nickels can\'t grab the bullhorn here. Seattle is, after all, a rather significant part of King County.
Posted On: Tuesday, Jul. 3 2007 @ 3:11PM
Chris Kornelis says:
Mosquito fleet makes far too much sense. Convenient, sheds traffic congestion, and a pleasure to ride? Nice. Careful, start talking about the joys of riding the ferry every day and Bremerton\'s gonna blow up.
Posted On: Tuesday, Jul. 3 2007 @ 4:03PM
chas redmond says:
And what if you live in West Seattle and your destination is - say - Ballard, or Wedgewood, or someplace other than downtown. How is a water taxi going to help that transportation requirement? Or for that matter, facilitate the movement of goods and services between West Seattle and anyplace. It\'s for people only.
Posted On: Thursday, Jul. 5 2007 @ 2:25AM
Seely says:
To get to Ballard, jump on the 15 or 18 bus on 1st Ave. To get to Wedgwood, the 71 will do. But I see your point: losing the Viaduct will cut West Seattle drivers off from those neighborhoods (both of which are very close to my heart: I grew up in Wedgwood and lived in Ballard for several years fresh out of college). The sad reality, given our region\'s atrocious lack of transportation planning foresight, is that we\'re all going to have to get increasingly comfortable leaving our cars in the garage to get around town, oftentimes a little more slowly than we\'d like.
Posted On: Thursday, Jul. 5 2007 @ 10:36AM
eph says:
I am a West Seattlite, and I can see the appeal of a surface \"waterfront boulevard\". I anticipate that everyone will eventually get behind this idea. I also anticipate that sooner or later the cold reality of traffic volumes will set in and the design of the thing will escalate to something resembling a surface freeway. Otherwise, it\'ll be at capacity the day it opens.
Are there any professional urban designers in the house who could comment on this?
Posted On: Thursday, Jul. 5 2007 @ 10:58AM
Seely says:
There\'s a similarly interesting thread on this topic going on over at West Seattle blog. Lots of speculation that West Seattle property values will take a nosedive once the fate of the Viaduct is spelled out. I sure hope not: http://westseattleblog.com/blog/?p=2134#comments
Posted On: Thursday, Jul. 5 2007 @ 11:12AM
Seely says:
Crosscut also has a very thorough mosquito fleet piece today. The Joe-mentum is building, people, I\'m tellin\' ya!...
http://crosscut.com/ferries/4816/In+search+of+passenger-only+ferry+service+that+pencils+out/
Posted On: Thursday, Jul. 5 2007 @ 3:21PM
Sean says:
I realize Ballard is the spiritual soul of the city for many people, but still, It\'s hard to imagine why property values in West Seattle would decline because the commute to and from Ballard gets 5-10 minutes longer. It takes forever to get to Ballard from Mercer Island, for example, yet property values there seem to be holding up fine.
The mosquito fleet is great idea. I\'m envisioning something like the vapporetti in Venice.
Posted On: Friday, Jul. 6 2007 @ 10:22AM
Jim says:
You people are incredibly out of touch. Gee, I guess the viaduct is currently only moving commuters to work downtown and to Ballard? Get real! The viaduct moves tens of thousands of vehicles daily from Boeing, SODO, West Seattle and other points south (like Sea-Tac) to ALL parts of Seattle and Shoreline- especially those north and west of downtown. Ever of hear of the traffic problems on I-5? Those should be worsened by destroying the viaduct. Ditto downtown traffic. I\'m thinking all that expensive condo development going on downtown is going to lose value when people realize that not only the cars, but the buses downtown will be stuck in gridlock.
Posted On: Friday, Jul. 6 2007 @ 11:57AM