Some time ago we had one of the largest snow events we ever had around here. In 1903 or something it snowed three feet in Seattle and everyone moved to Oklahoma City. So us “new” people have never seen this much snow.

It snowed one night; then that day; that night; the next day; and so on for a week. We thought it wouldn’t end. If you live in relatively flat country and/or warm country it may be difficult to imagine how bad it can get here.

We have hills that are hard to deal with on a dry day. In rain they get real hard and in snow they are impossible. Getting up these hills requires four wheels and a shovel. Getting down is harder because breaks tend to work pretty good so your car suddenly becomes a sled. Only the real seasoned snow drivers know how to down shift and drag their feet. Seattle has very few of these pros. So we see piles of cars at the bottoms of all the hills.

Part of the problem is the rarity of “snow events.” We don’t have a fleet of big snow plows and millions of pounds on salt. In fact we usually don’t use salt at all. So when our three sanding trucks took off during the first snow to throw sand out the windows it was sort of comical.
But by the time the third snow came by we had thick ice on many roads. That’s because the de-icer we normally use doesn’t work and each time somebody manages to drive on the snow it just packs it into ice.

Jeff, our crack weather person (we have others but Jeff gets his picture in the paper beside the weather report every day) did his best to let us know what was going on, but he doesn’t drive a snow plow.

In fact hardly anyone drives a snowplow. So the greater Newcastle Metropolitan Area came to a standstill. Christmas shopping consisted of Amazon gift certificates if you had electricity and internet. This caused a recession and Barry (our new pres) promises to fix everything if the Democrats will let him.

But we coped.

Then it warmed up and started to rain. Hoo boy, did it rain. For some reason everyone was upset about all the rain but they didn’t stop to consider how bad it would have been as snow. We’d all have to move to Oklahoma City again. At least they have professional basketball. Ours!
Mostly the rain stayed north, south, and east of the metropolitan area. We managed to get a lot of the effects as several rivers wash into Lake Washington and Puget Sound. The people farther out got real wet.

The Elliott Bridge ($18 million bridge across the Cedar River east of Renton) area was well flooded. Ron Regis Park was closed due to high water. The bike underpass was flooded.

The Maple Valley Highway was closed. Really. How will we get dirt? Worse, how will the garbage get to the land fill? This is a National Crisis. Since the snow prevented garbage delivery there is pent up demand. Lots of New Year’s celebration glassware (empties) was piled up. Oh, yeah, that goes to the recycle center. Only real trash goes to Maple Valley. But there was lots of it.
So closing the Maple Valley Highway is a true crisis.

The heavy rainfall and snow melt drove all our rivers out of their nice quiet beds and over lots of roads. We were cut off from the rest of America except for air. All the passes were closed and so were the major freeways. But most of the alternate routes were also closed. Several of our rural areas were islands. The bears are in hibernation, but the cougars are up there skulking around like wet cats looking for food.

Today, Washdot sent me a note bragging about getting some of the big roads open. Here it is:

Dear Al,
I-5 and I-90 now open to traffic

It was a busy morning for us today. According to the last update, 90 sections of state highway have reopened. There are 34 sections still closed and 14 restricted. The amount of roads closing is changing constantly, so I would recommend looking at our county-by-county update site to see if a road is open or closed.

We are happy to report that I-5 in Lewis county is now open to all traffic. Quickly receding flood waters on I-5 in Chehalis resulted in fewer problems than anticipated. We were able to access the freeway and perform necessary safety inspections of the interstate and levee system and begin clean up work. Some exit and on ramps remain closed within the 20 mile section.

I-90 through Snoqualmie Pass is also now open to traffic. After working around the clock to clear snow, water, and debris from the roadway and shoulders, we opened the eastbound lanes of I-90 Snoqualmie Pass between North Bend and Ellensburg this morning at 9 a.m. We opened the Westbound lanes around noon. There are still restrictions on three I-90 exit ramps. Exit 45 will remain closed due to water over the roadway. Exits 53 and 54 will have ramp lane restrictions to keep traffic out of the high water. Due to erosion and some undermining of the shoulders, there will be no stopping or parking allowed on the shoulders of I-90 between North Bend and Easton.

WSDOT estimates the economic impact of the I-5 closure through Lewis count is $12 million per day and I-090 is $6 million per day. A summary of this information is online.

As of noon today here are the road closures remaining in King County:

SR 202 - Closed from SR 203 to 356th Avenue SE in Fall City. A 90-foot-long section of SR 202 east of the roundabout at SR 203 was completed washed out and requires reconstruction before the road will reopen. There are alternate routes into Fall City. Work might take several days.

SR 202 - Open in North Bend from the northern city limits of Snoqualmie to North Bend Boulevard.

SR 203 between Fall City and Monroe - SR 203 has reopened from Fall City to Duvall. The road remains closed Duvall and Monroe.

SR 410 - Closed in both directions from Greenwater to Enumclaw due to water over the roadway. (Milepost 29.7-57)

I-90 over Snoqualmie Pass has reopened in both directions. Eastbound opened at 9 a.m. Westbound opened at noon.

Apparently they feel I need to know all this.

Well, hope your winter is going better than ours. We like to export as much weather as we can so much of the country gets the same systems as they move to the east. But we do our best to remove moisture.

Now winter will turn benign and we’ll have our normal gloomy drizzle until Memorial Day. I hope. Looks like I need to plan some trips.

Al

Resolution Advisory

We here at Lake Boren want you to have a very Happy New Year filled with fun and relaxation. To help with that I thought it would be good to get the year going with some resolutions. So I thought about it some more. We’ve all heard the hundreds of trite and stale resolutions for improving ourselves. We don’t need to review those. What we need are behavior modifications for others.

Resolutions for 2009:

For Christine: Figure out how to replace the Alaska Way Viaduct and SR 520 Bridge without waiting for Obama’s second administration or the next earthquake.

For Timmy: Stop attacking the initiative process. We need our roads fixed and our schools funded – in a democracy we share expenses via a process called “taxes.” If you don’t like how it’s collected or how it’s spent then run for office and help make improvements; don’t just mess it up. The problem with Timmy is too many other people slept through Civics class and missed that part so they vote for his dumbass initiatives.

For the Newcastle City Council: Let them build the library. We’ve been talking about a library in Newcastle for years and you people keep changing the definition. Now it includes way too much for that small lot and your other rules don’t allow for a big enough structure.

For the Seattle Mayor, Greg: Stay on subject. Traffic in the area is a mess and nothing but bold and decisive action will improve it. Whenever highways and traffic are up for discussion let’s talk about that and make some decisions.

For Sound Transit: Get the light rail up and running. I know it won’t do much for traffic but I’m looking forward to the recreational rides.

For KOMO Radio: Get those blabbermouths off and get back to news and traffic reports. It’s very annoying to have to listen to that babble for ten minutes while waiting to hear how bad I-405 is backed up.

For BNSF: Run more trains. Seems like whenever I go someplace around here and see your tracks there’s nothing on them. I like to watch trains.

For Coal Creek Parkway: Finish up already! We’re tired of all the construction and the building of huge retaining walls. Renton is expected to finish their part this summer so we’d really like to see the whole thing four lane.

For College Football: Get the bowl games under control. This was the most confusing bowl season I’ve seen so far. Was there some kind of logic to all this? Ball State is playing Tuesday night. Is that the “National Championship” we’ve been hearing about?

For everyone: Have a Happy New Year!

Al

Storm Report

Compulsions:
One of the shows I like to watch on the Teevees is called Monk. It’s about a suspended police detective who suffers from compulsions. It’s very funny. He tries to navigate where nothing is up to his standards and yet he solves the most complex crimes.

His compulsions are really the show. The other day he was trying to deal with a blogger who thought the whole Universe revolved around him. He published his blog whenever he felt like it and his main rules were – accuracy: optional – plagiarism; not above it – and frequency; whenever… Very odd guy.

Monk and his compulsions had a major problem dealing with the casual attitude of this blogger, especially the accuracy issue. Monk seemed to think everyone should endeavor to produce the most accurate report possible, or Monk would point out the errors.

Just a minute; I think I hear the door bell.

Winter Storms - Brrrrrrr:

We had some rough weather starting last week and it’s still going on. The whole country is suffering from this. Caribou Barbie is behind it, I think. The weather map shows the jet stream cruising down the west coast from Alaska and then east over the rest of the country. It’s very unusual.

The weather predictors had a hard time the last couple of days because they couldn’t show exactly where the snow would fall, how much, where the wind would blow, and how cold it would get. Our mountains once again made a hash of it.

There were high winds coming down the west slopes of the Cascades over the foothills. In Newcastle it was almost still. On the east slopes of the Olympics they had a great deal of snow. Newcastle got another 8” or so, depending on whether you were trying to play golf or not.

And it’s been very cold in this area for over a week. That means frozen roads. Since big snow events are rare (the last big one was in 1990) we don’t have fleets of snow removal equipment. Thus it takes a long time to deal with it.

But the rest of America is taking worse weather. Very cold here is around 20 but farther east it’s more like minus 20. I understand Nebraska had thunder snow which is weird. Ice storms farther east pretty much close things down.

This year I think a lot of folks will be doing Christmas in January. Best just keep warm and wait it out.

Oh, if your power is out I hope you have heat. You can read this by candlelight. Anyway, be careful and stay warm as best you can.

Al

Alaska Way Viaduct:

Here’s a subject we’ve seen before – the viaduct is about to collapse, probably before Tuesday so we have to apply emergency measures. We don’t want Seattle to become another city in which hundreds of commuters are squished like bugs as an old elevated roadway falls down. Unless, ummm, no, I don’t think there are any scenarios where that would be OK.

Options for Replacement:
Almost exclusively everyone agrees that the viaduct has to be torn down. It’s been studied to death and it can’t be retrofitted. Besides a lot of people don’t like the looks of it so they support any plan that removes it, whether it’s a good plan or not.

So they came up with eight options in which the old structure is removed. Besides, Christine (who recently won re-election as our gov) is going to knock it down in 2012 so it’s kind of important that all options take this into account.

Basically there are three types of option with a few variations that flesh it out to eight. First is the replacement: take it down and build an earthquake proof elevated road. Second is a tunnel: this has a few versions, such as bore, cut and lid, and different ways to cut and cover. Third is surface streets: widen Western Avenue and Alaska Way to three lanes one way each so lots of traffic can get through the area. That one has a couple versions too.

The apparent issue is the wide range of costs. But that’s only an issue if they ask me to pay for it. If they ask, oh, say Oklahoma City to pay for it, then I say go for it.

The two finalists are the surface plan with a few elevated parts at the ends, just for nostalgia and a side by side elevated replacement.

One reason the surface option made the cut is the vastly understated cost. It only includes the price for removing the old structure and paving Alaska Way (as I understand the news story, anyway). The impact and subsequent cost of adding lanes to I-5 is huge. Blocking off waterfront businesses with a six lane traffic light infested boulevard would kill many of them. Right now there are ways to park and visit the waterfront shops, aquarium, and Ivar’s fairly easily. The other part of the cost is how in the world do you widen and upgrade Western Avenue for the other direction traffic? I think the surface option has enormous economic impacts that are completely ignored as part of the price.

The elevated replacement option was also selected for its price tag. Again, I’m not sure the real cost is being considered. As I mentioned one reason so many people are in favor of demolition is that they don’t want an elevated roadway along the waterfront. And even I have to admit it’s kind of ugly. I kind of like the upper deck drive and the view from there. But the real show-stopper on this option is that it reduces the road to two lanes each way. That’s because they want to make it side by side instead of a double deck like the existing viaduct. The existing road is three lanes each way with exit lanes.

OK, I’m tipping my hand with my opinions. I favor the tunnel bore. That’s because we have two major issues and one huge consideration. The issues are that we need to move a lot of traffic through the area without traffic lights or adding to the I-5 congestion AND we need to keep the waterfront as part of the city. So I can’t see a surface boulevard or a simple elevated solving these issues.

The huge consideration is the future: In 20 years it will be an enormous improvement in traffic management to get the thousands of cars through the city while leaving the waterfront surface open and uncongested. Included in this huge consideration is transit.

Waterfront Transit:
The Greater Newcastle Metropolitan Area is stumbling toward a working transit system. There are kinks and issues, but in general it’s possible to get around. As we build more transit and add more busses we’ll reach a usable system. One component of that system is a way to get into the city and out again from near where we live. Sounds kind of simple minded, but right now it’s a challenge.

If I get on a bus in Bellevue (Newcastle has a bus but it’s a local and takes forever to get anywhere) at a Park & Ride I can get into Seattle and transfer to another bus that goes where I might want to be. It’s just hard to figure out which bus, where to transfer, how much it costs, and what the heck is that person in row six eating???

As we add light rail and more Sound Transit busses with their own lanes we’ll get to a point where we can “catch a ride” without spending a couple of hours on the web trying to decipher the schedules. They have all kinds of asterisks and things that say “only operates second Tuesday of the week” and so on. Or “driver may be rooky so be prepared to help navigate.”

The points is once you eliminate the old elevated roadway and get all the through traffic into a tunnel then the surface is available for transit options. They already have a “trolley” that’s a historic icon and they could easily add light rail and frequent bus routes without the heavy traffic. If it’s a bumper to bumper boulevard busses are hard to maneuver. You’d have cross walks (with short “walk” lights) and all the other congestion on big streets. The only customers on the waterfront would be people who can dash across six lanes in 12 seconds or less. And they don’t have as much money as us older folks.

I want a tunnel! Christine, listen up!

And that's my opinion.

Al

California

Traveling to California is an adventure. There are lots of things to see. Let’s review a few – mainly what I saw last week:

California Redwoods:
There are two kinds of very large trees and three kinds of very old trees in California. The large ones are redwoods and sequoia. The very old ones are these two plus the bristlecone pine. They can be 2000 years old or more. Think back to a time before these trees were confined to parks. They could roam free among the mountains and canyons.

Redwoods are coastal trees. Walking around on the forest floor can get really dark when the morning fog is rolling in. Many redwoods are over 300 feet tall. That’s a lot of tree.
Sequoia and bristlecone pines are high mountain trees – we saw those on other trips. This was a coastal trip.

California Roads:
In California they don’t have a lot of extra money for road sign paint so “canyon” is spelled “cyn.” They have numerous other cost saving techniques, such as neglecting pavement and guard rails on much of the coastal highway. It’s easier just to put up a sign once in a while that says, “Ruf Rd in Cyn.” Or “Crvs Ahed.”

We found a traffic report news station near Frisco and they spent a lot of time talking about light rail projects. San Jose has its own light rail. Sounds about the same as the Greater Newcastle area with signs, news, and propositions about light rail.

California Seagulls:
The bird books tell us there’s no such thing as a “seagull,” it’s supposed to be called a “gull.” Then you can apply the first name to tell what type of “gull” it is. Thus you have herring gull, mew gull, laughing gull, and California gull. That’s right, they have their own gull. It’s a general availability bird but California claims it.

California Motels:
They have plenty of places to stay in Cal. It’s a little daunting. They have funky signs and a few are just plain old crappy. Then, of course, the usual places are there. That’s what we stayed in, the usual places. They provide free high speed internet access (if you’re used to dial up, that is). I found it’s pretty slow because so many others were sharing the pipe.

The places we stayed had breakfast. You can get eggs, tofu, waffles, and nanners – and some actual food, too. Shari’s has better breakfast, but the motel food comes with the room, so might as well.

California Parks:
I have to admit one of the nice things about their parks is that they have restrooms. You can’t say that about all states, particularly Oregon. At my age it’s good to be able to check the GPS for a nearby park and expect to find porcelain (or a facsimile). Nebraska solves that issue by providing lonely roadsides. Clever.

California is also a “public beach” state in that people can’t “own” a beach and keep you off. This is good because they have such a long coast. Every town has a beach/park where you can go walk in the sand and watch surfers.

California Surfers:
We happened to be there for higher than normal surf and lots of people were out riding around on surf boards. I can’t figure out why. It has several things I don’t like – water, cold water, big waves, wind, surfers, and sharks. Oh, and jellyfish.

California Elephant Seals:
Elephant seals are big and they have a rookery near San Simeon on Big Sur. Prime beach property. They lie on the beach and use their flippers to toss sand on their backs. Other than that they seem to sleep. But they’re really big. We also saw sea lions in a couple of places and they’re not as big as elephant seals. But noisy.

California Condors:
Big Sur is home to a group of condors that nature dudes are trying to reestablish. These are very large birds and really interesting looking. We saw four. The head is bright orange and they have a lot of white under their wings. I didn’t have a good way to get photos because they were way above us. One was in the company of a turkey vulture and it looked small in comparison.

California:
Gasoline prices are down and it’s fun to get out on the open road. The weather was good and most of the food was good. The trip was good.

Al