Duvall Closure

Pristupnics and Chellovecks to Close Duvall:

Duvall is a nice little town east of Redmond where organic cows wander around in their salad mooing and munching like they had good sense. This isn’t about Duvall or cows or salad.

Duvall Avenue NE is the street that Renton uses to practice road construction techniques. They spent several years working on the intersection at NE Sunset Blvd and Duvall Ave NE. Just one intersection. Further south they’re in the midst of another random closure construction project. And that part was already done during another earlier multi year project.

Renton has this annoying propensity to snub its nose at the rest of the Newcastle suburbs in several ways. For example there’s a fairly reasonable system in King County for naming roads. The zero/zero point is in Seattle and the roads get a directional designation relative to that point. Thus we see things like NE, SE, EW, HUH?, and WHA? attached to road names around the region, as in Eastlake Ave N or NE 8th Street. Pierce and Snohomish Counties have similar systems. It makes finding how badly you’re lost a little easier. I bet a lot of other places have similar systems.

Well Renton renamed all their streets back in the late 60s to assert their global importance. They have their own zero/zero point in Downtown Renton. So, Coal Creek Parkway SE goes through Bellevue and Newcastle but in Renton it’s called Duvall Ave NE. And that part needs work. It looks like another multi year work session.

Now we hear rumors that Renton has decided that it would be much easier to close that section of the road for a year of intense construction rather than spend five years paying people to hold up STOP signs.

Good job. That’s a major overflow route for I-405. And we know the WSDOT will be working on I-405 because they’re already doing it. Now people who work in Bellevue will have to take a boat to work. Or take a year off. Either way would be fine.

This decision was the work of the Renton City Council. They approved Resolution 3922 which authorizes the closure for more or less 12 months. OK, now I’m wondering what the other 3921 resolutions do. Maybe I don’t want to know. Anyway, this seems to be yet another example of how Renton likes to take its own path and pretend it’s some kind of island.

I know a lot of people who work in Bellevue and Redmond will be using a long detour to avoid the whole scene. Or working from home on the new fiber optic cables. A great many of those people do not live in Renton but they have to get through there in order to get to their jobs. For example the people who hold up STOP signs on the Coal Creek Parkway project have to get to work. No way would a Newcastle person take a job holding up a sign.

Whatever the process it’ll be entertaining to watch.

Al

Evergreen Point to Take Toll

The Road Takes its Toll:
To help pay for a new Evergreen Point Floating Bridge the state is going to put up toll gates and charge everyone a quarter to cross the old one. We had toll booths removed years ago and we assume they can be returned to the same location. And we also assume the new transponder trick can work on this deal too. Especially if every error costs the motorist $49. That would pay for a really nice bridge, if they’re still satisfied with their 18% error rate.

The news people love it, too. They like to show file footage of the bridge every time they mention the toll plan. Somehow makes it more real. Then they even try to interview an actual citizen to see what people think. “Um, like what? We like have to like pay a like toll? Like don’t like tease me, bro!”

This means I need to get one of those transponders from the grey market. It looks real and provides a signal indicating a valid account. See, I got this email saying I can inherit millions if I just send a few thousand to free up my account in Nigeria. So instead of doing that I’ll just charge my fake transponder to that account. Oh, and I might want to use a fake name, too. Don’t know why, just seems appropriate somehow.

The other thing we heard is they’re going to have tunnels on the Seattle side of the new bridge. That way it won’t offend the neighbors. Those people who want a diminutive bridge should be happy. The planners who want to keep the light rail option open should be happy too. The bridge will cross the lake and then somehow dive into the surf on the west shore and disappear. Then it will resurface over by I-5. Maybe the University will get an underground parking garage for their football stadium.

But don’t count on that last part. By the time we get around to actually building the new bridge the UW football program will move to Oklahoma City. Football players don’t need to physically attend classes anyway so it’ll be fine. I heard several other universities may move their teams there to save on game day travel expenses. They could play each other twice a week. Oklahoma taxpayers should be thrilled to pay for a couple dozen football stadiums.

Anyway, the light rail on the new bridge is a serious consideration when you look at what’s at stake. We get about 50,000 new people a year in the area. In America we have nearly one car for each person. That means we need to add roadway capacity in the area at a pretty high rate.
The only alternative is high capacity transit and virtual workplace. Wait, that’s two. Virtual workplace means another requirement on the new bridge, though. It’ll have to accommodate a large pipe for fiber optic cables. With more and more people working from home we’ll need more bandwidth everywhere.

See, “bandwidth” is a semi technical term that makes it sound as if I know what I’m talking about. I think it has to do with how much music you can get on your iPod or something. If you have enough bandwidth you can have lots of bands. But without fiber optics you wouldn’t be able to see it, so it’s important. I guess.

Sound Transit sent us a postcard encouraging us to get on their web site – www.soundtransit.org – and tell them how to make our commute better. Two questions they want answers to: “How much should we invest and when?” and “What are the region’s priorities?” You can call them on 1-866-511-1398 if you want to respond in Spanish or Chinese.

I think it’s really nice of them to ask. They have no idea how many dumb responses they’ll get. Wouldn’t it be a hoot if they let us see what people actually say? They won’t. They’ll just publish a bunch of statistics. 40% want red trains; 30% want free sandwiches, 80% want a new car, and so on.

The only problem with the Evergreen Point Bridge project is that it’s not real close to Newcastle. Glen will have to wait for the new Coal Creek Parkway culvert before he can swim out to Lake Washington and watch the construction. But we have years to wait, so it might be OK. I wonder if a culvert has bandwidth?

Al

Birding on Presidents Day

American Bittern – Good Eatin at the Swamp:

We’ve had a horrid winter with almost continuous rain and gloomy days. And I know the rest of America has had worse so I can’t complain, even though I really want to.

This Presidents Day Weekend was the first reasonable weather we’ve had here in the avalanche control basin since October. Unless you count that day we went on the bird watching boat ride in Bellingham.

Which brings us to the subject: we went bird watching. I’d really like to bore you with the list of exotic birds we saw but I realize that birding may have a different meaning to you than it does to us. “It’s good eatin, if you get all the shot removed.”

We saw some places we never saw before. There’re several National Wildlife Refuges around and it only takes a little work to find out where they are. Best of all, if they charge admission you can use your Golden Age Pass and get in free. Suddenly getting old has a benefit. Wait, I forgot what I was talking about. Oh yes.

In the year 2008 (I never thought I’d live this long, believe you me!) the bald eagle has returned from the brink of extinction and you can see them about everywhere. Once I was absentmindedly looking off at Coal Creek Park from our deck and I noticed a shadow of a bird on the trees. My massive brain kicked into gear and said, “Shadow? What kind of bird is big enough to have a shadow?” Of course it was an eagle. When I looked into the sky and found the majestic shadow maker it turned out to be four of them. Impressive. Now, years later, it’s possible to see them fairly regularly from our deck.

But I’m a little off track. The American Bittern is a bird that likes to hide in the swamps and spend most of its time walking around among the reeds. It’s kind of orangish and a little like a heron with a shorter neck. It blends right in with the marsh grass. I don’t know why they call it “bittern.”

At this particular Wildlife Refuge, where we got in free, the ranger told us somebody had spotted a bittern at the big “R” on the map. So we drove around the swamp seeing eagles, mallards, Canada geese, coots, mergansers, teal, and oak trees until we reached the big R area. So I drove along real slow (this place does not allow walking since it annoys the birds) and looked for a bittern never expecting to see one.

They are fairly elusive. They seem to be kind of heron like except they are not nearly so easy to see. Well, you probably guessed, I saw one right beside my heap. It was doing the classic bittern walk among the reeds and it was only marginally annoyed at having somebody watch.

I’ve seen the American Bittern only two times before and in both instances it was flying away. This one looked exactly like the picture in the bird book, including the background. Wow, I got a real bargain.

Bird watching is a very good hobby for a person of advanced years. Very few birds attack and it’s usually not hard to find other bird watching people to talk to. Since I turned 65 I find it kind of fun to visit with the random people you find out in public doing similar activities.

I got off track again. Oh yeah, it was a very enjoyable trip and we saw a number of eagles, terns, geese, gulls, ducks, and wrens. But we didn’t see a deer. Deer is almost a standard sighting on every trip. It’s rare that we don’t see a single one. We’ve even seen them in places where deer are not supposed to be. But ironically we saw them in our yard a couple of days before we left. They like to eat our bushes and fruit trees. When we were at the Columbian White Tail Deer National Refuge we didn’t see a single one. But, man, there a lot of geese.

This isn’t really a lot about rapid transit. For example I could have talked about the Snohomish County Transit double deck bus that’s being tried out. But the trip to the ocean on the first good weekend in a long time is what’s on my mind. Since I write this I guess I can pretty much write what I want.

Which brings up a question. What’s your favorite bird watching place? I’m always looking for new places to watch birds (or an excuse to go there) so let me know.

Al

May Creek Bridge Update

Coal Creek Parkway:
The May Creek Bridge has taken a big step toward completion: it closed Coal Creek Parkway for three days.

That’s right, the construction crew decided it was just going too smoothly and they closed the road. They’re setting the large beams for the northbound half of the new bridge and they were afraid the public might get in the way.

It looks like the plan is to finish the north lanes and move the road over so drivers will use that side while the southbound lanes are built. That means further closures as they accomplish each phase. Plus random closures just to keep us on our toes.

Glen, the Lake Boren Carp, swims down the outlet creek and culverts to review the construction several times a week. The huge cranes that were moved into place for the beam setting phase were a shock to him. When he first saw them sticking up in the air he thought they were gigantic fishing poles. But that evaporated when he saw how slowly they move.

In fact the whole construction crew moves pretty slowly. He told me that on Wednesday there were five times as many people in suits and hard hats standing on the old bridge as there were working on the new one. That’s why the old bridge was closed to traffic: gives the suits a place to stand and watch.

Traffic reporters have taken two approaches to the closure. One says the traffic on I-405 is extra heavy because of the overflow from Coal Creek Parkway. The others ignore it because it’s not a freeway. Our local traffic reporters have decided they only need to report on freeways and not much else matters. Makes it a lot easier to report. The TV people have cartoons of the freeways shown as marching ants. They use different colors to depict the speed of the ants. I guess if you watch TV in the early morning before coffee that makes sense.

On other sections of Coal Creek Parkway the excavation of the hillside on the east shoulder continues. From the plans on the project web site it looks like the road will be moved that way some to straighten it. The intersection will be moved to the north and east which means a big culvert replacement. That outlet creek may not be large but it is relentless. Glen makes sure it always flows. Therefore to change the road location a new large culvert will have to be installed.

The outlet creek kind of ambles along at SE 89th Place into a culvert and then makes a sharp left on the south side of the street. I bet the project changes that to install a very large culvert that gives it a straight shot. I don’t make much money betting so it’ll be interesting to see what they really do. Right now it’s just a dirt moving project. Big orange things are pushing dirt around as dump trucks come and go 24 hours a day. If you like the smell of diesel exhaust then it’s a nice place to be.

Al

A Bridge to Microsoft

Bellevue = Microsoft Office 2008:

Microsoft’s prosperity is enabling lots of new office construction in downtown Bellevue. There are hundreds of tech and financial tenants grabbing large chunks of office space.

The workforce in Bellevue is growing. Traffic is growing even faster. I-90, 520, and I-405 get backed up in every direction during rush hour. That lasts from around 3 am until a couple hours after midnight.

Bellevue is only a part of the growth of employment on the east side of Lake Washington. Redmond is turning into Windowsville. Yahoo! Sorry, just had to say that. Even Newcastle added a job last week. McDonalds hired an extra burger flipper.

Of course everyone who works in Seattle lives on the east side and everyone who works on the east side lives in Seattle. That means the Lake Washington bridges are full all the time. The virtual workplace is in its infancy so a great many people still trudge in and spend eight to ten hours drinking institutional grade coffee while pretending to be useful. Anyway, that’s what I used to do, so I assume that’s how everyone does it.

Christine says we need to replace the SR 520 floating bridge before it sinks. We have plans to do that and a pile of money to get it started. But wait, this is Seattle so nothing is easy. Even the prospect of hundreds of commuters sinking in the icy cold waters of Lake Washington during a minor earthquake won’t budge these people.

People on the east side are insisting they want a six lane bridge with provisions for future high capacity transit. That could mean exclusive bus lanes or light rail. “Nothing less than that could possibly work.” West side people say if it includes any more than six lanes it will spoil their view. Of what? Bellevue? Sheesh.

At issue are the pontoons. If they have no plans for growth they can use small pontoons. If they plan for growth the pontoons need to be bigger. Or they have to provide a way to add more pontoons later. The reason that’s hard is they have to be very careful about the anchor cables. But we aren’t here to explain how a floating bridge is designed.

And the environ-mentals are against it. Against what? Anything that might help people get where they’re going is what. “We’d rather have you sit in your idling cars for hours on end.”

The University of Washington Athletic Department wants their own off ramp because they think they can trick the state into building a parking garage as mitigation. So they’re fighting that battle. It’s all about football.

People who live near the UW Stadium are against it. “We’d prefer a bridge several miles away from here and we’re willing to fight for it.”

Microsoft has its own lobbyists in the battle because they think everyone living in Seattle will eventually work for them. They want an eight lane bridge and transit line from everywhere to Redmond, but they don’t want to pay for it.

And Bellevue just wants to be in charge. So they’ve enlisted Kirkland, Redmond, and several other cities and civic groups but they say it’s a team. A team whose coach is the Bellevue Square Developer.

The point is delays and stalls year after year only have two results: the cost goes up and the inevitable disaster looms ever closer. We can’t predict earthquakes or windstorms but we do know that either one could sink the 520 bridge. So you’d think everyone would get busy and get the work started, right?

Nope, the same people who confused the caucus/primary process are dragging their feet on this bridge. “We need to talk it to death” is pretty much what they say.

Here’s my suggestion: Sell the problem to Dubai. We make it contingent on them building a bridge that can carry all the traffic by 2010. $10 billion seems like a good price for them to pay. If they don’t finish on time we get a $10 million dollar monthly rebate until it finally opens. If they want to charge tolls well, that’s fine, just so long as we get a new bridge by 2010. There may be a flaw but I can’t imagine it’s as bad as waiting for the old bridge to sink.

Al

See Blog at: http://lbrtr.blogspot.com/

Caucus Results

Newcastle Caucus Site Maybe

Caucus Confusion – What Happened??:
Once upon a time in a land far, far away there lived a magical princess. She turned into a frog and lived happily ever after among the lily pads. The end.

Well, we went to a caucus. The first item of business was to enter the room (gym) which revealed our party choice. Then we had to reveal our choice for presidential candidate. Normally we’re allowed to keep our choices private.

Then we tell everyone in our group why we think this person is the right one. Again, I thought our reasons for favoring a particular person were not something we had to explain.

Finally, after a few of the group defect to a different choice we begin the process of selecting delegates. These delegates will then be subjected to another caucus in a few weeks. After that another caucus selects delegates to the next one. Finally at the state convention delegates are selected to send to the national convention. Its months before the real results of the Washington State Caucuses will be known.

However news reporters told everyone on earth the exact numbers from yesterday’s preview, preliminary, non-counting caucuses.

At the national party conventions delegates are only obligated to announce their preferences during the first roll call. If no winner is selected during that first round everyone is allowed to change their position.

Here’s why “THEY” think this is OK. Each political party (all 7) thinks it’s their job to select their candidate for the presidential election. Allowing peasants to participate in a caucus is their way of legitimizing their selections. If I, a private citizen, wish to support the magical princess who now lives among the lily pads then I have the option of forming my own political party. I can raise funds, make campaign signs, and talk until my head explodes. But if I say I belong to any of the existing parties then I’m also saying I support the person that party selects as their candidate. And only after the parties have finally decided which individual they will run, plus a running mate, will I get to vote in the general election. That’s the first time my vote will count. And as usual whoever I vote for will probably lose. Happens a lot.

OK, this sounds like my person lost. That’s not the point. Maybe we accidentally supported the right person and maybe we didn’t. Holy cats, maybe the smart people were at another party’s caucus. Bummer.

Well, now you pretty much know why I mostly don’t talk about national politics. Millions of smarter and more productive people can do that much better than I can. The Republicans, for example, even have their own news network. The Democrats have George W sending votes by the ton their way. I don’t need to get in the middle of that. I can barely keep track of the 82 unit affordable housing branch library parking garage city hall in Newcastle. I wonder if it’ll have a lily pond.

By the way, the “magical princess” is not a reference to any person (or Senator) currently running. It refers to my personal hero who, due to their frog like appearance, is not considered electable but would make an outstanding president. Really.

Al

Learning About Blogs

This is a windmill well in Eastern Washington's wheat fields without snow.

Still getting used to the nuances of blogging. Looks like I need a little more work. The good news is I'm learning new things, like how to goof up, how to really goof up, and how to patch it back together.

The Bellingham boat name is Snow Goose and it can be seen if you search on Snowgoosealaska. All one word gets you there. He has a blog too. It's a good boat with a great captain and we had a very good time.

Al

Ferry Boats and Caucuses

Holy Cow, Batman, Am I A Democrat??:

The excitement suddenly spilled over into Puget Sound after the alleged “Super Tuesday” vote resulted in no clear leader. Now I have 27 messages on my answering machine from Hillary, Barry, and John McCain. They want my support in the caucus Saturday. Washington is suddenly important in the candidate selection process. What a surprise.

A lot of Washington voters are confused over this caucus deal. Since a great many of us got ballots in the mail that we have to mark and send in by February 19 we are wondering why Hillary wants our support on February 9. For one thing several of the names on the ballot are people who are no longer running. For another we have to sign the envelope and check which party we are. If we check “Democrat” it won’t matter because all of those delegates are being selected in the caucus. Election officials tell us that many of the ballots already mailed in do not have a party checked. So they are invalid.

We also have several districts with additional items on the ballot and those actually count. And the whole voting process costs money. So why are we doing this? Why confuse everyone? Oh, that’s right, it’s funny.

But enough about trivial matters.

Our danged passes over the mountains keep closing. We only have three passes between east and west here in Washington. These days about one or two are open at any given time. Even then chains are required. The snow reports are in feet not inches.

But this is only a small part of the story. All across the country there are tornados, snow storms, floods, and ice. It’s been a hard winter so far for everyone. We’ve lost the service of a couple of ferries due to damage from waves. Our latest wind storm has lasted for two days now. Barry is at Key Arena where the Sonics used to play basketball trying to get people to support him in the caucus tomorrow. Hard winter.

I wonder if this hard winter is getting us prepared for a long hot summer. Boy I hope so, and I hope the candidates keep calling, too.

Al

The Ferry System

Bellingham Water Taxi Transit:

Saturday I went for a ride on a prototype waterborne transit out of Bellingham. Bellingham is a medium sized city that has its own fire department and a nice big salt water bay. Newcastle uses a neighbor’s fire department and only has a little lake.

Here’s the problem here in Washington (named after a president who never won Iowa). The Greater Newcastle megalopolis of about 4 million people stretches along both sides of Puget Sound. Go to Google Maps and search on Puget Sound. See?

Puget Sound is too wide for a highway bridge. We have tides, earthquakes, container ships, sea serpents, whales, canoes, sewage outlets, and nuclear subs out there. A bridge would only be in the way.

Therefore Washington carries people and their cars over the water in boats. We have the largest fleet of state owned ferries in the whole United States, and Texas. We like our ferry boats because they have wi-fi. We can check our email and eBay auctions. For many years they had food on board but the state got all snooty about it and the food contractor quit. It took way too long to sort that out and now we only have pseudo food. But the coffee’s not bad.

Many of these ferries were built on leftover WWI cargo hulls that require constant bailing. Ferry employees are called “bailers” for this reason – they all have to take turns. The system is managed by the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT). The name of the boss is Paula.
Last week one of the bailers was standing under a boat in dry-dock. He hit it with a hammer. Now Paula is docking his pay for the hammer. It busted through and disappeared into the food bay where it dissolved. This is just one example of the current shape of the fleet.

Paula and Christine think we need to update the ferry system and buy new boats, smaller hammers, and waterproof paint. Riders would like to see that as well. Except for Timmy. He wants to eliminate taxes and let the state fall apart around our ears. He’s too dumb to make the connection that tax is just a short name for “people sharing the cost of running the state.”
Oh, sure, a lot of things we may not need, but if we did things only as I want you’d vote me out of office. Which is why I don’t run.

Where was I? Oh, yeah, Bellingham.

The Bellingham Bay water taxi is a pretty good alternative to our ancient ferries. For example it slows down to look at interesting birds. And the captain buys bagels for everyone. What could be better?

Apparently a new chief of Ferry Boat Operations would be better. Christine and Paula just named Dave to be head bailer. He looked at Google Maps and says the ferry system is a floating highway. During the interview he pretty much said it can’t be too hard to manage a few old boats. Right?

There are 28 ferries (more or less on any given day depending on hammers) and 20 different docks on the system. They carry 26 million passengers. The web site doesn’t say if this is per day, month, or year. I’d have to assume year. I don’t know, but traffic near the ferry docks can be pretty bad.

The ferry system ranks right up there on the list of really big problems along with the Alaska Way Viaduct and the Evergreen Point Floating Bridge. Fun times to come.

Al