Newcastle Finally Getting a Library

The Newcastle News reported that the developer that was going to build condos along side the new Newcastle Branch Library is no longer on the project. The agreement was that they had to find financing by June and it won’t happen. That means a library all by itself. Kind of like the old plan years ago before all the “what if we add a… waterpark?” diversions that delayed everything.


The KCLS person made a “management doublespeak” remark about the area that won’t be used for condos. Something like “realize that asset” meaning more parking for library patrons. But since the current approved site plan doesn’t designate that area as anything he can’t say “more parking” he has to make it sound as if some huge management effort has to happen, thus assuring another day on the job.

Wow, did I reveal my disdain for obtuse management verbalizations? I hope so.

The plan is to have it done by fall of 2011.  Another fun construction project that will disrupt traffic in the main intersection in Newcastle.

The new library will have seven times the amount of space of items put on hold. That means you can log on to the library from home and put a book on hold. When it arrives they send an email and you go pick it up. They also keep track of the books you checked out so you don’t keep getting the same ones over and over. It also keeps the library from overcrowding.

They will have 20 fixed computer stations and cyber bars where you can connect your own computer. How cool is that?

They’ll have a 10,000 gallon water retention tank but I have no idea why. Maybe it’s to flood the tunnel to the rapid transit station in case of overwhelming numbers of commuters. They need to explain that tank.

Outside there will be parking for 44 cars. This doesn’t count paving over the realized asset at some future point. And just because the car wash was removed from the so called “multiuse” plan there will be a rain garden along one side. Maybe this is what the 10,000 gallon water tank is for. On sunny days (we get 3 per year) they will simulate rain out there.

This is one more step in the grand plan. King County Library System is already huge. Oddly people still read books in large numbers. The Kindle and iPad (OK Sony has one as well plus some others too) have not eliminated the old time physical book. The Seattle Public Library is on the list for hostile takeover.

I think at some future point KCLS will mount a charge and storm the gates of the Seattle libraries. Then a meeting between their doubletalking managers will take place at a plush Hawaiian resort for a couple of weeks. Once that’s over and some incomprehensible agreement is announced the real workers will take over and arrange a merger. Should be easy.

Then KCLS will begin to eye neighboring counties. They’ll take over the Pierce and Snohomish County Libraries. KCLS will have about the same territory as Sound Transit. They won’t stop there. At some point in the future, possibly before the new SR 520 Bridge is built, KCLS will control all the libraries in Washington state. They’ll change the name to “THE LIBRARY” and if you want a book you have to have an enhanced rfid Washington State Driver’s License. You heard it here first.

Al

Those new Signs Have to Go

New Lake Boren Park Sign all Green

The Newcastle City Council voted to go back to the old sign motif. Motif is a high dollar word meaning design scheme. Use one word in place of two saves gas. Explaining it wastes electricity. Being confused proves it’s really me writing this.


The new signs, which came from an investment of $191,000, kind of annoyed a lot of people. Basically the lime green background and white letters did not have the kind of contrast one looks to read at 40 mph.

The huge sign at the south entrance to Newcastle was removed by a disgruntled mob, I think. It was right there where Coal Creek Parkway turns into Duvall Avenue and Newcastle turns into Renton. One council member said it was “tacky-looking.” He should know, I remember his campaign sings.

Old Lake Boren Park Sign

The council moved on to more details including deciding which of the new signs to replace with the old motif immediately and which ones to leave until they evaporate on their own. The shipment of new signs that have not yet been installed sat in the back of City Hall. Those were declared “surplus” so I suppose if you want one you can find it on eBay. I don’t know. Maybe I’ll Google (Topeka) “surplus Newcastle signs” and see what happens.

New Logo

They also voted to return to the original logo that was designed way back in 1994 by an actual Newcastle resident. The new artsy logo was done by a high priced consultant. Reverting also requires a revision back to the old motif (that word again) on business cards and letterheads. Apparently it’s also cheaper but I don’t know why.

The lesson here is that we don’t want to get carried away with the “green” movement. The new signs in lime (they call it chartreuse for some reason) green background with invading leaf images was supposed to show how Newcastle was embracing the earth friendly movement. These signs have cost $191,000 and are hard to read. In addition they are made of sheet metal which has some sharp corners and can probably be badly bent in a wind storm. The whole thing was environmentally un-friendly due to several factors. So hooray for Newcastle having the nerve to cut its losses and return to readable signs reasonable costs.

Old Logo

Now if I could only find out where those signs are being sold. Probably melting them down to make new busses.

Al's iPod

Al

The Cables are Rotting

Our Floating Bridges are tied to the bottom of Lake Washington by steel cables. Why do we use steel? Ropes are susceptible to damage from water borne hazards such as motor boats.


Steel also has a characteristic that causes it to deteriorate in water. It gets wet.

So WashDOT likes to replace several cables regularly so that they are all fresh and no older than their useful life. In the case of the Evergreen Point Floating Bridge they will replace 15 of 58 cables this year.

These cables get attached to anchor blocks securely stuck on the bottom of the lake. The other end is snaked into the pontoons and cinched up to 65 tons tension. That provides a stable and motion free bridge. It won’t bounce up and down in heavy waves like those second rate floating bridges.

The process requires replacing one cable at a time. First they detach the old cable and haul it off to the scrap yard where it will be returned to the steel mill. Then it gets made into consumer goods such as toasters. Now I know why my toast is always soggy.

The high paid divers paddle down in 200 feet of water dodging rainbow trout and giant octopi to reach the bottom anchor. Using a Swiss Army knife they snip off the old cable. This is only done on the first one. The rest will have their 65 tons of tension released before being snipped off in 200 feet of water.

The upper anchor is inside a pontoon. It takes several days studying engineering drawings to figure out how to get into one of those things. Then they release the tension and slip the cable out so the divers can snip the lower ends.

Once the old cable has been pulled from the water and loaded on the scrap barge they get to work installing the new one. The process takes one day per cable. After the initial week or so fumbling with the first one, that is.

You probably think it’s a waste of time replacing cables on the SR 520 bridge since it’s due to be replaced very soon. By the year 2000 I think is the goal. Well those WashDOT folks are realists. They know this bridge replacement process could take years. They don’t want the cables rusting out and allowing the old bridge to break loose and float up to Kirkland.

Besides they need to keep the old bridge in use for most of the construction period to maximize the toll revenue. It wouldn’t do any good to stick a toll on it and then close it right away.

So my suggestion is that if you like that bridge then you need to go drive on it right now before they get the tolling installed and before they close it off for 12 years.

The Seattle mayor, Mike, wants to delay the replacement and revise the plans to add tracks for future light rail and make the HOV lanes for transit only – no car pools. He says allowing a lot more cars into Seattle from the north Bellevue area will cause a shortage in parking places in Seattle.

Actually Seattle parking shortages are self correcting. They just increase the cost to park in Seattle until the number of cars equals the number of spaces. So reducing the current number of cars on those bridges would just be a matter of raising the parking rates. Simple solutions for simple minds. Just before they close it for the replacement they could raise parking fees in Seattle to $100 a day and $120 in Bellevue. Everyone would switch to transit on I-90.

Please don’t share this with any elected officials because they might think it’s a good idea.

Another thing the steel mills make with the old cables is steel for transit vehicles. So get ready to ride a bus made out of old floating bridge cables. Don’t you just hate the damp seats?

Al

Fun with the ORCA Card

Driving downtown and parking in Seattle are getting pretty bad. You need to haul a pile of cash or perhaps a credit card. They have these little stands that spit out a card you tape in your passenger side window.


The other alternative is to find a parking garage. There are two kinds. One kind you get to park your own heap. The other kind you hand your keys over to some kind of freaky looking dude who allegedly parks it for you. When you get it back half the gas is gone. Don’t touch the tires because they’ll be real hot.

There’s another way. Park free in one of the palatial Park and Ride lots in suburbia. They have a little more room between cars so you don’t have to climb out through the sunroof like you do in a downtown lot.

The next thing you do is get on a bus. That’s an adventure you have to enjoy. You might as well enjoy it because all those parking lot valets ride the bus too. It’s real cozy.

I use the ORCA pass. It’s one of those rfid enabled devices. Works a lot like the GoodToGo Pass (or EZPass for you easterners). You get on the bus and just pass the card in front of the reader. Don’t even have to “swipe” it like a credit card. The LCD shows you have much you paid. Lots less than parking downtown.

Now I have two rfid cards. My driver’s license is rfid. I can go to Canada. I still have to get out of my vehicle and sit in Canadian Customs for an hour but at least I can come back to America.

On a recent errand I decided to see if Glen, the Lake Boren Carp, needed anything from the big city. He said that place gives him the willies. Ever seen a giant carp with the willies? That’s give me the willies.

He said last time he went to Pike Place Market they tossed him around and he ended up on a pile of fresh produce from Snohomish County.

He gave me a check to turn in at the King County Court House. He was paying off a ticket from a non-motorized citation. After reading it over we both decided it would not be in our best interest to appeal. He said he had a headache. Here’s what it said:

START OF CITATION

Dear Mr. Carp;

Please remit $20 fine to King County Superior Court for the following offence:

Subject, named in citation, has been known to frequent establishments where certain activities heretofore have been banned in alternative venues however notwithstanding are unacceptable given a specific set of guidelines not generally practiced by the general population in general based on the prevailing meteorological currents and vectors owing to unmentioned established parameters not excluding those previously delineated frequently in as yet unwritten tenets not defined at the present time insofar as it has been previously documented in various prognostications not yet uttered in these domains based on the preponderance of evidence insomuch as could conceivably be anticipated by a fictitiously reasonable practitioner of such prognostications and random pusillanimous prevaricators.

Thanks you for your attention to this notice:

Signed; Super Prosecutor, King County, Washington, USA, Earth, Solar System, Milky Way Galaxy. (Unreadable signature goes here)

END OF CITATION

Speaking of ORCA cards you can ride five bus lines, three ferry systems, any Sound Transit train, and more. Glen is a little leery of a card that’s named for something that would eat him. So don’t look for Glen on the bus.

Oh, how did my errand go? Well I got to the courthouse and paid the $20 for Glen. The clerk stared at me like I was from outer space. Oops, he used a carp check. Those things don’t translate to human money. So I quickly handed over a Jackson and got quick smile.

Then I forgot the other reason I was downtown so I just wandered around admiring all the big buildings. Seattle can be both interesting and intimidating at the same time. At one point I spotted the parking enforcement officer and decided to have a little fun.

I read about this in an email a few months ago. I walked up as the ticket was being written. I began to rant about how unfair it was for Seattle to victimize senior citizens with these outrageous parking fees. I called the officer a Fascist and that earned a second ticket under the wiper. At that point I began calling attention to the fact that the officer was on the verge of popping uniform buttons and something about how it’s amazing they could find a hat big enough for such a fat head. The car got a third ticket.

I thanked the officer for our nice little chat and walked away.

Then I remembered the original errand I went to town for. I need an iPad. OK, I don’t really need one but what’s the difference? It was about then I also remembered the current models don’t have 3G. So I need to wait.

Back to the bus tunnel for the ORCA ride to Bellevue. It only took me an hour to find my heap in the Park and Ride lot. Made it home in time for Dancing. Another glorious day in retirement land.

Al

Light Rail East Link Route Revision and on

Sound Transit insists on going ahead with the new East Link light rail route. We just don’t know where it’s going yet.


Bellevue City Council sent in a proposed preferred route and now the Sound Transit Capital Committee has another proposed route. It’s called B2M. These routes have code names. Not real sure what they stand for. It’s alphabet soup.

B2M is slightly different from B3M because it stays on 112th rather than looping around the Bellevue Club. Hence you can subtract the Bellevue Club and end up with a 2 instead of a 3. New Math. That one little number is expected to save $50 to $100 million. Wow, that’s some little difference.

Part of the savings comes from not having to run the line through the Red Lion. Dang, that would have been something to see. Get a room at the Red Lion and your USA Today would be delivered outside your door by light rail. These people take the fun out of staying at a motel.

There are other numbers as well. C9T includes a tunnel under 110th Ave which is what the Bellevue City Council wants. Then there’s the C11A alternative that runs on the surface of 108th Ave. I like my R7Al proposal that requires a cable stay bridge over I-405 at the I-90 interchange. We need a soaring bridge icon to distract people from the demolition of the ancient Bellevue Trestle.

In the mean time I-90 is getting some changes in preparation for light rail. They recently added an HOV left lane from Bellevue to the middle of Mercer Island. This is to ease the sting of the eventual loss of the express lanes. Next they’ll add an HOV lane east bound from Mercer Island to Bellevue.

They expect this to wrap up in 2012 and people will have to get used to it. In 2014 they begin the light rail line installation on the Express lanes. Unless the lawsuit puts a stop to it. I haven’t heard much about that one lately. Was it thrown out? Don’t know. If you recall the suit claimed you can’t put light rail on a highway that was built with gas tax funds because the law says those funds can only be used for roads.

The next step in this long march to 2050 is to install those HOT lanes everywhere. That’s where you get a Good-To-Go pass and you can pay a toll to drive alone on the HOV lanes. Unless you’re hauling a car load of illegals then you don’t have to pay.

The Good-To-Go pass will work on any toll facility that’s part of the same network. The Tacoma Narrows Bridge and soon the SR 520 Bridge will be in that network. But I don’t know how far it extends. Can I use my pass in Chicago?

Chicago has the I-Pass and the EZPass. EZPass is mostly on the Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Mass, etc toll roads (some are called turnpikes or Thruways). There are also numerous bridges and toll roads from Maine to Virginia. Check it out: https://ezpassmaineturnpike.com/EZPass/info/facilities.jsp Will the Good-To-Go pass work on their system? Will EZPass work here? These are examples of questions.

Will my fake pass work anywhere? Now that the world is controlled by photo surveillance I imagine any cheating like that would result in a costly fine. This makes my fake pass a collectors’ item. Now I can charge more. Hooray!

Well we still don’t know what route light rail will take in downtown Bellevue. After they finally realize they can’t use I-90 and switch all the effort to SR 520 we’re looking at a line being built in about 40 years. By that time everyone will be driving electric cars and they’ll be controlled digitally. After you leave your house and pick up the carpool you pull out on the ramp and let go of the steering wheel. You take control again when you reach the off ramp distribution point at your destination. Drop off your carpool riders and deflate the car and fold it into your briefcase.

Who needs public transit? Why waste all that steel making old fashion rails? Get those smelly old busses into museums and give us our inflatable electric cars.

Al