Stamping Out the Postal Service

Once in awhile we find ourselves in that situation where we need to send somebody a check or a birthday card or something. Wow! Another 44 cents out of the old bean money jar. And yet the post office says its going broke. Why is that?



Let’s look at a little history: In 1775 the Second Continental Congress decided that a Postmaster General should be appointed. Ben Franklin got the job. The task was to establish rates and deliver the mail. Simple enough. If people wanted to communicate farther than they could shout they sent a letter. The only other option was to get on the horse.

One of the main contributions of the post office in the US was transportation. At first they just carried mail around in saddle bags. Often these were attached to horses. Then the stagecoach, steamboat, railroad, automobile, bicycle, and airplane were used. These overlapped with each other and things like balloons and pneumatic tubes. Getting a mail contract financed transportation upgrades for many companies.

The railroads improved the pickup and delivery process because of their speed and reliability. A train could travel in weather that stopped other forms of transportation. They picked up a bag of mail at a little town and dropped off a bag. The new mail was sorted as the train went to the next town. The postage paid for it.

Along the way people figured out ways to scam the mail contracts. In 1914 the Post Office got permission to establish its own fleet of mail vehicles to reduce fraud and abuse by contract carriers. Many of those original jeeps are still dropping off mail at households across the country. Except in rural areas where the letter carrier uses the family Prius.

The Post Office has raised First Class Mail to 44 cents and it will probably go higher. Here’s the problem: First Class is the main source of revenue at the PO. All those catalogs, bills, and magazines just ride along when they deliver your first class mail. Notice anything in the last ten years or so? Along with all that other stuff you rarely get an actual full price letter. You can’t tell how much the other items cost but they aren’t 44 cents.

Sometime after the Nixon administration we got email. Now we can annoy hundreds of friends, relatives, and complete strangers whenever we want without paying any postage at all. Several email services are free. At least you think they’re free. You have to pay for access to the internet. That’s not free. It costs a lot more than stamps.

The Post Office should have seen the trend long ago when Al Gore invented the internet. Look what happened to package forwarding. The Post Office used to insist that all packages be wrapped in paper and tied with string. Remember that? Then suddenly along came some private package companies and they didn’t need the string. Just tape ‘er up and let ‘er go. The PO decided that was OK because they saw their business eroding.

The package companies provided several improvements that the PO later adopted or ignored depending on what short sighted nimrod was in charge. Things were dicey for awhile until the PO found they could save by providing slower service. Oh, and not as reliable. That’s when they changed their name to “Postal Service.”

But they still refused to see how the new process of communication among individuals could possibly be of interest to them. USPS was losing its main source of revenue to email. They were propped up by congress but the law says they have to pay their way.

FedEx and UPS are doing the bulk of package hauling and the internet is doing the bulk of individual letters. The trend now is electronic bill paying. I don’t write checks any more. I get an email that says I owe my bookie some money (dang Colts are costing me a bundle) and I log on to my bank and tell them to pay the slime. The money is transferred electronically.

For those who don’t understand how money can be transferred electronically think of your toaster. When you stick a slice of bread in and punch the lever down the Grand Coulee Dam sends electricity to the toaster. At some point the bread pops up and it turns out to be toast. See the banks do the same thing: your bank stuffs your money into a thing that looks like a toaster and it pops up at the bookie’s bank as toast. Feel free to use this analogy to explain the internet to your friends. Send a thank you email to the Grand Coulee Dam.

The result is the Postal Service is losing money. They can’t continue delivering junk mail to every mailbox in America six days a week. We just load it into our recycle cans. They take it to the paper mill where it’s made into new paper. Then someone prints more junk on it and the postman/woman puts it back in your mailbox. What could be simpler?

That’s what I’m here for: tell you what could be simpler. Glen, the Lake Boren Carp, suggested the PO just hand over the whole thing to the garbage companies. They show up once a week to empty your cans and fill up your mailbox. After all they go around to every home just like the letter carrier. Just not as often.

Another suggestion is to turn it all over to the private package forwarding people. We each choose our preferred company such as; UPS, FedEx, DHL, whatever, and then we choose our frequency. Maybe I want FedEx to bring my mail twice a week. I pay a monthly fee (electronically) and they do all the work. Seems simple enough. The big companies would take over the Post Office sorting and distribution centers. They might contract the Postal Service to do that part. What could possibly go wrong?

Another tactic would be to simply reduce the number of deliveries from six per week to two or three. But that still doesn’t address the real issue. We need to stop the junk mail, recycle, and back to junk mail cycle. We should be able to opt out. Some places are doing that with phone books. You get on the web and choose which ones you want or don’t want. You should also be able to choose only those ads that pertain to places you shop. And you can tell political parties ONE flyer per candidate or issue, not 17. Every day I get something in the mail telling me to vote for someone after I’ve already sent in my ballot. Just stop it.

Next you need to get an iPad or Kindle Fire or one of the lesser brands and get your magazines on it. You don’t really need paper magazines with all those cards falling out. Since your toaster is already connected to Grand Coulee Dam you just plug in your Kindle at night and in the morning you have a new magazine to read. Poof the PO problem is solved.

Once again the Post Office improves transportation: reduce the number of little jeeps delivering mail, reduce the number of big trucks picking up your recycle bin, and save you the trouble of running to the super market to get the latest Enquirer issue.

You’re welcome!

Al

Decisions to be Made Later

The Alaska Way Viaduct is partly coming down. That roadway that’s been in danger of falling into Elliott Bay during an earthquake since sometime last century is finally getting some attention. The mayor of Seattle, Miker the biker, has been advocating we replace the viaduct with… nothing.



That’s right; a 6 lane state highway just goes away. We can handle the traffic on city streets if everyone rides bikes to work. To help get the point across the parking fees have been rising like Godzilla from the bay and fines have gone bonkers as well.


The main theme is to prevent cars from entering the city of Seattle. Get rid of roads and substantially increase parking costs. Don’t replace the SR 520 Bridge either. Now if we can get that sweet $4.00 gas back we’d have the perfect storm to ban cars from Seattle.


Here’s how it’s really going: The south mile of the viaduct is being removed (Christine’s big orange machine) to make way for the tunnel construction. That means they have to close the whole thing until they finish the new on-ramps that will be out of the way of the tunnel construction. WashDOT is doing that to help Seattle voters get a feel for how nice it would be if there was no replacement for the viaduct.


The tunnel project is also a seawall project. Long ago, back when Seattle was wealthy from the Alaska Gold Rush bucks they decided the place was a little too hilly. So they got some steam shovels and big water cannons and leveled it out some. It’s still hilly but not so much. We call it the “Denny Regrade” area but most people (like Mayor Mike) probably don’t remember why we call it that. Denny was one of the Seattle pioneers along with a fellow named Boren, among others.


Anyway, the result of that old leveling project is that most of the soil on the waterfront is not as stable as it should be. They also built a seawall to keep Elliot Bay from reclaiming its old shoreline. That seawall can’t possibly hold the salt water out and the fill dirt in once the tunnel is dug. That’s why the tunnel project includes a seawall.


The tunnel boring machine has finally been extracted from the Bright Water Sewage Treatment tunnel so it’s time to start digging the new road. You’d think somebody would get the idea that we need more than one tunnel boring machine. Do I have to think of everything?


During this nine day closure Seattle traffic is really backing up. I know people who left for work Monday morning and haven’t been seen since. The backups extend to Portland.


There are different issues in Bellevue. Sound Transit has gotten approval to extend light rail over Lake Washington into Bellevue. The plan says they replace the I-90 reversible HOV lanes with light rail. As mitigation they intend to add another lane each way to the general purpose decks so car pools and busses can squeak by. That might actually be an improvement since right now the reverse commute direction gets backed up.


In order to get light rail into downtown they need to build the tracks somewhere. This is the issue. Nobody wants the trains near them. One plan was to use the old BNSF corridor that parallels I-405. But the folks who live in condos along the route are very much opposed to that plan and it adds distance. The other route is to head up Bellevue Way and then 112th to Main Street. That puts it in several dozen back yards. And a bunch of front yards.


Neither of these routes is acceptable. A third alternative was to cross diagonally over the Bellefields Wetland area. That won’t even get off the ground. Don’t mess with the muskrats and their pals.


Then to further confuse the issue somebody suggested that Sound Transit just buy a whole bunch of homes and use that as their route into downtown. The suggestion included elevating the track so that it reaches Main Street at the hilltop and would not require a tunnel. It would just run up 108th to the Transit Center. That opened a whole nother can of worms because everyone had already agreed that a surface route in downtown Bellevue just won’t work. I love these brilliant people!


What the Bellevue City Council wants is time. They can’t agree with each other or with Sound Transit. They hired a consulting firm to study the routes and explain the best choice. That was to be delivered long after Sound Transit decided a route and began design work. Whoa, give us more time to muddy the waters and find even worse proposals.


Then along comes the big shopping center owner who doesn’t want light rail in Bellevue at all. We don’t know why this dude is so set against the prospect of rapid transit but he’s got plenty of doubletalk to go with it.


At one point he filed a suit claiming Sound Transit can’t use the I-90 HOV lanes for light rail since it was built with gas tax money. Gas tax can only be used to build roadways so this hair is being split as well. The courts have made rulings but nobody understands what they said. So it’s still in the courts somewhere but we lost track of it. I think some judge in Moses Lake has it right now and its huntin’ season so no action.


Along comes short sighted Tim who puts out an initiative to fog up the tolling plans WashDOT has worked so hard on. This is about the SR 520 Floating Bridge that’s in serious danger of sinking in an earthquake. They want to help finance a replacement with tolls. It’ll all be automated so drivers won’t have to stop at a toll booth. They started tolling last spring, no last summer, no maybe September, no maybe Christmas. We don’t know.


The point Tim is trying to make is that you can’t have “unelected” officials setting tolls. He wants the legislature to set tolls. Right, they can’t tie their own shoes. And just to get the shopping center guy on board the initiative includes a provision that would deny Sound Transit use of the I-90 Bridge. Are we confused yet? Does this lead anywhere? Well guess what? The Bellevue City Council had a hearing on the tolling initiative and took a vote. The decision was to study it longer because they can’t make a decision. Hire another consultant and make sure the due date is after the election. Oh, and you can’t add tolling to the I-90 Bridge either. Everyone is worried that if we ever get SR 520 tolls going that drivers will use I-90 which is “free.” So we just toll I-90 and that will even out the traffic flow on the only two routes over Lake Washington.


Here’s my solution: elect somebody else. City councils that can’t make decisions are not what we need. I just looked at my ballot for November. Sheesh! Guess who gets my write in vote for king of all Puget Sound transportation? Glen, the Lake Boren Carp!


Al

Hotel Basements with Light Rail

Light Rail will eventually come to Bellevue. We just don’t know where yet. But it keeps getting narrowed down.


The great and powerful of Bellevue’s business leaders (OK mostly just the one guy) filed a suit to try and stop the light rail from using the I-90 Express Lanes. That failed. When they built the highway they had that as part of a contingency plan. Using that plan Sound Transit purchased the express lanes from WSDOT during the Truman administration. So when the judge woke up during final arguments there was a great yawn. The ruling handed down went something like this: “Sound Transit already owns those lanes so there’s no issue.”

We here at Lake Boren Rapid Transit HQ applaud this ruling. But why couldn’t we get it months ago instead of going through all the motions? By the way, we applaud the ruling because it keeps the entertainment going.

Also months ago (it’s like watching a glacier) the Bellevue City Council hired a consultant to evaluate alternate routes. They don’t agree with the route Sound Transit has chosen but they’re confused about the costs and benefits of the alternatives. So “spend more money” is standard answer.

Several other powerful business leaders sent a letter to the Bellevue City Council telling them to get over their bickering and work with Sound Transit. Their point is it’s important to get the project going and all these delays just add cost and put off eventual benefits.

Sound Transit wants to hang a left off I-90 and head into Bellevue via Bellevue Way and 112th to Main Street. At Main they dive underground. Well it’s not really a dive so much as digging into the hillside. Bellevue agrees with the tunnel part, although there’s no boring money.

The problem is Bellevue doesn’t like giving up street space. The neighbors are complaining about the noise. They want to use the old BNSF corridor and somehow cut across Mercer Slough Nature Park. You need to get Google Maps to show this. MSNP (I can do it too) is a wetland full of peat and other waterlogged ground. It’s against the rules of nature to build railroads in places like this. BNSF is between 118th and I-405.

No matter which alternative gets chosen some folks will be evicted. Others will have commuter rail close to home. They assume neighbors will naturally use the light rail if it’s in the front yard. That allows them to claim 45,000 riders a day. I never learned this kind of math in school. These people must have gone to some management school where facts are what you say they are.

Ouch, that seemed a little grouchy. Let me see, where is this leading? Oh, yeah, once they’ve torn down a bunch of peoples’ houses and crossed over a protected wetland they get near Main Street. If the line is running up 112th Avenue NE they make a sharp turn and go underground right there at Main Street. However, if it’s meandering around in the Mercer Slough Nature Park there are a few things in the way before it gets there. Things like the Red Lion and Sheraton Hotels. These are large outfits.

My vision is that they just run the trains through the lobbies. There’s your riders right there. Travelers would put on a nice pin striped hotel terry robe and grab toast and coffee in the lobby café and then step on the train for a ride to the business meeting. No need for all that formal stuff, like getting dressed and waiting outside for the limo.

The study shows the numbers are not too different if you just use percentage. A little more cost here, a few more displaced citizens there, about the same to build in the peat bog as on a busy street. The main issue is the folks at Red Lion and Sheraton might get annoyed. But that’s what consultants are for. We’ll just add a footnote that says something about hotels more than 20 years old are pretty much ready for destruction anyway. Who knows, they’re the experts? Why should I solve all the problems?

Speaking of solving problems, I think the best way to deal with it is to just stay on the freeways. It’s already noisy there. Looking at the map again you can see that the line on I-90 gets right close to I-405. Just make the turn and head north on I-405. That eliminates all the noise issues along Bellevue Way and the condos along 118th which is the other noise sensitive area.

There’s a section of I-405 where the north and south lanes get separated. Use that as the tunnel entrance. Dive underground and head toward Main Street and just connect to the unfunded downtown tunnel. The only thing above ground would be parking garages.

You could have “hotel” stations where visitors in the Sheraton and Red Lion could just hop an elevator and drop down to the light rail. That would make Bellevue seem more like a big city.  Fancy underground hotel stations, each with its own Starbuck's.  But the point is we get this noisy thing below ground and that makes everyone happy. Let’s see, is there anyone out there that might get upset over this? Yeah, only those 45,000 daily riders and maybe a few taxpayers when they find out they have to pay for it. I don’t see a down side.

Al

Washing Up in the Sink

Well I’ve been suffering from writer’s cramp. Basically all my subjects are in stagnation. SR 520 Floating Bridge: tolling delayed but nothing else going on; Alaska Way Viaduct: Stupid mayor still trying to obstruct but neither side actually doing anything; Light Rail in Bellevue: City Council still squabbling and nobody has changed sides; Newcastle Library: still digging the foundation, nothing above ground yet.


And that’s about how most everything is going right now. One thing that’s changed is the price of gas: that $4 gas is about the best running stuff yet; I can’t wait to get below a quarter tank again so I can get me some more of that sweet, smooth runnin’ gas.

Therefore the Lake Boren Rapid Transit Report will attempt to give advice. The benefit of giving advice in a blog is that you don’t have to listen to anyone who doesn’t want advice.

Here’s my advice: get a riding mower – those things are so cool. You don’t need a lawn, just go drive it around the local park. Wait, no, that’s not it. The advice is “get a new bathroom sink.” But you need to follow these steps to maximize the fun:

First order a sink on the internet. Its best if the sink is not the right one for your bathroom. Find a cheap sink and order it.

Second get a really expensive faucet set since the current set is not compatible with your cheap new sink. This is a crucial step. If you don’t do these first two the rest is not much of an adventure.

Third take out the old sink and make sure it leaves the premises – recycle, Goodwill, dump, whatever. Just make sure you can’t use it again.

Forth you discover the random sink you bought on the internet won’t fit the hole where the old sink was. Act annoyed for several hours.

These next steps may not have to be in any particular order since you’ve already made it past the point of no return.

Contemplate the idea of rebuilding the bathroom countertop to fit the new sink. This is because the expensive faucet set you bought has passed the 30 day return period so now you really have to use it.

Discard the idea of rebuilding the countertop. This is just wise.

Sleep on it and use the other bathroom. You do have more than one, right? If not why did you mess up your one bathroom? Call a professional.

OK, now you’ve slept on it and the result is that precious faucet set is your biggest investment in the sink project and it’s pretty critical that you use it. So how do we do that with the lowest cost? That’s now the pacing item, as we used to say at work.

Brilliant idea at 3:00 am! Buy a new cheap sink that fits both the existing countertop hole and the new platinum faucet set. What a great idea! The key here is that a new sink is still a fraction the cost of that faucet set so this plan is the lowest cost alternative. And it achieves the original goal of getting a new bathroom sink.

The next steps involve a lot of labor and cussing. We’ve all done this so I won’t bore you. The result is a great new sink with a really snazzy faucet set and the same old countertop that really looks cool with the new sink. What a great job. It only cost double the original plan not counting that expensive faucet set (that we won’t mention the cost of).

Well, another job well done. Until somebody reminds me there’s a perfectly good new sink sitting in the guest bedroom closet. Oh, right, now we have an extra sink. How does one deal with that?

Here’s an idea: we have a summer place (rich people have these too, but we’re only “acting” rich; it’s not really ours). Wow this saga is not over. What great news. I’m still under 700 words and I’m aiming for 1000.

A long time ago the actual summer place owners added a bathroom. As a gesture of goodwill (that word again) we contributed a sink. Completely different type. It has legs and a way to hook it to the wall so it didn’t need a countertop. Well, before it got to the summer place somebody dropped it and it broke. No problem, that’s what they invented epoxy for. By the time I saw the sink again it was ready to be installed but had some really ugly epoxy seems. Imagine my surprise!

Well, amazingly it still holds water and the installation went according to the form book, as Bertie Wooster used to say. So we’ve had a broken bathroom sink in that summer place for a quarter century. Brilliant idea: since we now have an extra sink at home why not replace the epoxy laden sink?

But it requires a countertop. It’s not the kind you hook to a wall and support on a couple of legs. No problem! I just get a chunk of laminate and a little plywood and build a countertop. I can do that standing on my head, as Bertie Wooster also used to say. Bertie had a lot of cool sayings.

All I need to do is visit the local Ace and pick up a few things and poof we have a new sink in the summer place. How hard can that be?

Well, it turns out that here in the glittering Greater Newcastle Metropolitan Area you can’t get a small sink top size laminate (some of us call it Formica). It comes eight feet long. What am I going to do with the other six feet of For, (sorry) laminate? Maybe I can… no that makes a small project into a major project probably consuming my whole summer. I’m a busy man; I’m retired so I don’t have a lot of free time like when I was working.

In addition we have a heater under the sink because there’s no central heating. We need to make sure the countertop is fireproof. This means I can’t just slap a laminate on plywood. More complication and costs.

After discovering all this and before actually buying any materials I decided to see if there was a faucet set that could fit somebody’s budget that would also match the wrong sink I bought several months ago. Here’s the show stopper – nothing that fits that sink can be had for less than the cost of a brick of gold. Wait, that’s how we got into this fix.

Here’s our decision: (This is why everyone respects us from coast to coast and border to border.) We decided that the whole project would benefit from abandonment. Give the damn sink to the Goodwill and quit trying to fit that cheap-ass sink into places that cost an arm and a leg! The sink was cheap. Getting it installed is the cost generator. So that’s the advice from the Lake Boren Rapid Transit Report: If at first you run into a roadblock don’t defy the Revenuers just quit the moonshine business and do something more fun.

Al

Sound Transit Off Leash

Welcome to Lake Boren Park and Rapid Transit (Do Not Enter) 

Here in lala land, better known as the Newcastle/Bellevue area, we have a strict policy against dogs without leashes. Nominally the leash is also attached to a person. This is optional.

In order to alleviate this tethered person/dog scenario some of our parks have what’re known as “off leash” areas. Have you seen one of these? It’s interesting to see how some of these person/dog relationships are still in the stage where leadership is in question.

Newcastle has this wonderful grass covered area on the shore of Lake Boren called Lake Boren Park. Many people visit the park with a dog and a tennis ball throwing stick. The dogs are unleashed and spend quality time training their owners to throw tennis balls. There are little parking meter like stands where a person can get a little plastic bag. Dog owners know what to do with the little plastic bag.

The city council has this dream of installing an actual official “off leash” area in a Newcastle park. They finally made a decision about which park will get it. The newspaper claims they gave a “green light” to a dog park. How did they get “green light” when we’re talking about dogs and leashes? Oh, sorry, they just meant the council finally made a decision. Well I guess if you really need to save ink “green light” has fewer letters than “finally made a decision.”

There is also a group of Newcastle citizens called “Folks Loving (Etcetera) the Canine Heart” or something like that. Their nickname is F.L.E.T.C.H. They’re local vocal advocates for the off leash area. Apparently it costs about $25,000 to set up an “off leash” area. The Fletchers say they have no intention of contributing any funds to the project. Their only purpose is to make it clear they want an area where they can chase Fido with a little plastic bag without being arrested for a leash violation. For free.

Now the City Council is looking for funding. The approved (green light) plan is to put it in the undeveloped sports park down on Southeast 95th Way. Checking a map we discover its south of the May Creek Bridge. That’s right next to Renton. Renton has its own off leash area. It’s called “Renton.” So it should fit right in.

Meanwhile people in Newcastle will continue to use Lake Boren Park pretty much without concern since the police department is busy. Too much real crime, such as “failure to use a little plastic bag” to watch Fletchers learn how to throw tennis balls to loose dogs.

Meanwhile Bellevue Fletcher groups have been visiting the Bellevue City Council with a never ending stream of route proposals for light rail. The latest one involves placing the tracks in residential front yards along the west side of the street. In order to do that they would have to buy the properties. The people have stated they want to sell out. They want to live in Newcastle where light rail is at least 100 years away. And the off leash area is in Renton.

The process for advancing proposals to cities is to form some kind of Fletcher group that has a fun but official sounding name. The group has a number of meetings to formulate the proposal. I assume the membership changes rapidly until they agree on something. The key person who came up with the idea remains leader of the group and becomes the spokesperson at the council meeting. The others are the cheering squad.

The west side front yard proposal came from a Fletcher who has an interest in the businesses along the east side of the street. Across the street in those residential front yards is a much better placement. They apparently went door to door getting each owner to agree that they’d like to sell out and move. That must have been interesting. I wonder if it involved little plastic bags.

I’m going to form a group of Fletchers and propose the Bellevue route be relocated to Renton. They just split off Martin Luther King Jr. Way at the I-5 overpass on and head over the hill into Renton. Then run up from Renton along the old BNSF line to I-90. (Refer to your map to see how smart this is.) From there it’s up to which group of Fletchers Sound Transit and Bellevue decide has the best route through Bellevue. Have you seen the benefit of my idea? No need to mess with I-90.

Did you know that if you stand on the west end of I-90 in Seattle and close your eyes you can almost see all the way to Boston? That’s because standing on I-90 with your eyes closed is pretty much the last thing you’ll ever do. Some Fletcher will run over you.

Al

Sound Transit Testing Link Train in Lake Boren