Lake Boren Upscale

We here at the Lake Boren Rapid Transit Report are always on the lookout for ways to keep you informed.  The primary purpose is to remind everyone that we’re still on the job.  The secondary goal is to help you understand what’s going on with the grand plan for a Rapid Transit Center on the shores of Lake Boren.  Last our purpose is to make stuff up because the real news is just annoying.

Sound Transit and the Bellevue City Council have been arguing over the light rail route in Bellevue for years.  In a stunning development the City Council voted unanimously to approve the Sound Transit plan.  The main point of the agreement was that nobody is happy.  In other words the reason for the agreement is that everyone lost something.

We don’t need to get all in depth over it but the Evelyn Wood version is that the route on Bellevue Way and 112^th annoys the lowest number of people.  And those that would be most annoyed will have their houses purchased so they can move to Newcastle.

In Newcastle we’ll have a new library branch sometime next fall.  The steel frame is going up that will hold up the weed covered roof.  We watched as they installed the cistern that will be used to water the weeds.  Apparently the point is that a layer of dirt and live vegetation will provide adequate insulation for the main part of the library.

On the corner leading into the Safeway strip mall parking area and the street the library is on they erected stop lights.  Just like a big city we’ll have a crosswalk and left turn arrow.  For some reason everything is installed but the lights have not been activated.

Down the street some there’s a new condo growing out of the ground that will have a commanding view of Lake Boren.  During construction lulls one can look over the trees and see another project on the far hillside.  As a retired person I get to spend time watching the projects slowly come to life.  Nobody pays me so I don’t care if I waste time.

Meanwhile over in Bellevue we have this light rail agreement all approved and ready for the construction crews.  Except for the legal issue about running the tracks on I-90.  Several cities across the country have installed these light rail systems and they run them along some of the streets taking up lanes where cars used to go.  Here in the Greater Newcastle Metro Area we have a street that was completely rebuilt to add transit down the middle and still have two lanes going in each direction.

We don’t know for sure if any of those projects actually use an Interstate but I would bet some do.  I don’t go everywhere so I just don’t know.  Maybe that’s a good project for me; go everywhere and inspect light rail systems.  Would somebody pay me for that?

I like to ride the rail once in awhile and watch how the locals behave.  That part of town where it goes down the street has a large population of people who don’t speak English.  Most of them speak these Asian dialects.  Several are a little miffed that the bus route they used to take to work has been discontinued and replaced by the light rail.  You can see signs along the way expressing miffness.

Bellevue has a completely different kind of neighborhood that will have a rail line running down the street.  Most of those people don’t speak anything but English.  And they speak it very loudly when you mention the light rail plan.  Their signs are bigger, too.

To make their point these anti rail people have joined to form a protest group and their plan is to occupy Lake Boren.  That’s right; they will pull up their hip boots and wade into the lake with signs in all languages.  Glen will be furious.

One result (we hope) is that they will raise the water level and make it drain faster into Boren Creek.  When they are eventually evicted the lake will go way down and we can see all the debris that’s been under water for years.

In the mean time architectural drawings of the palatial Lake Boren Rapid Transit Center are progressing.  Plans call for a performing arts center, world class art museum, and a dunk tank.  At some point way out in the future we’ll have trains from all over Puget Sound running right through Newcastle.  By that time we’ll probably have a bullet train to Portland going.  It’ll be amazing.  The Newcastle City Council will probably do something to mess up the plans but until then we can dream of how wonderful it’ll be when it’s all finished in 2182.

 Al

A Veteran's Road Trip

Long ago, before most of us were born, there were purported to be massive sheets of ice covering most of Canada and some of the northern tier of the US, and Texas.  There is ample evidence to support this purportation.

The Pleistocene has lasted for about 2.5 million years, although many think it’s time has passed.  Anyway one of the features of this epoch (yes, I used that work right) are the Ice Ages.  Perhaps you’ve seen the movie?  There are those who wonder if maybe we’re just experiencing a lull between glaciations.  These and other mysteries of the planet will be resolved in my upcoming best seller: Al Explains Science! 

Ice has an interesting tendency to melt and when it’s over 3,000 feet thick it can produce a lot of water.  Another thing the ice managed was to dam up valleys which in turn resulted in lakes.  One such lake is called Glacial Lake Missoula.  There were many others but this one was a biggy.

J. Harlan Bretz long ago sometime last century suggested that a large portion of Eastern Washington had been visited by enormous floods.  He pointed to thousands of artifacts that have turned out to be evidence of such floods.  At first he was concerned about mentioning this theory because he didn’t know where the water came from.  He reasoned that glaciers were the source of the water but he also realized that the runoff would not have produced the kinds of forces he thought were required to do that much damage.

Later other scientists found water lines high on the hills around Missoula and realized that there was a lake there.  That had to be the source of the great flood.  Evidence has also been found which suggests it happened numerous times.

At this point you may wish to check this story for yourselves.  I’ll wait.  Take your time.  Tumm Tee Tum Tum…  See?  Told ya.

And getting around to what this report is about; this week leading up to Veteran’s Day we took off to visit the coulees of Eastern Washington.  Coulee is the name give to drainage channels and it is applied to many features in the area.  The ice berg topped water from Montana roared down across the basalt lava fields and cut channels.  Some of the channels are quite deep.  One is called Grand Coulee.  It’s near the Grand Coulee Dam.  That’s what runs my toaster.

We visited the Grand Coulee, Dry Falls, Lake Lenore Caves, and Banks Lake.  These are even more interesting when you have some idea how they were formed.  At the lower end of the Grand Coulee, near Quincy, you can see a lot of basalt debris that was washed out of the coulees during the floods.  This is part of Harlan’s evidence.  

Quincy also has large Internet server installations.  That’s because being near the Grand Coulee Dam electricity is cheap (actually they got cheap electricity because they bought the contracts from an old aluminum plants, but that’s yet another story for my book).  The other ample commodity is water.  Water is used to keep the computers cool.  The dam has scads of water and eastern Washington farmers use it to raise billions of dollars in crops.  It’s delivered in irrigation canals and one runs right by Quincy.  It’s an ideal spot for companies that need electricity and water in large amounts.

But that’s not the end of the trip.

We also visited Fairchild Air Force Base.  Our intent was to see the B-52 that’s allegedly parked there and open to the public.  Well, apparently the public is no longer welcome there.  Since I’m part of the public I didn’t get past the front gate.  Apparently Americans are a threat to America’s armed forces.

So we wandered down to a wildlife refuge.  We saw one magpie.  There were no deer or antelope, no ducks, no moose, no bear, or anything else.  Oh, there was a bus load of kids from a local school.  Maybe there’s a connection.

We saw plenty of wildlife just about everywhere else.  Deer seem to be gathering in groups of 8 or 10.  We also saw big horn sheep and a plastic owl.  Lots of hawks, too.

We visited Spokane where we saw something called the Bowl and Pitcher.  I think I figured out the pitcher but not the bowl.  Oh, well.  What they are is great giant rocks in the Spokane River.  They remind some people of the old bowl and pitcher that you find in museums depicting “pre-bathroom” bedrooms.  When you first woke up you could pour some water into the bowl for a shave.  I guess, how would I know, I’m not a “pre-bathroom” person?

We drove up as far as we could on Mount Spokane.  They ski there when the snow gets deep enough.  It’s nice to visit snow and then turn around and get away from it.  Living with it all over the streets at home is not fun.

After the Spokane leg of the trip we returned westerly using a route farther south in the state.  We saw several of the lesser coulees and flood features.  It’s very interesting when you know what you’re looking at.  There are hawks everywhere (except in the preserves).  They’re after rodents that live near the irrigated agriculture.  Good for the hawks.

The only wheat we saw was either already harvested or newly planted winter wheat.  Seems like there are more sheep and llamas than there used to be.  And more deer.  I can tell them apart mostly because deer have bigger ears.

We arrived at a place in the Yakima Canyon called the Canyon River Ranch.  You can see pictures if you check Google Images.  They are in winter rates so it was inexpensive.  We saw big horn sheep and more deer.

Here’s a really boring tidbit: we stayed in three different places.  All three were arranged so that the bathroom was not next to the bedroom.  One was downstairs and the other two were diagonally across the main room.  OK, we stayed in “suites” which are becoming more common among the motel set.  Anyway, I thought it was interesting that even though it was a hike to the bathroom there were no “bowl and pitchers” in the bedrooms.

On Veteran’s Day morning we checked the weather and they expected 8 to 10 inches of snow in the passes.  So we packed up and came home.  On the way home we stopped off at Applebee’s for a free Veteran’s Day meal.  Red Robin is doing that too.  Kind of nice of them. 

One of the requirements to prove veteranship is a photo in uniform.  I have a couple of those but I wouldn’t want to let them out.  I used the one of me crossing an un-named creek in South Viet Nam.  It worked.  There were lots of old persons there in VFW and Legion clothes and a few actual military people in uniform.  Very crowded and yet a lot of fun.  It was a really good burger, too.

 Al

Lake Boren Flood Report

Lake Boren is a nice little lake in glittering Newcastle, Washington. Over the years Glen, the Lake Boren carp, has worked hard to keep the lake level under control. Tirelessly, one might say. In 1996 Newcastle incorporated and as part of that they announced that the “city” was now responsible for control of the lake level.


That was easy to say since nobody at that time realized it might take a little effort. Water flows into the lake from the east and west. Water from the west is more of a trickle since storm drains take care of most of it. That’s because the contours of the land don’t result in a natural creek channel to the lake.

The east, however, has a natural contour that acts as a drain for a large portion of the hillside. It spills right into Lake Boren. That’s why Lake Boren Creek exits the south end of the lake and deposits the water into May Creek. Check Google Earth.

One of the benefits is Lake Boren is pretty clean most of the time. Until recently, that is. Now it turns brown and goopy during heavy winter rains. Apparently it also gets into yards where it never did before.

The problem is the hillside to the east has been extensively developed and more water finds its way into the drainage contour than before. The old forest used to soak up a lot of water. Now with houses, streets, and driveways more water runs down the hill. Add sprinkler systems and the occasional water balloon fight and it becomes a torrent. The golf course is also uphill from the lake and you know how much water that can produce.

Glen, the Lake Boren carp, has grown tired (remember tirelessly?) of doing work the city says it’s responsible for. He’s taken to traveling all over the world via the natural waterways to visit various pals, such as the Loch Ness Monster. This neglect has resulted in Lake Boren Creek becoming clogged with fallen trees and other stuff such as rocks and possibly silts. (Don’t ask me, Microsoft thinks silt should have an “s” on the end.)

Anyway, folks living on the shore have noticed that the water comes up more than it used to. Newcastle thinks King County used to dredge the creek to keep it open before it became the city’s problem. They didn’t see any reason to do that during all the Coal Creek Parkway construction. And now they’ve let the creek get clogged.

So far not too funny. Here’s where it gets fun. The city has hired an engineering consultant firm to tell them how to deal with the water. I didn’t know they were asking or I would have told them for nothing.

This high dollar consultant will do a topographic survey, hydraulic analysis, and wetlands delineation. Then prepare topographic, profile, and cross-section maps. It’ll cost about a year’s salary. That’s before any work gets done. We’ll see them hiking all over Newcastle with tons of high priced gadgets and tape measures. We’ll know who they are by the hip waders and water wings. It could take dozens of minutes or even an hour to figure out which way the water runs. Hint; it’s downhill.

The result will be a couple of big trees worth of paper. Everyone in Newcastle will get something in the mail, probably. The city council will get the final report and recommendation for extensive work. There will be culverts, retaining walls, weirs, wetlands mitigation, jailhouse windows, and plenty of truckloads of dirt going to and from Maple Valley.

Don’t ask me what some of those things are. Can you put a weir near a jailhouse window? These are technical questions we need the consultants to answer.

At strategic points along the process we’ll get the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife all involved. Yeah, right, the Newcastle News says they might be able to finish the whole project by next summer. With the corps and the fish people are involved it’ll add a year each.

The eventual alleged work could cost well over $100,000. Newcastle doesn’t have that kind of money. Or they could apologize to Glen and he’ll clean out the creek for nothing. Well maybe a few hundred pounds of fresh oysters.

Meanwhile over in Bellevue (motto: we can’t possibly get any bigger, can we? YES!). They’re looking at building a basketball arena for an NBA team. The Seattle area still holds the rights to the “Sonics” name so all we need is an arena and a team. Bellevue has plenty of areas where that can happen.

Bellevue also has kind of a confluence of freeways, except we’re going to get tolls on them at some point. Anyway, fans can get to the new arena. We also have bus service, Rapid Ride, and someday maybe light rail. In fact this kind of facility fits right into the grand plan for development in the Overlake area.

A large basketball arena would be the focal point for eats and shops. If they do it right people going to and from games would spend lots of money nearby.

Another kind of sport that can share the same arena is hockey. All you need to do is put refrigeration coils under the basketball floor and then flood it and freeze it. I hear there’s plenty of water available in Lake Boren.

A confederation of sports fans is proposing that we get the legislature to look at some kind of public funding package for the arena. Maybe they could hire those water consultants to draft a hydraulic analysis that includes using Lake Boren water for the ice. They would get rich. None of us could afford a ticket to a basketball game but we’d sure be proud of our fancy new arena. “Bellevue Sonics” has no charm or romance. Can you think of a better name? Submit your suggestions and win a free dinner at Gold Creek.

Al

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