seattle continued

http://www.cjgsu.net/initiatives/HomRates-2009-03-16-Score.pdf

oakland is #6 for homicides and seattle is #56

i think bmore has about 600,000
also we have this helpful map (can't figure out how to link to 2008 though, so 2009 will show up) http://www.citypaper.com/news/mi_map.asp
i live in that hole in the middle, it's really not as bad as it looks i swear

smoove, Seattle has small towns on islands!!! And you can just hop on a ferry and get to the city.

^way to do it imo

i want my own island.

HomoRates

oakland does sound scary,even to a new yorker like me

and it's just getting worse. i dunno, i've been feeling really down about it lately, probably just a phase. i think it's a lot to do with have an annoying anxious nature anyway, living in a dodge 'hood just brings out the worst of it.

just move here; you will feel better.

i want to say more about the light rail but am not sure where to start. look at these first, aren't they awesome
http://www.soundtransit.org/Projects-and-Plans/STart-Public-Art-Program/Public-Art-Projects/StellarConnections.xml

cool! I couldn't figure out what the sodo symbol was from the handouts we got. I light-railed twice yesterday, from dragon to opera glasses and back.

jealous! it would have been silly to ride from spectacles to tiara, though, and then get on the bus! lol.

that is a really neat project, though! i like the explanation of how the constellations were derived.

would ride spectacles to tiara just for the hell of it

lxy and i have an ongoing project to go to each of the stations and document them. so far we've gone to dragon and the end of the line, canoe

magic carpet ride ftw btw

sir, can i see some documentation, please?

lol i was a little offended when i saw 'magic carpet' and then i read the description and thought 'hmm, ok' but i'm still a little iffy.

you got to BELIIIIEEEEEEEEEEVEEEEEEEEEEEE

canoe is fitting because you have to take the bus then to the airport and what isn't more fitting than the canoe for getting there sloooooow

ts: canoe v rowboat

canoe it to get thru it
rowboat u slow goat

love a lot trust a few and always paddle your own canoe v merrily merrily merrily merrily life is but a dream

I will admit to intentionally riding to the dragon instead of getting off at the schooner, b/c it seemed too decadent to only ride one stop. lxy and jergins, when you come visit the schooner stop we should meet up at my local (the Collins, 2nd and whatever street is the further south end of the bus tunnel at that stop - James?) - they have many brews and delicious food.

Listing of all the area outdoor movies, mostly in August: http://blog.seattlepi.com/thebigblog/archives/174596.asp

the other day as we were leaving the game jergins said "so we'll go jaq's and then get on a bus."

'do we really have time for that? does she know we're coming? when was this lovely behind-my-back-plan made?' thought i.

what he really said was "so we'll go to jackson and get on a bus."

but it made me want to go jaq's, and then get on a bus. so we're gonna, some time soon.

^had to go to the airplane terminal (where the coach of the sounders was! exciting!) so that's why we couldn't stop by. but i know i'd love to. light rail-->jaq's-->light rail

Oh yes! Please do!

it is HOT today! and looks to be for the next week!? yikes.

Nearly 2 hours on the bus from Redmond tonight - no A/C and the driver was completely terrible, sat in the middle of Stewart for almost 25 minutes while cars and other buses cut around her right and left. I got so fed up I jumped off the minute the doors opened at Westlake Center, started to walk home then detoured down to the tunnel for the light rail. At least it's cool and now I'll see how the transfers work with the orca.

Someone is predicting it will be over 100 F on Wednesday.

100???! holy shit!

bus w/o AC sounds like hell. it's even hot up here in the islands. mid 80s is RARE up here, on the water

i got so hot on the bus ride home i tried to hypnotize myself into remembering how cold i felt in montreal.

how'd that go?

it worked a little bit. i will keep practicing in anticipation of 100.

whew this week is gonna be a doozy! how did i develop a 'glow' walking downhill!!!?

learned from a seattle girl a long time ago to say you're not sweatingyou're glowing

horses sweat
men perspire
ladies glow

but you have to be careful telling ladies they're glowing bc then they will think you mean they are pregnant and you are saying they look fat

(i wouldn't think this, but a lady might)

i wanted to say more about the light rail so here.

sound transit and the people of seattle did a good thing making the inital line through the south. connecting seattle's poorest and most underserved neighborhoods and the airport is such a good pairing. and the neighborhoods, they're various. we always tell ourselves that our neighborhoods are all so different from one another and we're special because of that. yeah it's true and this shows it in an unexpected way (i grew up here and don't think i'd ever been to rainier beach before last wednesday). i love how vietnamese it gets along the street level. there's that moment of 'well it could be another country.' and the hard industrial parts. on some blog i read a person say it was like an east coast city, taking a line into town where you see the working face, the car yards and parking lots and office parks, every day places.

the other smart thing sound transit did is build this line for the future. you don't notice at first but every station can accommodate 4 car trains. right now they're at 2 car trains until ridership goes up. four cars hauls a hell of a lot of people. this has all been built with a mind to the future, where 30 years from now the areas around the stations won't look at all like they do now. it's creating (forcing?) those neighborhoods to figure how they can adapt to what places should be: safe, walkable, open, community-oriented.

also, it's beautiful. they spent some money. all the stations are different from one another architecturally. beacon hill has big-time fast elevators. 1% for art. across the duwamish the bridge lights up http://i221.photobucket.com/albums/dd118/embarchie/20081107_duwamish.jpg
some of the art is hedious of course but that's fun cuz then you have an excuse to take the train around and jump off and be dismissive.

last they are hell of chill. it's pretty much the best to look out at a city through a clean train window. and to look at a city i feel so bored with sometimes, like i know all of it, and then here's this beautiful thing, this contraption straight out of 19th20th21st centuries, to spirit me along to places i didn't know existed? magic carpet ride ftw. it's the best, really.

two rails one dream realized

yes, yes, well stated and tru. <3!

it's so fun to talk about something that exists.

and so fun to discover that we live in a real city all of a sudden. it was awesome to take THE TRAIN to a MLS GAME! couldn't have done either one last summer.

ps. i love the magic carpet, it is delightful just like the airport station should be.

just wanted to say your post was v v thoughtful, jergs! i really enjoyed it!

following the semi-success of my self-hypnosis on the bus, i am now attempting to fend off the multitude of voracious mosquitoes by mentally suggesting to them that my blood tastes bad. should also work for any vampires that might be in the neighborhood this evening.

i semi-successfully tried to cool off with a bourbon rocks but it is quickly becoming bourbon and water.
ps it is glowing.

so pardon my ignorance but is a light rail like what the BART is here in the bay area?

BART is actually heavy-rail, which means although it shares some similarities with Seattle's Link, it can handle much greater passenger loads (about 2x as many as light rail), has its own separate thoroughfare, and is powered by a third rail. Light rail is powered by overhead lines. But they are both electric trains.

jergins, that is a great post. I wish we could have stayed in that townhouse down in New Holly - it was only 3 blocks from the Rainier Beach station. But we are thinking toward the future when we will move a year from now, and everything along the light rail corridor is fair game.

if i were planning to stay in seattle i would move south too.

ruby, another crucial thing about BART that makes it different is its station spacing. though i don't know where exactly you live, and i don't know where you work, i'm thinking BART probably isn't that convenient. (actually, i have no idea, maybe it works out perfectly). anyway, i found this pretty interesting:

http://berkeleybrt.blogspot.com/2008/06/brt-and-bart-redux.html
From Wikipedia, BART, distance between stations: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_Area_Rapid_Transit
BART: 104 miles, 43 stations (1 under construction).
Do the math: 1 station every 2.4 miles.

By contrast, the Paris Metro, with, according to Wikipedia, the most closely spaced metro stations in the world:382 stops, 298 stations (some stations serve more than one line), 133 miles.So almost 3 stops per mile in Paris compared to one stop every 2.4 miles for BART

because of the way seattle is layed out, long and narrow with lots of water, we've ended up with pretty widely spaced stations too. look
http://seattletransitblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/world.jpg