Prop #1: Roads and Transit

I've just been reading a leader in the local paper about one of the upcoming propositions on the ballot about roads and transit.  It seems to be a divisive issue in Seattle.  It appears to have been a divisive issue in Seattle for about 30 years.  For the life of me, I'm not entirely sure why.

Seattle is a city encircled by water and which has a small number of urban centres and core local employers.  Unlike a lot of American cities I've been to, it has a vibrant downtown and associated sub-urbs where you can get around easily on foot.  There's a pretty decent, again for a US city, bus service.  The problem is if you want to get out of the city.  To put not too fine a point on it; the roads here stink.

I'm used to stinking roads, I'm from the UK, I grew up around London.  I remember when we still thought the M25 was a cool idea and not the world's largest carpark.  Both my wife and I work on the East side of Lake Washington and live downtown.  Everyday one of us, or both of us, drives across the 520 floating bridge, I drop M in Bellevue centre before heading off to my office in Redmond.  It's 12 miles, the drive home can take anything from 30 minutes to over an hour.  Now, by London standards that's nothing - but it really shouldn't be this bad here. 

The problem I have is I'd rather not have to drive, I'd rather take a train.  Again, I'm from London, trains and tube trains are second nature to me.  They're a fact of life and a great way to get around.  Seattle was, in point of fact, designed for trains.  There are a small number of urban centres with employers with large fixed work centres - Microsoft has a dedicated transit terminal already, Microsoft's other offices are in central Bellevue, right next to shops and malls, Google are in Kirkland which has a nice waterfront, Boeing is in Renton (a little out of the town, but that can be handled), there's the university campus too...  

They're putting in a light rail to the airport - not sure I'll use it, but it'll help matters.  A light rail to Bellevue, Renton, Kirkland and Redmond (stopping at the Lakeside Transit Centre) could do a lot for this area.  When I was back in London a few weeks ago, I had to go to Docklands.  The Docklands Light Rail (DLR) is a completely automated rapid transit system serving East London and Docklands.  The trains run every 5-10 minutes, they're driverless, modern and fast.  Having a system in place here could do wonders, not just for the local road networks (which are awful), but for the ability of people to get around in the evening.  A night out in Seattle is much easier if you don't have to drink and drive and park, Kirkland water front is lovely, but again, a pain to get to unless you want to spring for a $50 cab ride.  It makes sense on every level...

There's a but coming though.  It doesn't make a lot of sense if you live in a split level 3000 square foot house around Bellevue or Redmond and have a 10 minute drive to work and school.  I suspect that the real problem is the divide here between the Eastside and the Westside and the natural selfish nature of people.  And here lies a real rub; these people get to vote on this stuff?

People voting to raise taxes to pay for something they don't want to use?  Yeah, that sounds plausible.

Sometimes I really really miss Europe and if this vote goes the way I think it will, then that will definately be one of those days.

Company Town

Recently we took a short subscription to one of the Seattle papers, we were at Bumbershoot and we needed an umbrella, plus the free bag pretty much covered the subscription cost.

I probably read one out of every two papers.

The last couple of days have had coverage of the A380 maiden commercial flights and it is interesting to see reporting from a Seattle paper on this.  Objective is not the word that springs to mind.  Yesterday's coverage was noteable for the entire page dedicated to the A380 with one paragrpah outlining the arguments for having such a large aircraft and approximately the REST OF THE PAGE covering an interview with one analyst who supported Boeings view that this was a mistake.

Lots of comments about the delivery problems Airbus had, none about how common this really is in new aircraft and how Boeing are starting to have the same with the 787, or how much of a mess they got themselves into with the 737-800/900 production lines.

It's on par with the anti-EU rants about how they're being nasty to Microsoft.

Wiiiiiiiii!!!!!!

Apparently we have a Wii.  I'm curious to see what all the fuss is about.

Australian Satire...

There's a couple of great songs here, and I like this one. Their Back to the Future Sketch with John Howard was pretty funny too.

EDIT: They're called "The Chasers" if you want to Youtube for them.