Sandwich boards clutter a sidewalk on First Avenue in downtown Seattle.

We’re starving for good takeout places in Belltown, so the new place on Second should be a prime stop. But I’ve never tried it…because they have sandwich boards (plural) in the middle of the sidewalk, and that annoys me.

It’s odd to fixate on such things. Most people just walk around sandwich boards. But personally I take anything that intrudes on the middle of the sidewalk as an intrusion. Particularly if the sidewalk is narrow, such as passing a sidewalk cafe. So, often, I move the sign. And avoid that business like the plague.

Parking lots are worse than restaurants. At least the businesses are trying to reach pedestrians, but the parking lot signs are for drivers. If a sign is necessary, it should be by the curb, not in the main part of the sidewalk. Those signs are often heavier, but even the big hundred-pound ones can be rolled aside.

Let’s not get started on cars that roll into crosswalks at red lights. (breathe…calm…rippling stream…breathe…)

The City has a spotty record in sidewalk design. Lots of nice work has happened recently on Second, Third, Fourth, and Fifth in Belltown, much of it associated with recent street repaves. Love the corner bulbs. But good lord, what’s with the oversized tree wells, particularly on Fourth? Are pedestrians supposed to walk in them? One assumes so, because at night we can hardly see some of them, and they’re inconsistent widths, and sometimes the sidewalks narrow to the width of two people so you walk in them just to pass. Putting gravel in the wells is a good idea in theory, but since we’re walking in the wells they become gravel dispersal systems. Safety issues include escaped gravel on the sidewalk, and the likelihood that at some point the gravel areas won’t be flush with the paved areas.

Then there’s the safety issue of those yellow rubber pads, which are slippery when wet, and are apparently intended to create disabled people.

As for those hanging plants at the Pike Place Market on First…they look great, but do they think we’re all 5 feet tall? Raise them, please.

As you can see, walking to work can bring a zen-like peace to one’s day!

Want to speak out on Seattle’s pedestrian environment, and the City’s upcoming plans? Your best chance is between now and June 15, the comment period for the recently-released Draft Seattle Pedestrian Master Plan. In addition to the summary, remember to see the list of specific implementation actions.

It’s heartening to see so much effort go into boosting walkability, especially since the leaders are frequent pedestrians and experts in pedestrian issues. There’s much to love in the plan (not focusing on that here). At the same time, Seattle has a long history of well-intentioned plans being subverted by other goals, directly or indirectly. The plan addresses all of these general topics, but not in detail, and where it really matters is in practice.

An example is enlarged tree wells. These are good for trees that outgrow their old wells. But they can also interrupt pedestrian flow, they’re often muddy, and sometimes they’re even dangerous. This photograph is a rogue tree well on First Avenue, with a four-inch drop that must surprise a few people, at least those who haven’t walked in it countless times as I have (rather than wait for others to pass). Some hard-packed gravel at sidewalk level would be nice. Or maybe a walkable hard-surface platform of some kind.

At first look, the draft plan itself has some items that need adjustment. The yellow, bumpy plastic “tactile warning strips” it calls for at curb ramps are useful for the blind, but they’re slippery, which is something you don’t want at a street corner! A potential solution would be to build the same thing in concrete, integrally colored or painted so it’s more visible, though even then you’ve created a trip hazard.

Another usually good idea is chirping walk signals for the blind. But some of these signals, such as the ones at 6th & Bell, are incredibly loud, easily audible a full block away. How many advocates would live 50 feet from that? We encourage people to live near work, while making some intersections inhospitable for living. Turn the volume down.

“All way walk” intersections (like First & Pike) are also discussed in the draft plan. These sound like a good idea, until it occurs that at a standard intersection, they mean you can’t walk 2/3 of the time. First & Pike works because there are only two phases, “traffic” and “pedestrians,” plus it’s easy to jaywalk N-S during traffic’s phase. But at a regular multiphase intersection, all way walk is like punishment.

Let’s not get into the parking meters and light poles in the centers of many sidewalks, which exist because City liability fears have required them to be three feet from curbs. This was thought up by bean counters more worried about fenders and dollars than pedestrian safety or walkability. Even the new “pay stations” are often located within narrow sidewalks due to expediency, and can be barriers if people are standing at them. They should be in parking strips.

Curb bulbs are a great idea, to shorten crossings and improve visibility. But please make sure there’s room for not only the car lanes, but bicycles along the right fringe as well.  Just a couple feet. The same stretch of Bell, a significant bike route, is a good example. Hit Fifth Avenue, and either the driver or the bicyclist better give way, because the curb bulb sticks out too much.

Readers, please read the plan and comment. City, good job on the plan, but please make some adustments, and please follow through on implementation!

In Olympia, legislators are patting themselves on the back after closing a $9 billion budget gap. But it’s likely that they have only deferred addressing some of the fundamental structural problems with the state’s finances for another 2 years.

Legislators also took a victory lap after “solving” the viaduct problem by creating a mechanism by which Seattle taxpayers would have to pay for cost overruns on what would be a state project—after Seattle voted down the tunnel option. But that’s a different post.

Two big ideas that didn’t make it out of the regular session had to do with the always unpopular and hard to understand subjects of debt and taxes. The state will eventually have to figure out how to make its tax system fairer and less regressive. An income tax of some kind could be part of that, but that ideal didn’t get far this year.

The other really interesting concept was offered by Rep. Hans Dunshee. His proposal would have authorized the state to borrow $3 billion to retrofit public schools. The bill was missing a lot of critical details, but underlying was a great concept that I called Green Increment Financing.

Like Tax Increment Financing, Dunshee’s bill would have allowed the state to make upgrades and improvements to infrastructure that would pay for the financing of the debt. In the case of Green Increment Financing, the money to pay back the debt would come from accumulated savings as previously inefficient buildings began to realize energy savings. The retrofitting would create new jobs, and reductions in energy use would also reduce green house gas emissions.

Like Tax Increment Financing, the hurdle with this kind of idea is two-fold. First, and probably most difficult, is the terminology which includes words like “tax,” “bonds,” “financing,” “public indebtedness,” and “increment.” Even if legislators understand this concept, debt and taxes are political dynamite.

The second problem has to do with math and forecasting. Will energy improvements actually save enough to pay back the bonds? Savings can be estimated and this kind of financing on projected savings is done locally already. So these numbers can be figured out. But getting the numbers will take time

Hopefully, Green Increment Financing will gain ground between now and the next legislative session along with a more fundamental look at how we generate revenue for public benefits.

SvR won last year's Golden Helmet award

It’s time for the third annual A/E bike to work challenge. The challenge, which mirrors the Cascade Bicycle Club’s Bike-to-Work Month Commute Challenge, pushes employees of Seattle-area architecture and engineering firms to compete for the most miles ridden by firm and by individual. It starts May 1.

Last year, 22 firms with a total of 368 riders participated, riding 43,075 miles. Mithun rode the most miles: 6,096.

The firm with the highest percentage of riders was SD Architects, with three out of four employees riding to work in May of 2008. SvR Design won the “Golden Helmet,” the competition’s unique award that calculates the overall miles ridden, factoring in the percentage of possible firm riders who rode and the percentage of possible commute trips ridden

The top rider in the challenge was Igor Rozanski of Notkin Mechanical Engineers, who rode 1,018 miles commuting from South Everett to Seattle. Other top riders included Chris Robertson of Shannon & Wilson at 855 miles, and Joe Llona, formerly of TetraTech, at 769 miles.

A/E firms interested in participating in the 2009 contest should contact SvR’s Maika Nicholson or Tony Dollar at (206) 223-0326.

Right now, a drill rig is outside on First Avenue, testing soil conditions for the deep bore tunnel.  The plan is far from certain obviously, but progress of any kind is exciting! Meanwhile it’s working its way through the legislature. This is a good time to hit some key points and dispel some misconceptions.

The tunnel would have more capacity than the current tunnel, not less. The same two lanes each way, plus breakdown lanes that avoid backups. The missing third lane is replaced by people exiting before Downtown rather than in Downtown.

It might save money vs. the alternatives despite costing more. What’s the price of several years of massive disruption with the aerial or shallow-cut alternatives? How many stores would fail, offices would move away, residents wouldn’t move in, and tourists wouldn’t come? (not to mention the effect of being next to another eyesore for another lifetime)

It’s realistic about traffic. The surface-option supporters have great motives. But they’re mistaken. Better transit would reduce trips somewhat, and many drivers might simply move. But tens of thousands of cars per day would be added to surface streets. Political concessions to the driving public would turn Downtown streets into highways focused on throughput rather than those who work, live, or shop here. For example, the PI instantly suggested fewer pedestrian crossings when the original surface option was shortlisted.

A tunnel helps Downtown function. Downtown Seattle is the dominant economic engine of our region, and plays an important role for most locals, whether working here, attending events, or just getting through. It’s tough to concentrate so much activity in a narrow area, but we do pretty well because of tunnels, including the BN tunnel, the transit tunnel, the existing 99 tunnel, and even the covered part of I-5. Downtown is growing. Putting 99 underground gets the through traffic through (without encouraging more driving) while allowing Downtown to be what it can be.

It avoids another 50-year mistake. Cities that succeed in the coming decades will have quality of life (as well as functionality; see above). The central waterfront and our surface streets are essential parts of that.

I think it’ll pass. The plan mixes best-case attributes and lacks strong anti constituencies. The ”view while driving” crowd seems numerous but they ought to watch the road and will look foolish if the initiative goes anywhere. Through-drivers get their freeway (without more lanes to encourage more driving), Interbay gets a wider Alaskan Way and non-jammed streets, transit users end up with more transit (even if indirectly), Downtown people get our great waterfront and hold on to our walkability, and locals shoulder the difference in cost, which is a manageable figure.

PS, did everyone notice that Sound Transit just bid two two tunnel sections for massively less than projected?  They came in 23 percent and 34 percent under Sound Transit’s estimates, at a combined $329 million rather than $425 million. This is encouraging for the deep bore 99!

AIA Seattle has just given its first Emerging Professionals travel scholarship to Mithun’s Cristina Bump to study innovative seawall design in Australia and Canada.

Sydney's Botney Bay seawall

The $5,000 scholarship will pay for her travel and research. She’ll visit seawalls in Sydney, Melbourne and Vancouver,  exploring the impact alternative approaches have on urban development and natural habitat.

Bump

Bump plans to work with partners at the University of Washington, the city of Seattle and the U.S.  Army Corps of Engineers to develop a series of recommendations for Seattle’s seawall replacement. She will present her research through an exhibition and model at AIA Seattle’s gallery in late 2009.

The scholarship is funded by contributions by Seattle-area Fellows of the American Institute of Architects and AIA members.

Eds Note: These 50-word definitions of sustainability ran in today’s DJC. Agree or disagree, we’d love to hear your thoughts.

For Seattle to become sustainable, it will have to take advantage of the environment we inherited. Preserving open space and protecting the Sound are paramount to a livable and lasting city. The new waterfront will be our next big test. Finding a way to blend the needs of the people with the needs of environment, that’s what will make Seattle sustainable. It’s not a choice between a vibrant urban experience or nature — it’s having both!

Charles Anderson, Charles Anderson Landscape Architects

Sustainability means creating healthy built environments as a means to supporting the larger ecosystems that provide clean water, air and soil for all of us. A collaborative, interdisciplinary approach to designing, building and maintaining buildings is critical to the overall health of the environment.

Yancy Wright, Sellen Construction

We achieve sustainability by fostering long-term cultural, economic, environmental and social health and vitality — by putting all those things together for our future and remembering it is a continuing endeavor, not an end point. That means involving all of our communities in the work, and ensuring that everyone contributes, and everyone benefits.

Richard Conlin, Seattle City Council President

Sustainability requires a vision of where we want to go, and an adaptive strategy to get there in a way that is just for all people and the planet. Seattle needs strong public and private leadership to articulate the vision and inspire all of us to walk in that direction.

Joel Sisolak, Cascadia Region Green Building Council

Seattle must be seen as part of the bioregion and global biosphere. The path to urban sustainability lies in achieving ecological balance integrated with social, economic and environmental regeneration. We will need to retool the urban infrastructure to significantly reduce waste and over-consumption, become less auto-dependent and more walkable.

Peter Steinbrueck, Steinbrueck Urban Strategies

Seattle should broaden the sustainability focus from LEED to SEED: Social Economic and Environmental Design. Environmental responsibility is not a stand-alone issue. Economic equity and social justice are equally essential to creating sustainable communities. If Seattle can achieve this union, we will be the sustainability visionaries we claim to be.

Owen Richards, Owen Richards Architects

Sustainability in Seattle (the cynical version): A term used by politicians and the mostly-white upper class for public appearance or as a business choice, while not actually contributing to sustainability on a broad scale. Real Sustainability: A movement where sustainable actions are an EASY choice and are undertaken by all walks of life, not just the elite.

Rebecca Deehr, Pedestrian Master Plan Advisory Group

Sustainability is grounded in values of stewardship, sufficiency and justice, and includes economic, environmental and community indicators of well-being. Sustainability goes beyond meeting people’s immediate physical needs to creating a just society with laws and policies that allow their needs, and the needs of all Earth’s inhabitants, to be met.

LeeAnne Beres, Earth Ministry

Sustainability is being good stewards of our environment for ourselves, for our community and for future generations. This means creating spaces that give us shelter and comfort in ways that enhance the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the earth that gives us food instead of degrading them.

Christopher Imbeau, Rafn Co.

Sustainability must include our social structures. As the health of our salmon requires sound water policy, the health of our community requires sound social policy: housing appropriate to the needs of the whole community, access to living-wage jobs, and a region-wide transportation plan that provides real options to the automobile.

Richard Bloom, Interfaith Task Force on Homelessness

Sustainability means systemic continuity; it is equilibrium, balance. In relation to the environment, sustainability suggests systems capable of continuing (though not remaining static. Change is constant) indefinitely, perpetuating life (including people). The planet will likely persist for some time; sustainability might enable humans to survive with it.

Gabriel Scheer, Re-Vision Labs, Seattle Greendrinks

The compromise stimulus bill that’s received Congressional approval and is expected to fly off the president’s desk this weekend actually had quite a bit of greenbacks for green initiatives: at least $62.2 billion in spending and $20 billion in tax incentives, according to a preliminary analysis from the Center for American Progress.

Is that enough to set us on a path for sustainability? Check out an excellent roll-call of programs and efforts getting dough at Gristmill.

Seattle’s hefty Comprehensive Plan is subtitled “Toward a Sustainable Seattle.”  In the vision section of the plan there is a sub-section called Environmental Stewardship which calls for compact development for  reasons that sound familiar.

The emphasis on compact development is intended to mitigate air and storm water discharge pollution from automobiles, loss of green space, and increases in impervious surfaces that results from non-compact development (page vi)

But what about the Mayor’s latest efforts to put people back “to work and get our local economy moving?” Those plans will include $16 million for sidewalks and repaving.

The City of Seattle has a serious consistency problem when it comes to sustainability. Surface water is probably the best example.  The right hand is working on fixing pot holes and keeping promises of building more sidewalks, while the left hand is writing glowing language about the importance of reducing impervious surface. This is a case where being ambidextrous is a bad thing.

Of course it feels great to pander to demands from neighborhoods for more sidewalks and acknowledge the importance of reducing storm water discharge caused by paved surfaces.

Surface water management is perhaps the most glaring example that the City is still a long way from a real comprehensive plan that moves us toward a sustainable Seattle. We need to ask: What are the actual outcomes of what we do, compared to what we say?

The bottom line must be to limit the creation of more impervious surface, reduce the impervious surfaces we have, and develop safe walkways for pedestrians and lanes for bikes that don’t create more water discharge. Tto do that, we have to know how much impervious surface we have, set a quantifiable goal to reduce it and hold ourselves accountable. Change starts with measurement.

We need to grab the measuring tape before we go for the shovel.

Eds. Note: Words like affordable, sustainable and livable are thrown around regularly in conversations about how Seattle should grow. But we want to know what these words actually mean, and how the city can achieve them.

Today, SeattleScape blogger Roger Valdez introduces the topic of sustainability. An upcoming editorial page will offer 50-word definitions of sustainability provided by members of the community, including elected officials, organizers and A/E/C industry players. Bloggers at the DJC blog SeattleScape will also weigh in. We hope you will join in the discussion.

There are as many definitions of sustainability as there are people who care about the issue.  Platitudes about environmental degradation almost always include the word “sustainability” and now it has taken its place alongside meaningless terms like “proactive,” “value added” and “win-win.”

Sustainability gets used interchangeably with words like “green,” “environmentally sensitive” and “green building.” To builders, “sustainable” applies to material. To a salmon advocate it means sound water policy and to someone working on climate change, it means reducing the vehicle miles traveled in our region. The word has become all things to all people.

Seattle even has the Office of Sustainability and Environment, with the laudable but broad goal of collaborating with “city agencies, business groups, nonprofit organizations, and other partners to protect and enhance Seattle’s distinctive environmental quality and livability.”

The Brundtland Commission defined sustainable as meeting “the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”  This language — borrowed from the Iroquois — is comforting, but can it help us make sensible land use policy?

Mithun’s unbuilt Center for Urban Agriculture

It is time to develop a definition of the word that is tied to measurable outcomes. Change begins with measurement. Sustainability is an economic concept, like return on investment. Economies aren’t just about money, but about the relationships between production, distribution and consumption.  Our bodies, our physical environment and our time all have economies.

We can assess sustainability by asking whether something (a project, a plan or a policy) consumes only as much as it can viably produce or less. Our activities should generate long-term profit whether that profit takes the form of excess energy, materials, dollars or other measurable benefits.

Planning, building, eating and living should generate something extra for future use. For example, developable land should not lay fallow and we should replace impermeable surfaces with permeable ones. Some areas should be up-zoned for more housing and others should be depaved for open space and urban farming.

Imagine a city that produces its own food, energy and goods.  This vision of sustainability is possible with a definition, a plan and a system of accountability.