Now that the rainy season has arrived full on, perhaps it’s timely to expose certain downtown buildings and their owners for a socially reprehensible offense to pedestrians. I am referring here to the growing prevalence of fake canopies.

Over the last year a number of older buildings around the downtown core have been retrofitted with projecting canopies constructed of glass and steel. Some are simple and serviceable, others are quite elegant. Some have been accomplished as a part of Metro Transit’s commendable efforts toward making downtown a better place to use transit. All of these improvements are welcome in a climate that demands cover over the sidewalk during the winter and sunlight in the summer.

However, the objectives of this general endeavor are apparently not universally shared. Whether done by individual merchants or property owners, we are seeing constructions of steel ribs and struts that extend out over the sidewalks but in fact contain no glass or other materials to provide actual cover. It’s quite the mean-spirited trick: What looks like cover is, in fact, open to the sky and, therefore, rainfall.

I have experienced at least three of these architectural cheats. One is over the entrance to Belltown Court on Second Avenue. Although a small canopy, I have seen more than one parent waiting to send a child off on a school bus while waiting under this false cover and getting soaked in the process.

More egregious is the one Third, just north of the Century Square building, which has recently had a handsome canopy added to its west- and south-facing sides. The offending canopy is actually a quite elaborate and costly structure but it offers no glass panels.

American Apparel:Thumbing its nose at shoppers.

The third one I have experienced is at the American Apparel store on 6th Avenue. This structure is really a sign disguised as a canopy, which should not be allowed at all. Here is a prime street in the retail core with a national brand business thumbing its nose at shoppers. How completely rude is that?

I’m sure there are other examples, which I leave to respondents to point out.

I fear that perhaps the city’s land use code does not mention the requirement of glass (or other solid covering) in its definition of canopies – a loophole that should be corrected immediately. If glass is indeed a requirement, then these parties should be sent notices of a city code violation with the associated penalties.

Now, for those who will undoubtedly send me some sharp retorts about how transients or teenagers will gather under these projections and businesses would have to pay more for cleaning, security, blah, blah, blah — save your breath (or typing fingers). Throughout downtown there are scores of glass and steel canopies, generous in width, high enough not to block storefronts and low enough to offer shelter that are not havens for antisocial or criminal behavior. To not provide canopies in this climate and latitude along primary pedestrian streets is either being lazy or insulting.

Besides, why would we ever take the view that, because of a few miscreants, 95 percent of the population must suffer?

Cal Anderson Park

Capitol Hill’s Cal Anderson Park is among the nation’s “Top 12″ urban parks, according to Forbes online. Other parks making the list were Central Park in New York, Golden Gate Park in San Francisco and Chicago’s Grant Park.

Cal Anderson got the nod because of its lemonade-from-lemons appeal, rising from a former reservoir. It’s one of six such parks in Seattle. The Berger Partnership was landscape architect.

Read the story here, or just skip to the slideshow.

Well OK, the old Bon Marche (now Macy’s) parking garage was never exactly a silk purse. But it was an example of a form of “moderne” architecture of which we in Seattle have precious few.

The structure’s spare, horizontal lines, curved corner, and exposed spiral ramp were simple, straightforward reflections of its principal function. The ground floor diner and flower shop were also a reminder of an earlier era of needed services that were often tucked into odd nooks of downtown buildings.

© Courtney Shannon Strand

But with the renovation, what we see resembles a suburban shopping mall – albeit in the “lifestyle center” mode. (Personally, I’ve never quite known what the heck that term is supposed to mean. Sounds like a word made-up by real estate brokers to aggrandize what is still a strip mall.)

Columbia Sportswear is clad in silly, knotty, horizontal wood siding that is obviously tacked on like faux wood paneling in a basement rec room. The overhanging “beams” are a waste of good steel, since they do nothing but stick out from the building and vaguely suggest they are doing something that is structural. The multiple video screens in the display windows effectively block views of the merchandise and merely add to the already frenetic atmosphere of the street in that location. This whole composition could sit nicely as a “storefront” within Alderwood Mall.

The white, translucent plastic sheeting that seems to have been stapled over portions of the façade looks cheap and flimsy. In places it is warped and buckled, adding to the paper-thin shallowness of this facelift gone awry.

But the most egregious aspect of this unfortunate morphing is the absence of a shelter for bus riders. Buildings elsewhere in downtown – even in the next block south — have recently been retrofitted with generous and elegant steel and glass canopies. These provide needed protection from the rain during inclement periods while admitting desired sunlight at other times. This project could have made a similar gesture to the streetscape. It seems as if the people involved deliberately thumbed their noses at the bus patrons who use that corner.

The supreme irony is that leaning rails were actually provided. But none of them are located where the buses actually stop. Talk about adding insult to injury.

It would be difficult to find an example of recent development in the commercial core that has been so socially rude and visually clumsy as this architectural remake. One can only hope that a future, more enlightened owner will strip it all away.

And, perhaps, give us a nice place to wait for the bus.

McGinn

Note: I’ve edited this post to include a more direct route to the mayor-elect’s ear. Thanks, Brice!

Want to help Mayor-elect Michael McGinn get off on the right foot? Have some ideas for him on what he should do first, who should help him do it, and how he can build the public trust? Tell him.

McGinn wants help getting his homework done before he moves into city hall at the end of the month. He’s asked community leaders to help gather public responses to three key questions.

Here are McGinn’s questions:

• How do we build the strongest possible team to achieve the policy objectives and values set forth during Mike’s campaign?

• How do we build public trust in the new administration?

• What do you view as the incoming administration and the city’s greatest challenge - what should we do first out of the gate?

Great City has a handy-dandy form online where you can submit your answers directly.

McGinn said at a CityClub panel in March (before officially announcing his candidacy for mayor) that he thinks the recession provides Seattle with a few years of breathing space, not only to prepare for the next wave of growth, but to make sure the city remains a place people want to live.

“The problem of people wanting to live here is a good one,” he said. “I think we’re smart enough to build smart places, we just need to do it.”

Forget it!

A national survey shows that people strongly favor the development of communities with lots of sidewalks. But ask voters — and especially motorists — to actually pay to make that happen, and you get a very different answer.

Such was the case in Burien where, earlier this month, residents voted on whether vehicle owners should pay an extra $25 car-tab fee to fund the construction of sidewalks and bike lanes. It was the first time a Washington city has voted on taxing cars to pay for such amenities, according to a Seattle Times article.

In a survey of 1,000 U.S. adults by the National Association of Realtors and Smart Growth America, more than 80 percent of respondents favored building more walkable communities. Based on these results, which were published in the January 2008 issue of Realtor magazine, you’d think that Burien voters would have delivered a slam-dunk win for the suburb’s bicyclists and pedestrians.

But you’d be wrong. A whopping 74 percent of voters rejected the proposition.

Members of the City Council could have OK’d a $20 fee without going to the voters, but asked for $25. “We need to know what our community wants to do,” Mayor Joan McGilton told the Times.

City Hall clearly found out.

Marc Stiles covers transportation for the DJC.

Don't let these cars end up on downtown surface streets.

I’m very pleased to see that my post about the future of Highway 99 through downtown Seattle (tunnel vs. surface streets) has engendered so much interesting debate and commentary.

While recent events have toned down the civic debate about the tunnel – mayoral candidate Mike McGinn conceded he won’t try to block it if elected, while his opponent, Joe Mallahan, has supported the tunnel all along — it’s still not yet a resolved issue.  And I have become ever more convinced that if no tunnel were dug that the virtual elimination of this important highway corridor through our city would be disastrous.

My two main areas of greatest concern relate to economic vitality and the street-level environment.

Historically and globally speaking, all major economic powerhouses are located at key crossroads or transportation convergence points, be they waterways, railroads, highways or a combination.  Seattle is a textbook example of this phenomenon.  No one can deny that the roots of Seattle’s historic economic success story lie in its pivotal location.  Whether going back to 1851 when the founders realized that Elliott Bay was a potentially new “New York Harbor” for the West Coast, or returning to 2009 with Seattle as the midpoint of a north-south, over 100-mile-long metropolitan area, our city’s location has been a preeminent determinant in making it the center of one of the most prosperous and economically viable metropolitan areas in the country.

In short, transportation is a key attribute to any economically viable region, yet our region’s traffic congestion has begun to hinder our economic viability.  Seattle-area traffic congestion ranked ninth worst in the nation last year, while we ranked only 15th in population.  Freight mobility has become a key issue for the region’s industrial sector..

Let’s face it.  No one has a crystal ball here – neither the dyed-in-the-wool surface-streets supporters, nor the diehard tunnel supporters.  Those in favor a streets-only solution believe that the consequent reduced capacity and increased congestion will somehow naturally regulate the traffic flow, weeding out that percentage of current motorists who could switch to transit and/or choose alternative routes or times.  Those of us in favor of the tunnel worry that the resulting traffic congestion and increased travel times may severely hamper our economic vitality.  The questions that occur to me as I contemplate the notion of severing one of our region’s transportation lifelines at the downtown Seattle choke point are the following:

·  If surface-street traffic congestion were to reach day-long gridlock conditions, as I fear, what ultimate effect would that have on freight mobility and the general movement of goods and services that serve our economic vitality?

·  In the face of a future of endless gridlock along the erstwhile Highway 99 corridor, would businesses related to the Port of Seattle and downtown Seattle locations, especially, seek other locations to base and/or conduct their business?  Would they accelerate the tide of industrial business loss from Seattle to the suburbs?

·  Would we gain the dubious distinction of becoming one the top-five worst metros for regional traffic congestion?

As an economic development professional, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve fielded inquiries from folks about the region’s infamous traffic congestion, so I can’t even imagine the perception we’d receive with even worse traffic.

And lastly, even if the city’s or region’s economic vitality would not be at any peril, the urban designer in me shivers at the potential future of downtown’s pedestrian environment with the majority of Highway 99’s vehicle traffic dumped onto our surface streets.  Today, especially in the p.m. peak hour(s), First, Fourth and Fifth avenues are at virtual gridlock.  And some of the steep side streets (especially where the larger office buildings are located) are even worse. It’s not uncommon to see vehicles wait through several full traffic-light cycles before advancing through a single intersection. Does anyone really think these streets can handle the majority of the existing Highway 99 traffic volumes?

I do not profess to know of all of the potential “enhancements” contemplated to accommodate this additional vehicle traffic, but the list may include the following: elimination of parking lanes, greater use of left (and even right) turn prohibitions, reduction in general-purpose lanes, and even, as Mayor Giuliani did in New York, prohibition of pedestrian crossings at key right-turn locations for vehicle traffic.

Even if these “enhancements” could somehow accommodate Highway 99’s traffic, my greatest fear would be the impact to pedestrians, including valuable shoppers, visitors and tourists!

Without curbside parking, pedestrians would no longer be “sheltered” from the impacts of passing vehicles (fumes, noise, splashing, even wind and vibration from larger trucks and buses). With multihour-long gridlock conditions, the cacophony of horns, screeching brakes, together with the fumes and odors of idling vehicles (especially diesel vehicles), would sharply sour the pedestrian’s street-side experience.  Pedestrian street crossing could be hampered.  Increased pedestrian-vehicle and pedestrian-bicycle collisions could ensue.  In summary, I’m quite worried that downtown Seattle would increasingly be shunned by any discretionary visitors (shoppers, tourists, day trippers), losing both its charm, character and economic vitality.

The tunnel opponents don’t want increased traffic on our streets either. But they are willing to risk the potential traffic and pedestrian impacts that I and others fear as a hedge against their greater fear of the tunnel’s cost and potential cost overruns.

We tunnel supporters, fully recognizing that the current proposal is not perfect, fear the impacts to our environment and our economy more than we fear the cost and potential cost overruns.  In fact, I would posit that the potential, permanent adverse economic impacts related to lost business if we do not build a tunnel would more than outstrip the one-time costs of the tunnel.

I just posted about a phenomenon called job blackmail on Sightline’s Daily Score. Job blackmail happens when businesses threaten to leave the state or city because of environmental legislation. But megaprojects like the waterfront tunnel replacement for the viaduct also become the focus of what could be called megaproject blackmail. The blackmail machine was humming along the other day when Port of Seattle Commissioner Bill Bryant said that a s

Build more highway capacity? Not when our policies might finally be catching up to our rhetoric about saving the planet.

urface option without a tunnel would be “municipal suicide.” Wow. Fail to build the tunnel and Seattle will die.

So now Patrick Doherty, right here on SeattleScape, has offered yet another arm-waving warning that borders on what could be called “throughput blackmail.” If you don’t build the tunnel we’ll have to build another freeway somewhere else to handle all the traffic. Things will be even worse for climate change and there will be even more cars. Don’t build the tunnel and we’ll be destroying the environment. We’ll have to build even more highways. He writes:

If north-south circulation through the metro area is even further complicated by the removal of one of the region’s vital north-south highways, the I-605 promoters would essentially be offered more fuel for their fire. Constant gridlock on I-5 and the downtown Seattle streets, coupled with the congestion already on I-405, could lead to a ready-made argument in favor of efforts to pursue an I-605.

First of all, Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) and gasoline consumption are down, a fact that defies classic transporation planning. Part of this is attributable to last year’s wild increases in gasoline prices but it is also because people are making different choices that result in less driving. And gasoline prices are still volatile, causing people to get off the fossil-fuel rollercoaster.

Second, Doherty is comparing apples to oranges. Traffic volumes on the viaduct are nowhere near what they are on highways like I-5 and I-405. Those are interstate highways while the viaduct is a state highway. Why would we build a new high-capacity interstate freeway to deal with whatever capacity issues are created by a surface option? And remember, whatever problems with capacity that are created by a surface option are only periodic in nature, not constant.

Finally, our policies might finally be catching up to our high-flying rhetoric about saving the planet and being responsible stewards of our resources. If Mike McGinn is elected mayor of Seattle, for example, there is really a chance that the tail will stop wagging the dog. Like Portland and Seattle in the past, we might just resist the urge to spend billions of dollars on a new highway — one that has no exits downtown for all this throughput that Doherty is concerned about. And if Doherty is right about stoking the fires of I-605 there is no reason to believe we won’t be able to resist that too.

Replacing the viaduct with the surface-and-transit option could stall traffic downtown and encourage highway construction elsewhere.

The current mayoral race has placed the viaduct-replacement issue squarely back into the public limelight after most of us thought the issue had been put to bed, what with the governor’s and Legislature’s approval of the deep-bore tunnel option, as well as the accompanying funding commitments.

Both mayoral candidates have raised the issue of the viaduct replacement, with one issuing renewed and strident calls to reconsider the surface-and-transit option.

While the surface-and-transit option seems to be readily embraced by the nominally environmentally conscious activists, I’ve been wondering recently if their concerns may not be both overly simplistic and somewhat shortsighted, as well as possibly self-defeating.

We have heard and read much discussion in the media about the relative validity of arguments on both sides of the issue of whether the throughput of the existing Alaskan Way Viaduct can reasonably be reduced and/or otherwise accommodated by surface streets.  Activists promote the notion that greater and more attractive transit options will remove a certain amount of the vehicle traffic, leaving the remainder to be accommodated by an enhanced network of the existing surface streets.  Detractors protest that most of the throughput traffic is not transit-compatible and that diverting a huge volume of additional traffic onto the surface streets will create gridlock all day long on virtually all downtown Seattle streets.  These issues have been volleyed back and forth in the public debate ad nauseam, but there’s one additional concern that I have been discussing lately that I have not yet seen much coverage on.

Sharing the concern that simply cutting off one of our region’s major north-south highways will reduce downtown Seattle’s streets to a virtual standstill during most daylight hours, I wonder what impact the sharply exacerbated choke point of downtown Seattle within the Puget Sound area’s north-south regional transportation corridor would have on the pressure to consider future road-building in suburbia and exurbia?

You may remember that every few years pro-development forces on the Eastside raise the issue of the “Foothills Freeway,” or I-605, that would consist of a more distant loop around the easternmost edge of our metropolitan area.  If north-south circulation through the metro area is even further complicated by the removal of one of the region’s vital north-south highways, the I-605 promoters would essentially be offered more fuel for their fire.  Constant gridlock on I-5 and the downtown Seattle streets, coupled with the congestion already on I-405, could lead to a ready-made argument in favor of efforts to pursue an I-605.

And we need to ask: Even if some magical combination of street improvements and synchronized traffic signals could accommodate the existing Highway 99 flow through downtown (which I do not believe is possible), what about future growth?  Do the streets-and-transit promoters think the region will stop growing?

Now, in addition to the already oft-mentioned litany of environmental impacts from potentially gridlocked downtown Seattle streets (i.e., substantially increased vehicle idling and resulting air pollution, increased noise, and a markedly diminished pedestrian environment), we could add the potential consequence that the loss of the Highway 99 corridor through downtown Seattle could lead to the development of I-605.  Any environmentally conscious individual knows that the construction of a major new freeway in any metropolitan area literally paves the way to urbanization in its path.  Is that what we want virtually on the slopes of the Cascades?

Mayor Nickels, Gov. Gregoire and the state Legislature all recognized, and thankfully so, that the viaduct should not be replaced with a new modern-age monstrosity along our waterfront.  They also recognized that the vital transportation corridor that Highway 99 plays not only in Seattle, but in our entire region,  must be preserved.  The tunnel was and is the only option that accomplishes both noble objectives.  Environmental activists need to look beyond their Seattle-centric view of the world and see that Highway 99 is not just a Seattle problem, but a regionwide problem.  And the potential, long-term environmental impacts of the streets-and-transit option are far greater than the theoretical, short-term reduction of vehicle trips that that option is purported to create.

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!

The Moda Apartments ... roommates not required.

Few topics are as visceral. A 300 square foot apartment is an affront, and 200 square feet is downright inhuman…right?

Not to me. They fill an important and underserved need. And for a lot of people they’ll be a good and even fun way to live.

With the Videre opening up on 23rd soon, and with the Moda Apartments recently opening in Belltown (originally sold as condos), small apartments are a hot subject in more ways than one. There’s something about the very idea that compels many people to speak as if they’re being asked to live there personally.

Maybe those people think no housing is better than small housing. Or that the only legit route to affordability is to live farther out (as if that math makes sense), or to have roommates (there’s a way to maintain sanity!), or to live with Mom and Dad, or to live with a subsidy, or to live with the pitter-patter of rats, as a friend of mine once did.

You might think this is all theory to me, but I’ve lived it, and recently. Spent four months in a hotel room on Lower Queen Anne while between condos in 2008. Probably 250 square feet. Stuff away in a storage locker. The only thing roomy was the ADA-compliant bathroom. Living in the middle of things made it much easier…sort of like Moda, and even Videre for some people.

Costs can be high on a square foot basis, for example because plumbing costs don’t scale down with the size of the bathroom, the electrical load for each unit might be nearly as high, and elevator service is related to the number of units more than square footage. With shell costs automatically high, developers can be excused for spending a little bit extra to put in finishes that bring the perceived value up to the prices they need to justify.

About “fun.” We’re all wired a little differently. Some people think fun is living in 3,000 square feet and stretching out, with the whole family having a different room for each thing they do, and spending a lot of time fussing with the lawn, and having lots and lots of furniture, and, well, why on earth do people assume we all want that? Maybe fun is living within one’s means in a cozy place, knowing where everything is, and having freedom from stuff. Maybe fun is using that money to eat better, travel more, or have a financial cushion. Maybe it’s trading square footage for a location in the middle of it all. Yes, it’s possible to live small as a lifestyle choice.

Some people want fun, while others just want to live affordably and without subsidy in a clean place without roommates of the various kinds. Nothing wrong with that. Let those subsidies (such as the levy we should renew this year) go to more needy people. And it’s great when people choose to live near work or school, rather than taxing the transportation system.

Apparently the Videre project was fit into the zoning through creative use of the code, and wasn’t specifically envisioned. Rather than scurry around to fix this “loophole,” we should find ways to help more of these projects happen.