I think this corner has got to be the worst, most dangerous bus stop location in the entire city - and guess what, the neighbors who live in this area think the same thing. They’ve organized because where they’re located (wedged between Maple Leaf, Ravenna and Wedgwood) basically leaves them unrepresented by either the Wedgwood, Ravenna or Maple Leaf Community Councils.

They’ve got the city’s ear and to help get the word out even more about their efforts they are taking their message directly to those taking the bus. At the bottom of this post I’ve got photos of the letter and diagram they’ve posted to each one of the dangerous bus stops along Ravenna Ave NE.

(Bus stop on Ravenna Ave NE near NE 95th St)

(Watch out for turning traffic at this bus stop, better be safe and stand in the woods)

(copy of the letter posted by the neighborhood - since I took photos of it, some sections of each photo may overlap the one after it)

ShareThis

ShareThis

And the same thing happens with jails, or at least it did with the King County Regional Justice Center when it opened up in 1997.  Here’s a link to a Seattle Times article from ‘97 where nearby Kent residents were a little irked when a couple of violent inmates who were able to escape.

So the county added some extra razor wire here, maybe replaced some vandal-resistant cords there - you know, all those fit and finish items. Anyway, just pointing this out as a question to ask how the city plans to deal with this ‘break-in’ (no pun intended) period.  

ShareThis

ShareThis

ShareThis

ShareThis

But, my beef with the planned development for this part of Seattle is that it’s largely car-centric (500 new parking spaces for UVillage, the UW continues to grow and also wants a renovated football stadium, and Children’s is planning to expand).

That’s a lot of growth, and it should be married to a local transportation plan. 

So, here’s one of my ideas, why not bust out a carpool/HOV lane along the southbound side of Montlake, that way those folks in NE Seattle (like me) who do carpool or take the bus to work can zip by this traffic that I was stuck in this morning.

Otherwise we’re just promoting more car usage along the same amount of capacity.

ShareThis

It was this thing they named ‘Marta’ and it was located in a large underground room that Atlantans call a ’station’, I was asked to pay $1.75 to enter, and inside this big ’station’ a strange vehicle on rails would periodically appear, people then got onto this strange vehicle which quickly took them someplace they wanted to visit.

Anyway, if you see one of these here in Seattle, let me know, I’d like to take it again.

ShareThis

Will the SAM’s Asian Art museum get upgraded?  

ShareThis

But to the city, ‘Lake Puetz’ is instead known as their north-end option for a new municipal jail.

Looking at these photos of so much standing water captured after the heavy rains of December really drives home the point of why this location probably works better as a driving range instead of as a seven-acre single story prison.

How did this location make it as a final candidate for a potential prison location? Well, the city originally started with a list of 35 potential sites for a new prison, and then whittled the candidates down to 11 sites using the criteria listed below.

• Site Size
• Site Access
• Site Configuration
• Public Transportation
• Compatibility with Surrounding Uses
• Geotechnical Conditions
• Environmental Conditions
• Extent of Current Development
• Business and Tenant Displacement
• Acquisition Costs
• Site Development Issues

These photos Rick provided of some pretty significant flooding at Puetz Golf shows that maybe the city grossly underestimated the site development issues here.

(Larger photo -’sorry, you’ll have to rotate the image’)

(Larger image - sorry again, you’ll have to rotate this one too)

ShareThis