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🏢 David L 🚎

@davidl206.city

780 followers 540 following 1.3K posts

Attorney, dad of 2, in Seattle. About: 🚎 Faster buses. 🏢 More and bigger apartments. ⛔️ Less car priority. ↙️↙️↙️.

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🏢 David L 🚎 @davidl206.city · Aug 22

We could have this incredibly useful bus network with:

- the same number of service hours as today's network (with planned RapidRide additions)
- no changes to any service not on this map

Neither Metro nor SDOT has ever focused on the central city bus network. It's time to start.

More to come. 🧵

Schematic map of a bus network proposal for central Seattle, using thick colored lines to indicate ultra-frequent service corridors.

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🏢 David L 🚎 @davidl206.city · 2m

It done broke!

A grinding sound could be just about any of the accessories while busted, but if the failure mode was "I noticed that the air was low and it wouldn't build" rather than "I heard a bang and the air was zero," then a broken compressor seems logical.

🏢 David L 🚎 @davidl206.city · 1h

Hey look, they found Bruce Harrell after he was asked a question about Adrian Diaz.

Nick Davies / Aster Loxley / Spiral Island @spiralisland.bsky.social · 1h

Neighborhood cryptids out tonight

Two raccoons in a storm drain. One is looking diagonally towards the camera, the other is facing straight ahead. They might be touching their noses together

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🏢 David L 🚎 @davidl206.city · 2h

"YOU'RE KSHAMA SAWANT! ADMIT IT! YOU'RE SAWANT! YOU CAN'T DENY IT! WE KNOW THE TRUUUUUTH!"

Erica C. Barnett @ericacbarnett.bsky.social · 2h

Another bizarre gotcha for Wilson: Are you planning to hire Joe Mallahan, Lorena Gonzalez, and Tammy Morales as deputy mayors? She looks at him like he has an extra head and says no, I'm definitely not gonna answer that.

🏢 David L 🚎 @davidl206.city · 3h

We’ve spent decades trying (with mixed success at best) to train drivers they need to stop at dark signals, and HAWKs have torpedoed all that effort.

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Reposted by 🏢 David L 🚎

Murshed Zaheed @murshedz.bsky.social · 9h

"We took the freedom of speech away"

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 9h

Trump: "We took the freedom of speech away because that's been through the courts and the courts said you have freedom of speech, but what has happened is when they burn a flag it agitates and irritates crowds."

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🏢 David L 🚎 @davidl206.city · 9h

Cutting diagonally on red feels safer than doing it SDOT’s way, because you’re more visible to cars coming off Melrose in either direction.

I cross at Boren if the signal is green for Boren when I get to it.

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🏢 David L 🚎 @davidl206.city · 22h

This is a perfect example of slapping a "progressive" label on policy that benefits wealthy homeowners at the expense of middle-income renters. Don't fall for it.

Aidan T @buildhomes.bsky.social · 1d

Another bill they're talking about bringing up again is one that benefits homeowners at the expense of renters is the corporate homeownership ban. Allowing people to rent single family homes gives renters the ability to live in all neighborhoods.

🏢 David L 🚎 @davidl206.city · 23h

This was also the story that convinced me that the Dow Constantine I talked wonky transit details with from time to time in 2015 and 2016 was gone forever, his mind eaten by donor brainworms.

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Reposted by 🏢 David L 🚎

Alex ITMFA @ahym666.bsky.social · 1d

I think the harrell story that broke me was when he hired his friend tim ceis to the tune of $280,000 (just under the 285k limit that would require a public bid for the work) astroturf opposition to a CID station with actually good connections to other transit

publicola.com/2023/03/28/c...

City Paid Consultant Tim Ceis $280,000 to "Encourage Agreement" and Build "Community Consensus" for Harrell's Light Rail Route - PubliCola

By Erica C. Barnett The city of Seattle spent $280,000 over the past year paying longtime local consultant Tim Ceis—a…

publicola.com

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🏢 David L 🚎 @davidl206.city · 1d

Yep… but that’s where the service hours are to do neat things.

🏢 David L 🚎 @davidl206.city · 1d

😊

What yields enough hours for that is rationalizing downtown, where buses waste an extraordinary amount of time trundling uselessly up and down 3rd and Pine/Pike.

This map is revenue-neutral.

A schematic map of a new bus network proposal for central Seattle.

🏢 David L 🚎 @davidl206.city · 1d

My view is that Summit service needs to be 15 minutes or bust. Otherwise the math is in favor of walking somewhere else rather than waiting. My map has it as a 15-minute standalone route heading to CID (and then up the hill to Harborview to fix a separate network hole).

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🏢 David L 🚎 @davidl206.city · 1d

Read about this utter management Charlie Foxtrot by Bruce Harrell, and then try to tell me with a straight face that you are Concerned About Katie Wilson’s Management Skills.

Ryan Packer @typewriteralley.bsky.social · 1d

What the records show:
-Major elements of the LWB redesign, like the changes at Orcas Street, nearly went out for construction before being killed by the Mayor's Office
-Parks staff were continuing to negotiate over individual elements of the project as late as early June.

Drawing showing the changes planned for S Orcas Street and LWB

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🏢 David L 🚎 @davidl206.city · 1d

I wrote this about it back in the STB heyday:

seattletransitblog.com/2015/03/10/a...

As a bonus, you can find some of the individuals who resisted any change in the comments.

Alternative 1: Capitol Hill and First Hill

Note: This is the second in a series of four posts describing the details of Metro’s proposed “Alternative 1” restructure, which would take effect at the same time as the planned …

seattletransitblog.com

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🏢 David L 🚎 @davidl206.city · 1d

This thread just keeps proving that we really do have world-class bakeries here in Seattle. We have at least five croissants that are better than what you’d get from the average street bakery in Paris. It’s one thing we can actually be proud of about Seattle food.

🏢 David L 🚎 @davidl206.city · 1d

All of the above. We had several groups in Capitol Hill that objected to any service changes at all in connection with Link. It was just a massive missed opportunity and as a Capitol Hill resident I feel it every time I try to go anywhere other than downtown.

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🏢 David L 🚎 @davidl206.city · 1d

We could still combine it with the 36 and give it 12- or even 10-minute frequency, although Metro put out a flawed study favoring the existing 36 routing over the 49 + 36 on poorly reasoned equity grounds (not taking connection possibilities into account).

It’s not too late to make something of it.

🏢 David L 🚎 @davidl206.city · 1d

Its ridership struggled to justify 15-minute frequency, but in the flush setting of the late 2010s, SDOT threw STBD money at it anyway, and it ended up with 12-minute frequency. Post-COVID, that wasn’t remotely sustainable, and now we have a white elephant of a 20-minute bus.

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🏢 David L 🚎 @davidl206.city · 1d

So there were multiple great options for how to make the most of Link and the buses used for the 49.

But a bunch of people complained vociferously about any change.

And, unlike in NE Seattle, Metro buckled to them.

The result: we kept a 49 that duplicated Link, but much slower and less usefully.

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🏢 David L 🚎 @davidl206.city · 1d

Around the same time, Metro Connects first appeared and put on paper something people had talked about for years—combining the 49 + 36. This would be a true grid line connecting everything between CHS and BHS, relying on Link and other buses for downtown connections. And it could have 10m frequency.

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🏢 David L 🚎 @davidl206.city · 1d

The original Link proposal would have moved the 49 from Pine to Madison, replacing part of the 12, and making a new frequent connection between CHS and First Hill. But SDOT didn’t like that because it clashed with the RR G plan.

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🏢 David L 🚎 @davidl206.city · 1d

Eventually the 49 was split off from the 7 and given 15-minute frequency of its own, and the 9 became peak-only and truncated to Capitol Hill. Then Link came to Capitol Hill. And its CHS-downtown service did exactly what most 49 riders needed—three times as fast.

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🏢 David L 🚎 @davidl206.city · 1d

If you’ve been around a while you might remember that the 49 used to be part of the 7, and it alternated trips along Broadway every 15 minutes with an all-day 9 that also went all the way to the U-District. It was packed at rush hour and busy most times of day.

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🏢 David L 🚎 @davidl206.city · 1d

This is about the 8, but also about the 49, the decline of which is a very sad story that may be the best illustration of modern-day Metro’s timidity.

The Needling @theneedling.com · 2d

Capitol Hill Commuters Hold Séance to Summon Next Bus: tinyurl.com/2s39kexw

Three people holding hands over table with candles and orca cards next to pentagram on ground beneath bus stop sign

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🏢 David L 🚎 @davidl206.city · 2d

The leftovers of absolutely any fatty cooked food taste better cold than reheated.

Faine Greenwood @faineg.bsky.social · 2d

What foods do you love that you fully acknowledge make you a pervert for loving them?