help me understand the 20 miles of permanent street closure

[Brookdale46]

I can only speak to 17th Avenue NW in Ballard and Crown Hill. It was designated as a preferred bicycle street several years ago. In effect, no one who does not live on the street would want to drive on it, so this particular street being closed to through traffic is no big loss. The lower part, from the Ballard post office north to NW 80th Street has a traffic circles on every corner. The street is narrow and only one car can pass at a time if several cars are parked on it. There are also bumps in abundance. It is a very local street and, as I said already, designated bike-preferred. I don't know if the other streets are similar, but believe, me, not being able to drive on this particular street (other than residents or service vehicles) is a no-brainer.

[margaretBartle]

Originally Posted by Rombus

What about the people who live on nearby streets which absorb the extra traffic?

Nobody cares about them.

[margaretBartle]

Originally Posted by flyingsaucermom

By "no big deal" I meant that by allowing residents and all their service providers it doesn't sound like most of these streets will be functionally different than normal and thus, it's not really big news. Sounds more like hubris over nothing.

If that were all that's happening, it would be one thing, but in our neighborhood, this is third phase of the war on cars. Street diverters were put in, left turn lanes were closed, and now a major north-south arterial, Fremont, will be closed.

It's a warren trying to figure out how to get around now, I have to go blocks out of my way to just go to the grocery store.

I attended a Seattle Planning Dept meeting a few years ago. They had hired this very expensive, slick New York advertising agency to make expensive, stupid, data-less materiel to display and hand out, talking about how wonderful it will be when everyone is taking transit and biking.

I asked the presenter how many kids she has. I'd have liked to hear her schedule for taking the bus to get to the day care before it closed at 6, and then taking her kids, and all their back packs and lunch bags on the bus to the grocery store to buy food for the evening's meal, and then taking it all on the bus to go home and start dinner at 7:30. (Riding the bus means she wouldn't be able to do her weekly shopping on Saturday, like people with cars can do.) And then being in bed by 9 so she can get up at 5 in the morning to take her kids on the bus to the day care, and be at work by 8.

Of course, her answer was "None".

Creating more traffic congestion would be OK by me if the roads closed to cars were in South Lake Union, but they are in the north end neighborhoods, where families live.

Our appointed and elected officials are just showing their utter contempt for us, figuring if we are stupid enough to put up with them, we deserve them.