This rant from the Slog comment pool pretty much sums it up:
So is the Stranger (read ECB) going to do a followup of the “success” of the closed off street in Cap Hill today? Please make sure to point out all the happy people who had their vehicles towed in preparation for the fun and frivolity, only to have the entire event scrapped hours early, due to rain, lack of participation, lack of interest, and the general anger & annyonance expressed at the liberal freaks in charge of promoting said event. We’ll see if folks still have unbridled enthusiasm for the ridiculous idea, but geeee it really sounded like a swell idea when it was gushed about!
Capitol Hill’s installment of Car Free Day — the first in a series around the city of Seattle — was a joke. Here’s more coverage from the tv people.
The multiple punchlines:
- it rained
- they towed cars
- someone decided to ‘cancel’ the event
Note to someone — hard to cancel what you haven’t really done the work to make people care about. Curious to know more about this — due to rain, lack of participation, lack of interest, and the general anger & annyonance expressed at the liberal freaks in charge of promoting said event. Did it get ugly out there on 14th Ave E?
Made a few jokes here about the plan last week. But only assumed the event would be lame, not a disaster. Given the communication with the outside PR person who was, um, coordinating the, um, event, disaster isn’t huge surprise. Still, sad to see anti-environment nutjobs like the cranky old man from the Slog pile get their day. The Car Free idea is good. The Capitol Hill execution was half ass.
UPDATE: Neighbor foxpenn has a few photos from the day posted to the flickr pool including this one of an unlucky driver deciding to test out the car-free part of car-free day.
UPDATE 2: Yuck. We made Drudge.
I also see that the latest map extends all the way to Republican — when I first talked to organizer, she said Aloha. Moot now, of course, but how were they planning to deal with Aloha’s traffic? Seems kind of disruptive to the continuity of the event.
they closed off aloha to thru traffic. despite the crappy road conditions (they obviously chose 14th because it made sense on the map rather than actually finding a nearby street/route that is actually not full of potholes and debris) having aloha closed made it really pleasant to pass through there.
whoever didn’t plan a rain-date for this should be fired. the car-free days are a nice concept but executed in typical half-assed seattle style (plus all people do is complain they can’t drive in the area / that their cars got towed). the event was an absolutely perfect way to show the complete lack of genuine effort and understanding that our city government puts into actually reducing car dependence. oh well.
Our mayor needs to stop huffing that greenhouse gas. Certainly this street closure thing classifies as FUBAR. (For those that need interpretation, that’s F’d Up Beyond All Repair).
Not only was 14th Avenue closed, but all the streets that intersect it along the route were closed as well??! And the residents of the street had their cars TOWED from in front of their own homes!!? All of this for HOW MANY people who came out and crowded the street and filled up all those Honey Buckets??!!
I’m as liberal as they come (Go Obama!), but our mayor and most of our Council have run out into the fringes of reality.
Neighborhoods are rife with graffiti tags, kids are shooting each other every week, property crimes are rampant, and THIS is how our elected officials want to spend our tax dollars and police resources?
Oy vey!
I’d actually be OK with the city closing off a street if it was an interesting street. Broadway or 15th? How about all the streets around Cal Anderson. 14th? I just don’t see the appeal.
I had totally forgotten about this, but got caught out in the rain today, and I gotta say. It was rainy. Not surprised it went from lame to blame.
It could have been a lot worse, it could have been crowded and someone could have had reservations…
BTW, of course the intersections were closed. The street was closed.
I’m as liberal as they come
I so doubt this :)
14th did seem like a strange choice (a cop-out?) — I’m sorry to hear the events were canceled, and I’m even sorrier to hear about the towed cars. This could have been really cool, and it wasn’t!
Basically, what kinkos said.
I totally forgot what date this was going to happen, so leaving Volunteer Park I had to keep driving around roadblocks to get to the other side of the hill. I was going to embrace this whole thing but yeah, it was executed so badly it was a joke and nothing more than an annoyance. It wouldn’t have been so bad if they had JUST blocked off 14th, but they also blocked off a second parallel street, and there was no indication of where one could drive to get around. I couldn’t tell how far south the closures went, either. A map? Detour signs? Signs clearly posted stating what was happening and how the community could deal with it or embrace it? Forget it.
Sidenote: I don’t think everyone was towed, because my friend lives on 13th and mentioned having to move her car.
I don’t see why people couldn’t just LEAVE their parked cars where they were, and the organizers simply close the street to driving. Who gives a shit if people are parked there? They’re always parked there!
Hey this story somehow got on the front page of Drudge Report!
complaining about people trying to do anything about global warming, ridiculous exaggerations about what “the kids” are up to these days, valuing car owner rights above all else…
i think you misspelled “i’m as republican as they come”….
– A woman in labor was given a ticket as she pulled out of her driveway to go to the hospital, then given another ticket when her husband tried to take her on the handlebars of his bike.
– Police arrested a toddler who refused to pull over his toy electric car. The vehicle was impounded.
– The whole event was just a ploy by the mayor to extort fees and fines from the disempowered working class citizens of 14th Ave East.
So people who have paid for an RPZ sticker were getting towed? What a load of BS.
I’m all for these special car free days… but pulling stunts like not allowing people to park on streets when they have paid for the right to do so will only serve to undermine the effort.
No one pays for a Residential Parking Zone sticker. The city sends them to residents of the zone for free. The purpose is to discourage non-residents from parking in that area.
But hey, thanks for the FUD.
To address your comment:
1) Yes, I’m complaining because the effort to be “Green” involved exhaust-spewing tow trucks hauling away parked cars (which were emitting no noxious gases at the time.) Not to mention the police cars and motorcyles that were idling for hours.
2)Tell the families of all the African-American teenagers (“kids”, to some) who have been shot this year by other youth (gang-bangers, to some) that it’s just an exaggeration.
3. I said nothing in my post about valuing the rights of car-owners above all else. But let’s talk about the rights of property owners (be the property cars, houses, or apartments) to enjoy a Sunday unmolested by an overzealous tow-truck operator sic’d on them by some flunkie on the mayor’s staff or worse, the P.R. firm hired to run the “show”. A number of residences on 14th don’t have off-street parking, and the flyers promoting the event promised people who lived on the street that they would have “local access”. What harm were the parked cars creating? Ruining the P.R. guy’s photo shoot?
4) Just because one disagrees with the execution of this “experiment” by the mayor does not a Republican make. Any more than your comments make you a dirty hippy. :)
Do you live in an RPZ? And do you get your sticker(s) for free? If so, let the rest of us in on the secret… cause we pay for them. Check it:
http://www.seattle.gov/transportation/parking/parkingrpzfees