Gridlock.

A good friend of mine recently told me that Ballard will soon gain another 1,200 apartments/condos. He should know 'cuz he's developed a few apartment buildings around town and currently has his office in one in Ballard. To say the least, he keeps up on that stuff. For those of you not familiar with Ballard, Market Street is the main corridor through Ballard (east and west) and 15th takes you north and south. Most of the new housing units will be built along Market on one side or other of 15th. In fact from 14th NW down to around 24th going east and west and no more than a block off Market north and south. One of his former properties is currently being leveled and will soon be part of the 1,200 new units. It sits on 15th NW which has No Parking on the west side in the morning from 7 - 9 and the same on the west side from 4 - 6 in the afternoon. I asked him where all the residents are going to park once those new units are available? He kind of chuckled and said over on 16th or on some other side street. I asked him why not under the building, to which he remarked that the City no longer requires developers to provide 1.4 parking spots, or whatever the current number is, per unit in off street parking. According to my friend, the City "assumes" developers will do that. Yeah, like I "assume" I'm going to win Lotto every time I play!

I've lived in Ballard/Greenwood for 60 years and have driven the streets since 1967. The only thing that's changed, when it comes to traffic, is there's more of it. We keep seeing more and more housing units being built, in Ballard and Greenwood, but nothing seems to be getting done about the higher amounts of cars trying to get in and out of Greenwood and Ballard. Greenwood Ave. is the main way south from 105th to 67th where it turns into Phinney and continues to The Zoo. It used to be 4 lanes. Not any more. Bike lanes on the sides, with a turn lane in the middle. Take 24th NW for instance. It's a main way in and out of Ballard for those of us that live on the west side. It used to be wide enough to have 2 lanes going north and south, all the way from 85th NW down to Market St. A good 3 mile stretch. We now have gridlock as you approach Market 'cuz there's a 2-way turn lane down the middle and a bike lane on either side. If you travel 85th east and west you still run in to parking on the north and south sides from 32nd NW all the way to 8th NW. The traffic pattern at 85th and 24th NW has gotten so heavy, with folks traveling west wanting to turn left and head south, that there should be a left turn lane or turn light to help that mess out. I'm not holding my breath on that one. (This corridor was once rated as having the highest number of accidents in the city.)

I guess I'm stuck like Chuck trying to figure out why so many new housing units are allowed to be built yet nothing is being done to handle the ever increasing amount of traffic. To my knowledge, there's been no law passed saying you can 't own a car and we both know that with the price of rent today, many times it takes 2 to make the rent, which could mean 2 cars per unit! Now I'll grant you that not everybody that will move into the soon to be built 1,200 units will own a car. Some will ride Metro, some will work from home and others will ride bikes. However many more cars we get will be too many more. That is, unless we do some thing NOW before another 1,200 + people decide they, too, like Ballard and Greenwood. I for one am not going to ride the bus or try and commute on my bike. My line of work requires a truck. Maybe we can put a toll on the streets and reduce traffic that way. It seems to be working on 520!

The War On Drugs

There's no question in my mind that we're losing the war on drugs. If we were really serious about fighting it, every car, all containers and each airplane would be searched as they set foot on our soil. Yes, all traffic would come to a halt, but we all know that drugs are arriving here daily and most aren't produced here.  All we're doing is maintaining an effort to stop drugs. It's almost like a jobs program. Roughly ten percent of the drugs coming into this country are found. If your starting point guard only made ten percent of their shots or completed ten percent of their passes, they'd be cut from the team. But we accept ten percent success when it comes to eradicating drugs from the American public. Go figure. It's time we change how we fight this problem. You can't get rid of a recurring bladder infection by constantly taking meds for the symptoms. You have to look beyond the symptoms and see what's causing said infections and treat what's causing them. Instead of waiting for the drugs to get here, why not go and eradicate the problem where it begins?

I'm sorry if the people that grow the plants that produce the drugs that eventually come and kill our people rely solely on growing poppy plants for their livelihood. Not my problem. What is my problem is when some drug induced person mugs me when they're out of money. That's my problem. We had no problem invading Iraq, yes? The search for WMD was the reason given for our intrusion. Then we slipped into Afghanistan to try and find Bin Laden. Eventually he was found in neighboring Pakistan, which, by the way, we had no problem entering also. For all those years, billions and billions of dollars were spent and thousands of lives were lost looking for WMD and tracking down Bin Laden. (No WMD were ever found.)  

My point here is this. If we're serious about getting rid of the drug problem, we go to where the drugs come from and eradicate the problem there. We didn't wait for Bin Laden to come here to take him out, we went to where we thought he was.  Same thing can be said for ending the war on drugs.  You with me or against me?

Unsolved Crimes.

If it weren't for non-fiction crime books and true crime TV shows, I wouldn't read many books nor view much TV.  In case you don't watch TV, there are a lot of shows on that profile real crimes and they're not always solved.  I'm sure if you stop and think you can come up with a major crime that hasn't been solved where you live.  In Seattle, the case of Tom Wales comes to mind for me.  Thomas C. Wales was an American Federal Prosceutor and a gun control advocate.  He was gunned down while on his computer at home on Octonber 11th, 2001.  For more about Thomas, please click on this link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_C._Wales.

This is one of those cold cases that will go unsolved for who knows how long.  Someone knows something, but isn't talking.  We've all heard about where Jimmy Hoffa is supposed to be buried.  Perhaps if the right amount of money were offered, the right person would step forward.  There are lots of cases like that.  We've been conditioned to think that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.  I don't buy it.  In my mind, the CIA had something to do with it.  But we'll never know 'cuz those involved are taking what happened to their graves!  Here's how I think we solve some of the crimes that haven't been solved.

How about we dedicate one channel on cable TV to constantly run Washingtons Most Wanted.  Some days it shows unsolved cases.  Once a week it airs America's Most Wanted.  We could take some of the drug money that's seized and offer it up for rewards.  You offer enough and maybe we find where Jimmy Hoffa is buried!  Bottom line is, someone knows who killed him and where he's buried.  The same goes for unsolved crimes where we live.  Make the cases known to us and perhaps we can help solve them.  What are we afraid of?  Success??  I'm guessing someone knows who DB Cooper was, but they don't want to say anything.  Wave some Benjamins around and just maybe one of these years we talk about good tasting turkey instead of how many years ago DB Cooper jumped from a plane as it left Seattle headed south to Portland.

Gays

After the Christmas presents were opened and we'd all gotten a cup of tea or coffee, I found myself sitting in my parents living room with my 85 year old father and my youngest son's wife.  I think she's 43.  Somehow the conversation got around to a newspaper my dad had read and the picture that was on the front cover.  I didn't see the picture, but I'd heard about it.  An aircraft carrier had returned to one of the ports here and as a female officer came off the ship, she ran into another female and they kissed on the lips.  My dad remarked that he was glad he saw that picture while reading the paper in the bathroom 'cuz it about made him throw up!  I thought I knew what his problem with that pic was, but acted like I didn't.  It didn't take long for him to let me know what bugged him about it!

Most of you can probably guess what a person 85 years old might say.  (Perhaps I should tilt the playing field a tad and tell you that my father always votes Republican and considers himself a christian.)  His whole argument focused on how it just wasn't natural.  He threw in how in the bible Adam and Eve were created, not Adam and Steve, gays can't have babies and numerous other reasons why gays should still be in the closet.  I asked him if blacks should still be in the closet?  In my eyes, gays are fighting some what the same battle that blacks fought not too very long ago.  I told him I didn't have a problem with gays and he asked me how I got so liberal?  I told him that gays were born that way, to which he remarked that they suffer from a form mental illness and what does society do with sick people?  We put them away and treat them.  I could tell that no matter what I told him, he wasn't changing his mind.  The bible tells him it should be a certain way and that's it.  I asked him if we should go back to stoning people like they did many years ago?  Anyway, most of my dads frustrations deal with where he see's the world headed.  Gays are just a part of what he see's as wrong doing.  He used to argue with my friends, many years ago, telling them that we had to stop the Communists "over there" or they'd be knocking on our doors.  What's funny is, he understands why the Mexicans are coming here.  He says he'd do the same thing if he were in their shoes!  You'd think he'd want to post the army on the border with sniper rifles!

I told him I had to agree with him, that he's probably seen some of the better times this country will possibly ever have.  What I couldn't convince him of is that we're evolving and along the journey, we're gonna run into potholes and closed roads.  I also see some things that make me go hmmmmm.  Political correctness, for one, has gone screwy.  Having paid attention for some 50 + years, I can say that there's more strife in the world today than ever before.  There's way too much hatred in the name of someone's God.  What I do know is this.......if you sit around and worry about 2 men or 2 women kissing, you're gonna miss the enjoyment you can find in life.  I'm not sure what my dad will find time to let bother him next, but there will be something.  I see US having an issue with Iran.  Cross your fingers we don't!  Hang in there dad, the journey isn't over!!