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!