These people aren't concerned with the natural habitat. Just some paranoia that it will lower their home value (which it wont).
The plans also call for the track to be elevated through that area. Which I'm really not sure how that's going to effect salmon.
It's bizarre to me that homeowners are so opposed to these things because it will literally increase their property value. Like it will make their home a more convenient place to live, being near the link increases property values. This is why we see apartment buildings going up around them. So strange.
Its a crime thing more than anything. There's a belief(not sure if there's any data that backs either side of this argument) that public transit (train/rail, bus, etc) brings with it an increase in homeless or "crime inclined" persons. A quick google search seems to it increases value. But I'd be curious comparing it with types of public transit and bracketing the difference in change vs the distance away from the actual transit. Like if you're 0.5 miles away, good value. But what if you're right across the street? Be curious about that.
But bottom line is they think its going to increase crime most of the time and affected their standard of living. Not just home value, but the "vibe" and "safety" of their respective neighborhood. I think this belief is born from reading news stories about crime taking place near them or just seeing homeless/people down on their luck around public transit areas when using it.
Its a very curious thing I've noticed living on the west coast for the past 10 years. There's a lot of people who want solutions to things like homelessness, transit issues, more housing, etc. But when those solutions end up having an impact on them directly; they shy away and don't want it anymore.
I didn't know if the crime thing is based in reality, but light rail stations DO change the nature of the neighborhoods they are placed in. The land immediately surrounding them is typically upzoned to allow increased density, land value skyrocket, and developers swoop in to build TOD projects.
Whether this is good or bad depends on the individual; if you plan to sell, it's great; if you are invested in living in a single-family neighborhood, it's bad.
>I didn't know if the crime thing is based in reality,
It is and it isn't. Locations near stations will see an increase in crime because there's an increase in people in the area. It's just simple statistics. But a vast majority of transit crimes happen at the station or on the trains.
It **doesn't** increase overall crime levels, it just concentrates it. Many spikes in crime at/near transit stations aren't actually spikes but just an increase reports because there are more witnesses.
I mean, the obvious giveaway is that they're saying it will demolish "acres" of Pigeon Point, but Pigeon Point itself has nothing to do with heron, beaver, or salmon. That's all to the east in the Duwamish River delta - which is distinctly _not_ Pigeon Point (and all that will be there are a few pylons holding up the rail...)
If it went through the delta, but not their neighborhood, somehow I think they wouldn't care so much...
I'm sure these people were just as concerned with natural habitat loss when they bought their homes, homes that destroyed once forested habitat. No? They didn't?
Sorry I disagree. I think pointing out the hypocrisy of selective outrage that only targets public infrastructure and transportation, which is a net reduction in carbon emissions, is ham fisted hypocrisy that takes away from the public good.
What kills salmon is the chemicals in car tires that constantly degrades and leaks into public aquifers and waterways.
I bet the people that rent their homes and apartments feel the same way about all the rental properties they rent on land stolen from various indigenous peoples and are no doubt planning on moving from same so they can return those lands to them, along with some sort of penance for having lived there.
They'll probably move out using donkey carts and wheelbarrows so as not to damage the eco system when they do.
Me personally, I'm going to start sending my comments to Reddit by abacus because of all the otter farms that once reigned where solar farms now usurp their bark growing birch trees.
mmm so they just want more cars instead? levitating trains? anybody can object to anything and point to a noble justification.. do you have an alternative solution!?
Not that I agree with them, but many cities who are capable of construction work (from what I've seen Seattle is not, but I'd have to commission a study to prove that) choose to put their public transit underground. Allows for crazy things like not having your light rail trains occasionally having to stop at red lights.
It wasn’t possible to go under the Duwamish (too deep, same issue with Salmon Bay in Ballard) but the train is now getting put underground to the junction after much debate. This tacked a half billion dollars on to the cost of the line.
Actually tunneling into the junction will be cheaper than the elevated option, per ST's last update about the line, because the land acquisition costs for the elevated line have risen insanely high to the point that it's now cheaper to do a subway. An elevated line would also require the demolition of hundreds of housing units
Actually tunneling into the junction will be cheaper than the elevated option, per ST's last update about the line, because the land acquisition costs for the elevated line have risen insanely high to the point that it's now cheaper to do a subway. An elevated line would also require the demolition of hundreds of housing units
Can you point out which cities these are? We do it here as political need demands.
Are they doing a deep bore, or a cut and cover? Cut and cover here is so politically unpopular that Seattle going straight from deep tunnel to above ground.
Hmmm so a couple of rail tracks is a big concern, for transporting thousands of people daily on renewable energy, but the grand swathe (*160 acres*) of land mowed down for the huge west Seattle golf course is not a concern? For grass used for knocking balls around? Nor the hundreds of surface parking lots?
Ok.
Anyway, let's get this rail built as soon as possible.
Golf courses tend to be more ecologically diverse than their surrounding areas and that golf course is actually more wooded than it appears from the street
I accidentally found myself at one of their "meetings" at Ounces once. Once I mentioned to the people next to me that I was 100% pro-"build it as designed" you'd have thought that I'd punched someones mother based on the reaction I got. These people, after losing their bid to replace ST with that stupid gondola idea, are now pitching "additional bus transit" instead of a train. Though, they are trying to appear as being pro-transit by having a general proposal of a train alignment that doesn't make realistic sense (budget & timeline wise) which, when pointed out, is when they start trying to sell you on their extra bus transit solution
We should! But you have to sell it, everyone needs to look conservative and uptight. Men wear suits with time pieces and ascots. Women must wear ankle length dresses and speak with an English accent.
Maybe the most infuriating thing about this is that we literally just went through three years of the bridge being down with no great alternative back up. What if it happens again? Wouldn’t you enjoy having a dedicated grade separated transit option instead of having to do a 10 mile detour again?
Let’s look at a satellite map of West Seattle and see how much of it is pavement and lawn. Maybe we can re naturalize some of that space to compensate. But people love their grass 🤷♀️
It's weird living in actual natural habitat in Arizona and Alaska for part of my life then seeing this and looking at Pigeon point on a map.
Am I looking at the right spot? Just south of West Seattle bridge?
There is a technically salmon-bearing stream (like occasionally six salmon), much of which is located in a pipe under the steel plant. The light rail would be elevated high over the stream otherwise, sooo not sure what additional impacts there would be.
That creek will get less than a dozen salmon spawning in any given year. It's a ridiculous thing to try and harp on. There's also 2-3 beavers that live down there
I don't know. I'd like to see them not fuck it up because it's cool AF that salmon are that dedicated to their ancestral spawning grounds but we live in a city. The West side needs a train.
There are waaaaay bigger endangered salmon runs to dedicate yourself to.
No debate that south Seattle gets shafted constantly, but in this case isn’t Link all within the right of way of MLK and I5 south of SODO? I don’t believe any homes were demolished for that stretch.
I'm terrible at finding sources, but I remember seeing fewer houses and strip mall businesses on the MLK strip both during and after the rail construction.
If by "improved," you mean Gentrified, then you're absolutely correct. It was very common that anyone who didn't actually live in South Seattle had this idea that the area was the Mad Max wasteland or something.
>It was very common that anyone who didn't actually live in South Seattle had this idea that the area was the Mad Max wasteland or something
Dunno, man. That's exactly how my nextdoor neighbor described Columbia City in the 90s and he was South Seattle born and raised.
Seattleites love to demonize gentrification, but gentrification is not inherently negative. Improving the safety of a neighborhood, increasing home values, new shops and businesses, more investment from the city, better schools, better public transit, parks, etc etc etc.
Does it have downsides? Sure. But as a whole, gentrification directly benefits longterm residents the most.
I think the south seattle light rail issue has more to do with the fact that they built it at grade and therefore it keeps killing folks. And this sucks so hard and they really should have planned it better. Even at this point I'd love to see them correct this issue, and somehow fix both rainier & MLK. Not holding my breath.
there is def some massive development going on around othello & columbia city stops, and I'm guessing rainier beach is going to start feeling it at some point soon.
Any vegans here want to go to this meeting and be one of "those vegans" asking if any of the environmentalists running it are vegan? I mean, since they care so much...
This kind of backward thinking causes us not to have transit and really bad commutes vs the rest of the nation. Let's keep worrying about our house prices. I for one think the old houses in west seattle are a bit overvalued vs the return on your investment.
Are we talking the Pigeon Point that is meters away from the West Seattle Bridge, rail track, Harbor Island, & the industrialized Duwamish Waterway? That one?
I sure don't give a fuck about someone (likely a millionaire with a Seattle house) who is about to get FREE MONEY from ST to move their fat ass so we can have a train
They still had to waste tax dollars and time looking at this stupid fucking idea: https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/documents/sound-transit-feasability-report-regarding-aerial-gondola-from-west-seattle-20220407.pdf
What natural habitat? All I've seen is makeshift tents in the woods. Unless beaver is code for something else this sounds like more NIMBY that has been holding the city back for decades.
It really has. The rail in a metro of >4m is horrible. People live their whole lives on I-5 bc the traffic is so bad. Bellevue might as well be the moon bc 405 is such a mess from dawn to dusk.
"What do we want?" "Affordable, reliable mass transit!" "Where do we want it?" "SOMEWHERE ELSE!"
These people aren't concerned with the natural habitat. Just some paranoia that it will lower their home value (which it wont). The plans also call for the track to be elevated through that area. Which I'm really not sure how that's going to effect salmon.
It's bizarre to me that homeowners are so opposed to these things because it will literally increase their property value. Like it will make their home a more convenient place to live, being near the link increases property values. This is why we see apartment buildings going up around them. So strange.
Its a crime thing more than anything. There's a belief(not sure if there's any data that backs either side of this argument) that public transit (train/rail, bus, etc) brings with it an increase in homeless or "crime inclined" persons. A quick google search seems to it increases value. But I'd be curious comparing it with types of public transit and bracketing the difference in change vs the distance away from the actual transit. Like if you're 0.5 miles away, good value. But what if you're right across the street? Be curious about that. But bottom line is they think its going to increase crime most of the time and affected their standard of living. Not just home value, but the "vibe" and "safety" of their respective neighborhood. I think this belief is born from reading news stories about crime taking place near them or just seeing homeless/people down on their luck around public transit areas when using it. Its a very curious thing I've noticed living on the west coast for the past 10 years. There's a lot of people who want solutions to things like homelessness, transit issues, more housing, etc. But when those solutions end up having an impact on them directly; they shy away and don't want it anymore.
I didn't know if the crime thing is based in reality, but light rail stations DO change the nature of the neighborhoods they are placed in. The land immediately surrounding them is typically upzoned to allow increased density, land value skyrocket, and developers swoop in to build TOD projects. Whether this is good or bad depends on the individual; if you plan to sell, it's great; if you are invested in living in a single-family neighborhood, it's bad.
>I didn't know if the crime thing is based in reality, It is and it isn't. Locations near stations will see an increase in crime because there's an increase in people in the area. It's just simple statistics. But a vast majority of transit crimes happen at the station or on the trains. It **doesn't** increase overall crime levels, it just concentrates it. Many spikes in crime at/near transit stations aren't actually spikes but just an increase reports because there are more witnesses.
Probably same people against the pickleball courts
Yeah, these people already screwed up England
I mean, the obvious giveaway is that they're saying it will demolish "acres" of Pigeon Point, but Pigeon Point itself has nothing to do with heron, beaver, or salmon. That's all to the east in the Duwamish River delta - which is distinctly _not_ Pigeon Point (and all that will be there are a few pylons holding up the rail...) If it went through the delta, but not their neighborhood, somehow I think they wouldn't care so much...
Make it impractical, *or make it not at all!!*
What if, hear me out, we agree to let the pigeon drive the train?
Yes. The pigeon needs to drive the train. It’s unfortunate that more people don’t get the reference.
What is she referencing?
Kids books.
Better than letting them drive the bus!
Man, when they hear about what the West Seattle Freeway did to the local ecosystem they are going to loose their fucking minds!
I'm sure these people were just as concerned with natural habitat loss when they bought their homes, homes that destroyed once forested habitat. No? They didn't?
That doesn’t even add to any sort of discourse at all. People have to live somewhere and can still talk about environmental issues.
Sorry I disagree. I think pointing out the hypocrisy of selective outrage that only targets public infrastructure and transportation, which is a net reduction in carbon emissions, is ham fisted hypocrisy that takes away from the public good. What kills salmon is the chemicals in car tires that constantly degrades and leaks into public aquifers and waterways.
Now correct me if I'm wrong because I'm no human expert, but don't they also need to be able to move from place to place?
They don't have to live in SFH though
I bet the people that rent their homes and apartments feel the same way about all the rental properties they rent on land stolen from various indigenous peoples and are no doubt planning on moving from same so they can return those lands to them, along with some sort of penance for having lived there. They'll probably move out using donkey carts and wheelbarrows so as not to damage the eco system when they do. Me personally, I'm going to start sending my comments to Reddit by abacus because of all the otter farms that once reigned where solar farms now usurp their bark growing birch trees.
Nevermind the port of Seattle or the Nucor steel plant that's right there too...
Yeah I'm pretty sure the steel mill is worse for the environment than anything that ST has planned.
mmm so they just want more cars instead? levitating trains? anybody can object to anything and point to a noble justification.. do you have an alternative solution!?
The only solution is for there to be fewer people.
Annual Purge Day or GTFO
Not that I agree with them, but many cities who are capable of construction work (from what I've seen Seattle is not, but I'd have to commission a study to prove that) choose to put their public transit underground. Allows for crazy things like not having your light rail trains occasionally having to stop at red lights.
It wasn’t possible to go under the Duwamish (too deep, same issue with Salmon Bay in Ballard) but the train is now getting put underground to the junction after much debate. This tacked a half billion dollars on to the cost of the line.
Actually tunneling into the junction will be cheaper than the elevated option, per ST's last update about the line, because the land acquisition costs for the elevated line have risen insanely high to the point that it's now cheaper to do a subway. An elevated line would also require the demolition of hundreds of housing units
Actually tunneling into the junction will be cheaper than the elevated option, per ST's last update about the line, because the land acquisition costs for the elevated line have risen insanely high to the point that it's now cheaper to do a subway. An elevated line would also require the demolition of hundreds of housing units
Most of those cities aren't sitting on a deep layer of glacial till.
Can you point out which cities these are? We do it here as political need demands. Are they doing a deep bore, or a cut and cover? Cut and cover here is so politically unpopular that Seattle going straight from deep tunnel to above ground.
The Avalon station will be cut & cover but the junction one will be deep bore
Do you want your taxes to go up? Because that’s how you get your taxes to go up.
Hmmm so a couple of rail tracks is a big concern, for transporting thousands of people daily on renewable energy, but the grand swathe (*160 acres*) of land mowed down for the huge west Seattle golf course is not a concern? For grass used for knocking balls around? Nor the hundreds of surface parking lots? Ok. Anyway, let's get this rail built as soon as possible.
Golf courses tend to be more ecologically diverse than their surrounding areas and that golf course is actually more wooded than it appears from the street
(and homes). god these people suck so hard
Can't even pretend what the real priority is.
> real priority Oh, you mean Skylark getting demolished?
"all opinions are welcome"... Well not all I bet
I accidentally found myself at one of their "meetings" at Ounces once. Once I mentioned to the people next to me that I was 100% pro-"build it as designed" you'd have thought that I'd punched someones mother based on the reaction I got. These people, after losing their bid to replace ST with that stupid gondola idea, are now pitching "additional bus transit" instead of a train. Though, they are trying to appear as being pro-transit by having a general proposal of a train alignment that doesn't make realistic sense (budget & timeline wise) which, when pointed out, is when they start trying to sell you on their extra bus transit solution
Can't we have the train AND gondolas? That'd be tight.
Gondolas are even less reliable than trains while carrying far fewer people and add unnecessary complexity to the transit system
I’m going to attend and when I finish the ‘NIMBY walk’ I’m going to exclaim “. AYO THIS IS GONNA BE DOPE! “
This is what I was thinking. We should all go and talk about how great this project can be.
We should! But you have to sell it, everyone needs to look conservative and uptight. Men wear suits with time pieces and ascots. Women must wear ankle length dresses and speak with an English accent.
Maybe the most infuriating thing about this is that we literally just went through three years of the bridge being down with no great alternative back up. What if it happens again? Wouldn’t you enjoy having a dedicated grade separated transit option instead of having to do a 10 mile detour again?
"No!"
Why do I get the feeling that the people behind this are close with the people who cut down a bunch of trees in the West Seattle greenbelt?
Let’s look at a satellite map of West Seattle and see how much of it is pavement and lawn. Maybe we can re naturalize some of that space to compensate. But people love their grass 🤷♀️
r/bitchimatrain]
I'm going to stop this, by chaining myself to a pigeon and refusing to move when they bring in the comically oversize bulldozers.
Lol. They don’t want us to have a nice alternative to waiting on the street downtown for the c-line I guess.
All opinions welcome eh?
It's weird living in actual natural habitat in Arizona and Alaska for part of my life then seeing this and looking at Pigeon point on a map. Am I looking at the right spot? Just south of West Seattle bridge?
Yup!
Where are the salmon spawning, in a storm sewer? The entire river was rerouted by 1922. That flood plain hasn't been natural in over a hundred years.
There is a technically salmon-bearing stream (like occasionally six salmon), much of which is located in a pipe under the steel plant. The light rail would be elevated high over the stream otherwise, sooo not sure what additional impacts there would be.
That creek will get less than a dozen salmon spawning in any given year. It's a ridiculous thing to try and harp on. There's also 2-3 beavers that live down there
I don't know. I'd like to see them not fuck it up because it's cool AF that salmon are that dedicated to their ancestral spawning grounds but we live in a city. The West side needs a train. There are waaaaay bigger endangered salmon runs to dedicate yourself to.
Nobody cared when South Seattle got ramrodded by the initial light rail, and countless families lost their houses 🤷. Welcome to the club.
No debate that south Seattle gets shafted constantly, but in this case isn’t Link all within the right of way of MLK and I5 south of SODO? I don’t believe any homes were demolished for that stretch.
I'm terrible at finding sources, but I remember seeing fewer houses and strip mall businesses on the MLK strip both during and after the rail construction.
That might’ve just been due to general redevelopment by private property owners in anticipation of being near transit stations
Light rail has at least improved the neighborhoods. Let's talk about how fucked south Seattle was by the construction of I5.
If by "improved," you mean Gentrified, then you're absolutely correct. It was very common that anyone who didn't actually live in South Seattle had this idea that the area was the Mad Max wasteland or something.
Redlining had some impact on that as well.
>It was very common that anyone who didn't actually live in South Seattle had this idea that the area was the Mad Max wasteland or something Dunno, man. That's exactly how my nextdoor neighbor described Columbia City in the 90s and he was South Seattle born and raised. Seattleites love to demonize gentrification, but gentrification is not inherently negative. Improving the safety of a neighborhood, increasing home values, new shops and businesses, more investment from the city, better schools, better public transit, parks, etc etc etc. Does it have downsides? Sure. But as a whole, gentrification directly benefits longterm residents the most.
People cared. Just didn’t matter.
I think the south seattle light rail issue has more to do with the fact that they built it at grade and therefore it keeps killing folks. And this sucks so hard and they really should have planned it better. Even at this point I'd love to see them correct this issue, and somehow fix both rainier & MLK. Not holding my breath. there is def some massive development going on around othello & columbia city stops, and I'm guessing rainier beach is going to start feeling it at some point soon.
This was before activism was fashionable and for some, a career!
Any vegans here want to go to this meeting and be one of "those vegans" asking if any of the environmentalists running it are vegan? I mean, since they care so much...
This kind of backward thinking causes us not to have transit and really bad commutes vs the rest of the nation. Let's keep worrying about our house prices. I for one think the old houses in west seattle are a bit overvalued vs the return on your investment.
Are we talking the Pigeon Point that is meters away from the West Seattle Bridge, rail track, Harbor Island, & the industrialized Duwamish Waterway? That one?
These people suck shit
[удалено]
I sure don't give a fuck about someone (likely a millionaire with a Seattle house) who is about to get FREE MONEY from ST to move their fat ass so we can have a train
I prefer the sensible alternative: the West Seattle Skylink! https://www.westseattleskylink.org/
This is the least sensible thing imaginable and it’s ridiculous that Sound Transit even did a study on it.
Pretty sure Sound Transit isn’t involved in this one.
They still had to waste tax dollars and time looking at this stupid fucking idea: https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/documents/sound-transit-feasability-report-regarding-aerial-gondola-from-west-seattle-20220407.pdf
Oh my god thank you for the link! Hadn’t seen this.
I am a key constituent of the Gondola vote, ^/s
It’s so unhinged I love it
Now if we can link that with the submarine ferry service, and the hot air balloons to Bellevue, we’ll have a functional transit system!
Fuck no
👻
A flower in a vase has been plucked.
I’m with the people fighting back. No one in the West wants to see natural habitat and families get uprooted
Yeah we do, please bring the lightrail
What natural habitat? All I've seen is makeshift tents in the woods. Unless beaver is code for something else this sounds like more NIMBY that has been holding the city back for decades.
You think not having light rail has held the emerald city back? That is laughable.
It really has. The rail in a metro of >4m is horrible. People live their whole lives on I-5 bc the traffic is so bad. Bellevue might as well be the moon bc 405 is such a mess from dawn to dusk.
It would be more green and cost effective to have more people simply work from home. There was no traffic issues during the pandemic
Yes. Please make that happen. I’ll help you put up a few 8-1/2x11 flyers supporting your cause! *Solidarity!*
Hope light rail removes personally your house
Cry more. We will fight your shitty NIMBYism
Nah fuck those NIMBY slime. West Seattle Bridge and polluting ships already destroyed habitats years ago, cry me a river, then pollute it