Brilliant.

@2: hey! They include Ballard and the U-District (the latter grudgingly, since it make up a large swath of their core readership) on occasion as well. All the spaces between Ballard, Capitol Hill and the U rarely show up on Strangermaps, apparently. And anything south of the International District is officially not part of the city, boundaries be damned.

I am 26 years old and have never operated a car. I grew up down in Milton. If I wanted to attend driver's edu my dad said I had to pay for it. Also I would have to have a job sans auto to pay fur insurance if I were to start driving. So I never did either in high school.

I commuted for two years from Tacoma to the UW before I finally got my first job at age 20. I worked for one summer down in Fife (I biked to and from) and used all the money I earned to move to Seattle.

As it is my employment has been very unstable for the past year. If I owned a car I prolly would have had to cancel my insurance rendering me a non-driver. I live in a house with 4 people, only one of them owns a car and it hasn't moved in 2 years. I have quite a few friends here in Seattle who also have never had a license. One of them failed the drive test in high school 3 times; they took it as a sign that they're not a good driver and shouldn't be behind the wheel.

"The 520 bridge and 405 were blissfully free of tolls—or any sort of use-tax. Just like god intended. I began to fear the taxocrats plan to change this."

Uh, http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/Tolling/520tolli…

I don't think I quite grasp the purpose of your "folly." You don't like cars, you probably don't like bikes either or the fact that Bellevue is not Seattle.

I hereby, as a Stranger contributor, duly recognize the existence of, and awesomeness herein, of the following Seattle neighborhoods: Queen Anne. Fremont. Wallingford. West Seattle. Columbia City. Georgetown. First Hill. Ballard. Kirkland (downtown) receives an honorary inclusion in the parade.

@6: Yes, there are things you are not grasping.

I will consider pleas for Greenlake, Ravenna and the U district. More or less any neighborhood where there are impressive things (and mundane things) within walking distance of where people live.

Jonathan, no argument about Kemper Freeman being an inflamed asshole (I have to look at the anti-light rail signs every day as I commute to work in the Mercer Slough area south of downtown), but you throw a lot of assumptions around in your piece about those of us living on the Eastside of Lake Washington. Sure, 8th St. is a Hellhole, but take a look at the public transit survey that Cienna posted this week and notice what the #2 city is on the list:

http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archive…

A *lot* of people are busing to and from work in Bellevue every day, despite Sound Transit and Metro not making it easy (by cutting routes between Eastside cities to the bone).

I've lived on Capitol Hill and I've lived on the Eastside, and there are some good places to eat and good things to do on either side of the Lake. Also, no drivers on the Eastside are as bad as the people driving the I-5 corridor.

@9: Agreed. There are some awesome places on the Eastside that I've been to, and means of using transit to get around.

It's one of the painful things for me. The best Indian / Korean / Cantonese / Thai / etc food is to be found in the Northern, Southern and Eastern suburbs. It makes me wish retail rental lates were cheaper in Seattle.

Bellevue Square is essentially a duplicate of both Southcenter and Northgate (Macy's, Penney's, Nordstrom, plus smaller chain crap) Downtown Seattle has a huge Nordstrom and Macy's store, connected by the bus tunnel to Westlake Mall, and by skybridge to Pacific Place, but no Penney's.

Basically, it's all the same. Sure, parking is free at Bellevue Square, Southcenter, and Northgate, but it's a hassle to get to them if you live in the city (and particularly if you live near LINK) so why bother?

Kemper Freeman's publicly stated that he wants the Bell Square/Lincoln Whatever to be as generically universal as possible-- that you could stand on Bellevue Way and be in Bellevue, Kansas City, or L. A. It makes some people apparently feel safer (I'm not sure why, but okay). FWIW, Bellevue has a transit center at NE 6th and something or other behind the building that used to have a movie theater and Hooter's. I commuted via bus to and from Bellevue for a year and while it's not great, it is quite do-able (except for the part where after 10pm, in order to get to Issaquah, I had to bus to Mercer Island first).

"...the buildings here don't seem to have entrances, just gaping maws for underground parking structures..."

Reallly good point. I notice this every day I'm in Bellevue. It's extremely off-putting and speaks to the anti-pedestrian design of this horrible, horrible place.

You should have stopped by the Bellevue Regional Library. It's a lovely place.

This is fun to read, but a little thumbsuckier than I'd hoped.

Jesus Fucking Christ. Who recorded that Autopia footage, Michael J. Fox?

Yes, Greenlake does deserve some love from the Stranger staff. I know we're not "glorious-nothing-else-matters" Capitol Hill, but still. We are part of the city. Deal with it.

I hate the Eastside. We had to sign the papers for our house in Greenlake over in Bellevue back in 2007. I felt completely out of place and wanted to get out of there as quick as possible. Doesn't help that I grew up in South King County, so I've always hated the Eastside and everything it stands for.

I honestly kind of have to laugh at people who think Seattle is a horrible city to drive in. I suppose that's because I grew up (and learned to drive) in Houston. By freeways it can take two hours to drive across Houston. There is laughable public transportation. Everything seems to take 45 minutes to get to. If the endless heat and humidity don't keep you off a bike, the size of Houston and hostility to people not driving cars will. The air is also filled with diesel particulates and other wonderful combustion byproducts, and that's not even taking into account the byproducts from petrochemical production.

I can count on 1 hand how many times I've been to the East Side in the past few years. I don't really see the appeal because I grew up in generic chain sprawl. Some people like it; it just makes me want to leave as quickly as possible. I'm guessing Kemper Freeman hates the idea of across-the-water light rail because it would mean that people living in Bellevue could more easily get to downtown Seattle (or elsewhere), and that's not good for Freeman's brutalist chain-store citadels.

Thousands of jobs are in Bellevue/Redmond/Kirkland because companies can lease office space at a higher grade but at a lower price.

I carpool to work everyday to Bellevue. It drives me crazy to see the anti-rail signs on Bellevue Way and 112th while I'm sitting in 30 minutes of congestion to get on I-90.

A co-worker from San Francisco made a great observation once: Bellevue is a giant strip mall.

One bone to pick: it's hard to get to Bellevue except by highway from Seattle, yes, but that's because you need a bridge and the bridges are highways. The main arterials through Bellevue can all be used to access neighboring areas, though, including Redmond, Kirkland, Renton, etc.

Bellevue has some really cool stuff in it though. Crossroads is a way more interesting mall than Lincoln Square, and there are all kinds of ethnic stores and restaurants around. There are cool Persian, Japanese, and Russian grocery stores I know of and undoubtedly many more -- it's quite a diverse place. You're right that it's not very walkable but it's not just a sea of chains and mediocrity.
There are terrific parks/forests that are used constantly, that's where a lot of people do their walking.

On a different note, I was recently in downtown San Francisco and their sidewalks were twice as wide as Seattle's. That place was set up for walking.

-BenY

Wow. What a fucking snob.

Jonathan: I feel the need to advocate for the Central District. I lived there for a year without a car (I don't even know how to drive) and never had a problem. There are grocery stores, wonderful Ethiopian restaurants, there's Ezell's Chicken, and it's also a short bike ride or shorter bus ride to Capitol Hill, the ID, and downtown.

I've only been to Bellevue twice. It seemed okay, but my inability to drive means it's not really on my radar for anything. What exactly is the opposition to light rail in Bellevue, anyway? Wouldn't they want to bring in more visitors?

No one ever mentions Magnolia, which has the best park in the entire city: Discovery.

It's only a quick uphill walk from the Locks or either of two bus routes away. One bus from downtown literally dumps you inside the park at it's end, the #33.

When did Erica Barnett rejoin the Stranger Staff?

Yesterday I drove down from Vancouver, BC on the I5 because I wanted to see a jcrew in real life. I decided on "seattle premium outlets" because it's closest to the border.
Holy crap people! First, the outlet mall obviously sucked, but I really should have known better. The traffic, on the other hand, was ridiculous. There were several times when I yelled out in shock that someone could think it was a good idea to drive that way. It wasn't only middle aged men in SUV's either (One of whom I saw FISHTAIL behind a semi in the middle lane)- I saw little old ladies in Toyota corollas swerve across 3 lanes of freeway.
FYI people- if you cut in front of a person, you are still stuck behind the car they were following at a respectful distance. Also, there was congestion at the weirdest times. Like, you're in the middle of nowhere and all of a sudden there's this huge line of cars to get....where? I have no idea! And people were constantly changing lanes where it was illegal to do so.
I too kissed the ground once I made it back to Canada (mercifully) alive.

OTOH @29, I've never seen an American driver STOP at the freeway end of an on-ramp when there was plenty of room to merge into traffic; that's happened in front of me on three separate visits to Vancouver and one of the reasons I never drive up there anymore.

The classic Eastside driving move is short stopping when an exit/turn is missed or accidentally taken instead of going forward and turning around at the next interchange. When traffic is actually moving on a freeway or arterial, some moron will realize they are missing their exit, fully stop in a lane to the left and wait for an opening to cross over to the exit.

Bellevue does have something in common with Seattle: the same confusing manner of naming streets. Running E-W are streets (NE, SW, etc. before the number); running N-S are avenues (NE, SW, etc. comes after the number). So it's NE 8th Street, not 8th Street NE.

I grew up a block from 8th in the Crossroads area when it was a 2-lane road without sidewalks. What it's become in downtown Bellevue is a disaster.

Bellevue Square has the world's lamest Pagliacci Pizza.

30, i have. but then, in the three months i've spent as a delivery driver i've seen every horrific, dumbfounding trick of bad/incompetent driving possible.

@30

Driving on the 101 just north of the Golden Gate Bridge, I once saw a car with Missouri plates driving on the first on-ramp after your cross the bridge. As he neared the top, he slammed on the brakes and came to a stop. Immediately after this the person in the car behind, obviously not expecting such a dip-shit move, plowed at 20mph into the Missouri car, which then rocketed into traffic and nearly cause a huge accident.

I've seen it while driving in Missouri, too, so in Missouri they must enter freeways like Canadians.

Well, you went there and found what you expected.

I have worked and played in Bellevue over the course of many years, and found it a fun, exciting and pleasant "city".

The Barnes and Noble and the Library -- both within "walking distance" are superb.

Google Cars Drive Themselves, in Traffic

The car is a project of Google, which has been working in secret but in plain view on vehicles that can drive themselves, using artificial-intelligence software that can sense anything near the car and mimic the decisions made by a human driver.

Robot drivers react faster than humans, have 360-degree perception and do not get distracted, sleepy or intoxicated, the engineers argue. They speak in terms of lives saved and injuries avoided — more than 37,000 people died in car accidents in the United States in 2008. The engineers say the technology could double the capacity of roads by allowing cars to drive more safely while closer together. Because the robot cars would eventually be less likely to crash, they could be built lighter, reducing fuel consumption.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/10/scienc…

This article pretty much nailed it. I have friends that have moved to the Eastside from Seattle and their lives are 100% auto-oriented now. Price of gas, traffic, car payments/insurance, stress, etc. None of them have disposable income and none of them travel over to Seattle for any reason anymore. But they love talking about how big their apartments are. They finance big screen teevees and such from Best Buy and spend hours staring at them. Fuck the Eastside.

I thought this was funny and made a couple of points, but you lost lots of cred when 1) you were too "afraid" to walk around in Bellevue? 2) Cap Hill.

I love Cap Hill, but seriously guys. Geez.

Golob, stick to science. This is the worst piece of melodrama I've read. It's like a hipster wrote something to prove a point but in no way believed it, so it became ironic. It almost seems like you're being hyperbolic in order to say you're not being genuine and you're actually against the parking fee hike. Irony.

WARNING: Long comment alert.

As someone who passionately supports greater transit and density, I have the same reaction to Jonathan Golob's writing in support of transit and density as I do to Erica C. Barnett's writing in support of transit and density. It really pisses me off. And only at the author.

It's the kind of writing that only preaches to the converted, and only to that portion of the converted that shares the author's own biases and insecurities, while simultaneously only serving to alienate the unconverted. If the aim is to draw page views, terrific. If the aim is to persuade, well, you've come to the wrong place.

The problem is that the writing is so inextricably intertwined with tribalism and identity politics and the desire to find some "other" to look down upon. Take the needless generalization of Eastside residents:

Eastsiders distinguish themselves by driving with less skill and courtesy than even Seattleites, embodying the principles of the modern conservative fully in their driving: I am the most important person here.

Obviously, Golob didn't seriously mean that all Eastsiders are the embodiment of failed conservative values. And yet, if I am someone who lives on the Eastside and who does not share those values, I'm not sure I'd be too thrilled that he just couldn't resist slipping in a dig. And let's keep in mind that 2008's Proposition 1 to expand light rail won a majority of votes on the Eastside, so to equate Kemper Freeman values with Eastside residents is a bit like equating Mahmoud Ahmadinejad rhetoric with Muslims.

Also, remember that Sightline report that came out last week that shows that a higher percentage of Bellevue residents than Portland residents commute via public transit. Imagine Golob making such sweeping condemnations of Portland, which is supposed to be this transit paradise that we Seattle-area barbarians can only dream of emulating. I'm not so sure the difference is that Portland has a more highly developed transit system as it is that Portland is cooler and hipper and more bohemian while Bellevue is so uncool and bland and mercenary.

And this comes back to my sense that for Golob it really isn't so much about transit and density after all, that it really is about identity and "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." I recall Golob writing a post on this blog about how the Amtrak Cascades line to Portland was just too inconvenient or unreliable for him. For someone who purports to be a transit supporter to say he can't be bothered to take what could well be the best passenger-train route in America, Acela included--a route whose travel time is not far off driving--well, that strikes me as the kind of person who is Richard Conlin's target constituent: someone who sincerely views himself or herself as green, but only to distinguish oneself from people who live in suburban ZIP codes, not to make any more than token lifestyle changes, even where the real changes would actually be an improvement.

The shame in all this reflexive Bellevue-bashing is that, despite its wide streets and the deep gash that is I-405, downtown Bellevue has just about the best potential for transit-oriented development of any place in our region. Heck, as a pedestrian, I'll take Bellevue Square and Lincoln Square any day over Northgate or Southcenter. And just wait until downtown Bellevue gets light rail. If we want to transform the greater central Puget Sound region into a place where traveling sans car is not such an exception and not such a pain, then downtown Bellevue is a natural and necessary beachhead. But hey, maybe some of us are perfectly satisfied to see Seattle remain an island of superiority, however hypocritically.

P.S. Golob writes: If your number one goal, your major criteria for planning your day, is the cost of parking, the Eastside is for you. The word is "criterion." "Criteria" is plural.

@25: Yeah, what a snob, thinking people should be able to exist without owning a car! Wait, what?

@43 Awesome. Way to take Golob down a peg or two.

Wow.I stopped reading the SLOG for a few months(for real news organizations like komo, king, the PI, The times, etc) and man am I glad i did.

You guys are the worse fucking form of group think I have ever read.

O hey I have a great liberal-i love bikes idea.
O hey what a great idea. You are so smart and cultured.
We here at the SLOG are the smartest bestest most bicyclely group of hipsters around.

Guys.....go and read some other fucking news sites and pull your heads out of your asses. It is bad enough all of you live on the fucking hill....but to perpetuate such hipsterdum by all reading the same thing and then talking to one another about it is just sad.

cressona @43, that's marvelously well done.

@43

Wow, did Golob really dis Amtrak Cascades like that? Pathetic*. Awesome comment.

I have always felt that hell must be like trying to turn left in downtown Bellevue.

And thanks @27. We've raised three kids in Magnolia. They ride their bikes, scooters or skateboards or walk to school, playgrounds, parks, church, the library, community center, soccer, baseball, the local book store, coffee shops and restaurants. And they take the bus to Seattle Center or downtown, and from there to wherever, including the Airport or the stadiums by light rail now. Most folks commute to downtown by bus and some of us by bike.

@53 Bellevue drivers are much more oblivious to pedestrians (and why should they be? There are none.)

Can there be a feature where comments that use the word "hipster" are automatically hidden?

I really like that you included those of us that "just plain old recognize that [we] aren't very good at driving."

So it is revealed by article tone: the french intern and Jonathan Golob are one in the same!

Bellevue does have one little slice of awesome: buried power lines.

Let's not forget that the worst drivers are actually in Seattle (I've seen far more stupid shit in Seattle than I have on the Eastside).

Also, that the most rush hour traffic congestion comes from the people who live in Seattle, and work in the Eastside. Who's the polluters? It's more likely Seattleites than Eastsiders.

@56- The point is that what works in Seattle WILL work in other areas if they build rational (dense) communities instead of being designed for car sprawl. Bellevue is a new city (mostly) and it has been planned as a sprawl, which means it will always have stupidly bad traffic and inhospitable streets.

A friend of mine works in Bellevue part of the time, and I used to work on the Eastside, before the commute got so bad by car.

A lot of what makes it so inefficient is the lack of proper zoning regulations, actually. I remember working on the slough and eating lunch with the geese, or on the Kirkland docks with the ducks.

Judging the entire Eastside by the four-block radius around Bellevue Square is like judging the entire city of Seattle by the Pacific Place/Nordstrom/Westlake Center area.

Although the latter does have a useless toy train.

@61 *cough* Denny Way *cough*

Denny Way has hills.

Eventually, when SLU is revitalized in the mid 2015 period and at capacity, the toy train will actually make sense tho.

@43:
Brilliant comment.

Nice job Cressona and Martin Duke on Seattle Transit Blog as well. I will also note that outside of 98118, Seattle is lily white, especially 98102--North Capitol Hill. Bellevue is increasingly diverse. I love their park system. Crossroads is a multicultural gem. I am a happy Seattle resident, but Bellevue is younger and will mature.

Add my voice to that of Cressona and Martin Duke at the Seattle Transit Blog. This is an embarrassing piece, and a notable departure from the usual intelligence of Jonathan Golob's writing.

@43 -

It's the kind of writing that only preaches to the converted, and only to that portion of the converted that shares the author's own biases and insecurities, while simultaneously only serving to alienate the unconverted.

Love it or hate it - this pretty much describes most of the writing on SLOG.

@67 try looking at the 2010 census data. New day, new rules.

A lot of the people you think are white aren't. A lot of people are multiracial, but list Caucasian first. Moreso on the Eastside, of course.

Will--you are so right. Seattle is very diverse. We eat pho and banh mi, we have to be multicultural...

I am a born-and-bred Seattleite, but live in Bellevue, not out of my own accord, but out of necessity. And yeah, the downtown area here is a little (if not a lot) much. But, I see people walking constantly - not to mention jogging. The goddamn joggers are out in force morning, noon and night (literally, and I say that with contempt because I have not their steely will). I am definitely below the poverty line, but I found an apartment here that I can afford (shocking, right?!). And, although it's not Seattle, I have come to really enjoy living here. Because it really doesn't suck as much as Seattle people like to say.

1. Parks. Lots of parks. Parks constantly filled with people. I have like 5 parks within walking distance, with an awesome biking/walking trail a few minutes way. And I'd guess that the majority of people here are either immigrants or children of immigrants who have worked their asses off to get here because going to a park afterschool is like watching a real-life manifestation of "We Are The World".

2. Pockets of niceness and small business. I live near Main Street, which is, yes, geared towards a somewhat older (let's say late 20s-50s) crowd than Capitol Hill, but I don't think it has a single chain business on it for a solid five blocks (other than local chains, like the newly-opened Pagliacci's or Cupcake Royale). It really doesn't suck.

3. I have like 3 grocery stores within walking distance too, with everything else (yoga, Chinese bakery, pho, coffee shops, movie theaters, art museum, Taiwanese sandwiches, burrito shop, two farmers markets, a liquor store, a beer pong locale/cheap drinks, bowling, the library) in walking distance too. And to get to school (the UW), it takes me like 15 minutes driving or 20 minutes on the bus.

So, maybe Bellevue would suck less if everyone from Seattle would stop shitting on it when they've only been there once, a long time ago, on the horror that is 8th & Bellevue Way, looking at Bell & Lincoln Square from their car. I died inside when I first was told I had to move here, but a year later, I actually have come to really enjoy it, because seriously, it's not that bad.