No discussion about creating a municipal broadband utility?

@1 you totally beat me to my question. thanks for bringing it up.

Also nothing about new mass transit beyond the one streetcar connector. We need dedicated funding to give to Sound Transit, so they can expand the reach of ST3 in 2016.

Damn. Erica with the Ellsworth Toohey jab.

OMG, Murray mentioned bikeshares publicly. Maybe he's becoming McGinn.

@1, no municipal broadband talk, just survey talk. Speaking of surveys, don't forget to weigh in on Comcast (for video service, because apparently they can't franchise agree on internet or something). https://www.seattle.gov/cable/franchiser…

from pg 18
Broadband and technology
Part of making Seattle vibrant, affordable and connected is looking at how Seattlites connect to the internet. This spring, the City is releasing its first Information Technology Indicators Survey in four years which will give the city hard data on how residents currently use the internet and mobile devices across the City.
While we know that while it will show Seattle is a connected city, unfortunately we also know that it will also show that across the city there are disparities in connectivity. We will use this data to inform our policy decisions and set priorities

Why didn't he talk to some of his recently-former colleagues in the Legislature about giving King County the right to stave off the transit cuts? Assuming he wants more transit riders, that is.

Ditto DOUG.

Also, the non-SOV work-commute modeshare about which Seattle politicians love to pat themselves on the back refers only to those who work downtown.

Taken as a whole, the commute-trip non-SOV modeshare for all residents of Seattle proper hovers in the teens, which is not cause to get especially excited.

I am ashamed of the continuing War on Flying Cars by this mayor ...

@8 "non-SOV modeshare for all residents of Seattle proper hovers" at 46.8% (ok, 41.1% if you ignore "worked at home"). That's pretty far out of the teens.

Sorry, @10. Late-night mistype.

I meant to say that work-commute transit use for all Seattle residents hovers in the teens. Which is accurate, and unimpressive for a city that wants to view itself as non-car-centric, but which is unsurprising when we have a nearly 90% rate of car ownership and a transit system that sucks for getting anywhere but downtown.

As for the other categories: The walking and biking ("other means") percentages seem about right to me, but that self-reported 10% carpool rate looks like bullshit. Maybe once-per-week carpoolers. Maybe.

Regardless, the mayor claimed we're "one of five US cities where under 50 percent of commuters use single-occupancy vehicles." That's a lie -- 53.2% do (higher if you ignore those who work from home), by its own most flattering statistics. Downtown does not a city make.

My point is that *it's a lie - his number is off 300%* and *it's a lie - his number is off by a factor of 6%* are pretty different things.

Anyway, late-night mistype forgiven.

Oh, and I at least kind-of believe the 10% carpool number. Couples commonly carpool, as do parents and children (and with Seattle schools' recently-dead open enrollment system, commutes to school were often across town).

(remove "a factor of")

I don't think dropping your kids off at school and then driving alone the rest of your way counts as "carpooling". And if it does, it probably shouldn't.

Murray made a clear statement about what a majority of commuters do. And, as usual, that statement was derived from a statistic about those who work downtown (regardless of point of origin), and ignorant of all other trips being taken within city limits or by city residents. That makes both his wording and his back-patting false.

Downtown-centricity is a problem if you desire to stitch together a functioning urban area. Real cities do more than shuttle between downtown towers and living room sofas.

Meh. If his largest flaw is being downtown-centric I'm ok with that. I'm more afraid of much, much larger flaws such as not knowing Seattle politics at all, not caring, and using the mayor position as a step to get to a higher office. Not that I know he has these flaws, but I am certainly afraid he does.

@ d.p. - the most recent 1-ACS data estimates 49.2% of workers commute alone by car, which was quickly spun into the exciting factoid that Seattle was joining the elite rank of four cities where SOV commuting is <50%. What got lost is that the MOE is +/-1.7%. And that in the other four cities (Boston, DC, NYC, & SF) well under 40% of people commute alone by car.