News Mar 22, 2014 at 8:26 am

Comments

1
I love that Google Translate includes Haitian Creole.
2
Same-gender couples finally being allowed to marry starting today in Michigan doesn't make the news? It feels monumental here!!!!
3
Ugh, why the fuck does it take 5 years to adjust all of the traffic lights???? That's crazy, why isn't this computerized.
4
I love how people bitch about Google and Microsoft "invading" their privacy while at the same time forking over everything to Facebook and Twitter who only make ANY money by selling you and your data to advertisers. In this case the blogger was accepting and disseminating illegally obtained information about unreleased products, so I don't really have much sympathy for people who knowingly and willfully break the law. However, I'm glad to see that the privacy policy will be adjusted to require more controls before such access can be granted in future.
5
On MLK along the Link light rail line, the pedestrian signals give just 5 seconds of Walk signal, before beginning to blink Don't Walk. They give lots of time to finish walking across the street, but there's only 5 seconds every two minutes when it's legal to step off the curb. Which is probably why no light rail riders wait for the Walk light when going to and from the train.
6
Isn't it slow in Ballard because of a notoriously senior population? Up until recently, anyway.
7
yeah that's totally because racism. they sat around at SDOT and decided on 2.4 for whites vs 3.7 for those people.
8
Adjusting ped signal timing is surprisingly complex, because it changes the timing on all the lights. And then if your signals are coordinated with other signals in a corridor, then that means all those signals have to be adjusted as well. There's a federal requirement to adjust all ped signals so that the expectation is people walk at 3.5 feet/second from 3.0 feet/second, by...I dunno what date. Maybe 2015?

The surprising result is that, quietly and without many people noticing, ped crossing times will be what drives green times at many signals, not motor vehicle speeds and throughput. And that is exactly the sort of rebalancing of our street network we need to see.
9
isn't it obscene that in this day and age most of our traffic lights are still controlled by analog timers? I swear, computerizing all the lights/crosswalks in the city would be the best investment we could ever make to improve traffic.
10
Oops, I misstated. I mean they're requiring more time for peds to cross.

Need moar coffee.
11
3.7 feet per second = 2.5 mph. That doesn't seem unreasonably fast to me. I think @6 is right, although it would be interesting to know how many older people live in both neighborhoods. (Not interesting enough to me to look it up myself, but maybe to someone wanting clues as to whether there is any racial motivation.)
12
Funny how a black male murdering someone in west Seattle doesn't make the news here. Oh, yeah. Blacks killing each other isn't news anymore.
14
I always feel sorry for the little old ladies crossing 12th & Jackson at 5pm. The light gives barely enough time for the average-speed walker to get across at the beginning, let alone when Dont Walk starts blinking.
15
@7 The fact that there is a black part of town derives primarily from racist policies. So in that regard your derision is misplaced.

Now, the fact that there is racial traffic light inequality probably does not derive from intentional racism, so in that light you could get a pass.

Unfortunately, this does confer a distinct disadvantage on Rainier Valley residents, so it appears on balance, your comment puts points on the "Max Solomon" is a shitty person side of the ledger.

Sorry about that.
16
Of course Scroogled makes Microsoft look imbecilic, it was authored by Mark Penn. That guy's a fucking trainwreck and I have no idea how he remains employed, he's the Thomas Friedman of PR.
17
Technically it's illegal for a pedestrian to start crossing the street once the signal starts to flash or a countdown timer starts regardless of their ability to safely cross the street (http://apps.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?…), but too many signals (including those across Mercer) start flashing or counting down immediately - meaning pedestrians have to wait inordantly long time for the intersections to run through an entire cycle to legally enter and cross an intersection.

Also, cops in some areas -notable Lake Forest Park - use RCW 46.61.060 as an excuse to harass bicyclists on the Burke-Gilman Trail where the countdown timer gives 15 seconds to cross a 20 foot crosswalk while ignoring pedestrians doing the same thing on the far more dangerous crossing of SR-522.
18
@9 Um, traffic signals are digital now. There MAY be a few old electromechanical units out there at very old signals but those are definitely a tiny percent of the total number of signal controllers out there.

Any signal put in new or upgraded due to light rail is both digital and interconnected to the network. Any old, stand-alone signal never upgraded, say on a minor arterial not near light rail and in an old part of town could be an old Econolite or Traconex electro-mechanical controller.

A new digital controller & cabinet is upwards of $30K these days so some old but functional relic won't be replaced by the city as long as it continues functioning.
19
Why is a traffic signal 30k? Replace those fuckers with a set of ipads and some clever apps.
20
Dr. Frank Kitamoto, one of a dwindling number of Americans of Japanese descent who were forcibly interned during WWII, has died.

http://www.bainbridgereview.com/news/250…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_Am…

Never forget this gross violation of human rights on our own soil.
21
@6: Notoriously senior? I suggest you take a stroll on Ballard Ave - especially on the weekend evenings. It's trendier than Broadway on Capitol Hill and certainly Belltown - and safer too. Though there are no specific LGBT bars in the community.
- Notorious Senior
22
I miss when the morning news had new news.
23
@19: Oh, do you really want to create another information stream with the tech giants?
24
@23 well, my ipad suggestion was a little on the silly side but only a little. I have smart phone - my amazing hitchhiker guide to the galaxy come-true - and it costs a few hundred dollars (ok maybe 5k when you add in its lifetime of service charges). Anyhoo... The thing is a modern miracle... and it fits in my pocket AND budget.

How is it a traffic light is worth 30k? The extended-warranty on those things must be stellar.
25
@11

2.5 mph certainly sounds slow. But that would be a mile in 24 minutes, which, while not super fast, isn't really that slow, either. Would your grandparents be able to walk a mile in that time? Because I'm pretty sure that there are some black people who are senior citizens.
26
@5,

The ped signal also won't change if Link is within a couple of miles of the intersection (even if there's a station right at the intersection where the train has to stop anyway). I've waited up to ten minutes trying to cross MLK because Link was eventually, maybe going to show up. Cars got the green several times while I was waiting.

There are several lights in South Lake Union that pull the same shit when the SLUT comes by. Pedestrians trying to cross are SOL, while cars get the green light. God forbid a streetcar hold up auto traffic or peds hold up the street car.
27
@ 25, my grandparents walk no more. My septuagenarian parents can manage that pace, but I don't know if they're faster than average for seniors or not.
28
"Racist Preschools: Black students get suspended at far higher rates than whites (this is true in Seattle specifically as well) "

Very misleading as it looks like you are saying that Seattle preschools suspend black children at a higher rate than others. You have no data on that for Seattle so it might be good to be more careful.

(That said, I didn't know you could even suspend a kid from preschool.)
29
Seattle Schools have a tendency to follow punitive disciplinary practices that often involve a leap to judgement and no opportunity for the children to defend themselves or the teachers to reflect. Unconscious biases emerge most frequently when people leap to judgement. Switching to positive methods of behavior modification for all kids would go a long way toward improving unfair treatment of minority students.
30
@ 15 or its a class thing, Asians don't have that problem.
31
Landslide on SR 530 east of Oso, about halfway between Arlington and Darrington, highway blocked, multiple structures destroyed, multiple deaths and injuries, North Fork of the Stillaguamish River dammed by debris such that there is risk of downstream flooding if/when debris flow breaks loose:

http://www.kgw.com/news/local/House-hit-…

http://blogs.seattletimes.com/today/2014…

I'm always surprised at how inexact and contradictory the location information can be in breaking news stories. The tightest and most believable description of the highway blockage is between mileposts 37 and 38, a road segment marked on this Google Map:

https://www.google.com/maps?t=p&ll=48.27…
32
" The fact that there is a black part of town derives primarily from racist policies"

Maybe it doesn't occur to white liberals, but maybe black people prefer to live around other black people?
33
Oh, Slog. Your attention to the music clubs is so strong that no one bothers to post a complaint about marriages being stopped in Michigan.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/michig…
34
@33

Great talking point, seatackled. I adore complaining and adore fellow complainers. Shout it out!
35
@17 thanks for the legal link. An SPD cop told me the same when he shouted me back to the curb as I was hurrying to a sounders game but I could never find the law (because i was checking seattle's not the state's) so I thought he was just BSing me.

Down here in the valley though many pedestrians don't bother to worry about walk lights. It can be a little frustrating when you're in a car waiting for the rare short green to cross a major street only to have a slow moving oblivious pedestrian strutting in front of you during his don't walk and you're entire green light. And FYI I'm not making some racist generalization of black folks - usually it's a white person doing this shit.
36
@19: How about you leave your iPad out in Seattle weather for a dozen years and see how well it operates.
37
@32 Of course, black folk would like to live near other black folk (and near a place that can do black hair), but to suggest that such a desire would explain the level of segregation in this country, state, county or city, is patently absurd.

If we can get to the point where we're being judged not by the color of our skin, but by the content of our character, there will be black folk, as well as the whole rainbow of God's children, who no one wants as neighbors.

Please wait...

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