There are few experiences more unpleasant than a face-smacking, pelvis-bruising, road-rash-inducing bike accident. Having suffered a self-induced one last week, I'm almost inclined to give bipedal transportation up for good and join the legions of car owners in Seattle. But besides the pesky matter of expense (and a driving technique that has been described as "erratic" and "frightening"), I have one more reason not to jump behind the wheel: an optimistic and perhaps irrational belief that transit in this city is going to improve. There's evidence that the city and state think so, too. A little-known $200 million mitigation effort proposed by the state department of transportation (not exactly raving hippies), discussed at a county transportation summit last week, predicts that 41,000 car trips will be absorbed by transit or disappear while the viaduct is being built. That leaves just 77,000 trips for WSDOT to deal with—an entirely manageable number, and one that leaves no doubt that we can get by without a massive new freeway on our waterfront.
One of the staunchest proponents of the surface/transit proposal, Seattle City Council Member Peter Steinbrueck, was the subject this week of a phoned-in complaint to the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission stemming from his use of city funds to attend American Institute of Architects conferences and to pay his annual AIA dues. Steinbrueck's office acknowledges that the city pays for his dues and travel expenses, but says all his AIA travel has been directly related to his urban-planning work at the city. The ethics department is unlikely to pursue the complaint unless it's filed in writing; ethics director Wayne Barnett declined to comment.
Eleven nightlife experts crowded around the council's conference table on March 1 to review the mayor's proposal to license and regulate bars and nightclubs. The presentation was a rehash of old data punctuated with a few testy exchanges and some outright misinformation. Council Member Richard McIver pointedly challenged Assistant Police Chief Linda Pierce when she drew a connection, without offering evidence, between use-of-force incidents downtown at night and clubs operating in the same area. "How many clubs are we talking about?" McIver asked. "It's between 8:00 at night and 2:30 in the morning," Pierce responded. "It's a designated nightlife area." Later, executive administration staffer Denise Movius claimed, again without offering evidence, that clubs "are not calling 911 when there's criminal activity going on." Council Member Sally Clark's neighborhoods committee will vote on the proposal in June.
A bill regulating landlords who convert apartment buildings to condos passed out of both the state house and senate before the cutoff, but without a provision capping the number of conversions in a single year. The latest version also eliminates a $500 cap on relocation assistance for tenants who can't afford to buy their units, but allows cities and counties to determine the amount of relocation assistance ("not [to] exceed... three months of... rent") themselves. 
