The Seattle Times' Danny Westneat opened his recent column with the interesting image of our mayor, Jenny Durkan, almost transported to the emergency room because of a heart attack. But what caused her heart to crash was not a blocked artery but "the news that [the] voter-approved bike lanes in downtown Seattle are costing more than 10 times the estimates." In 2015, the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) told voters that the bike lanes would cost $860,000 per mile. The price is now $12 million per mile. The interim director of SDOT was sure the news of the size of this cost overrun would give Durkan a heart attack.

Though it is easy to point out that, when it's examined in the context of a higher reason rather than the limited irrational irrationality of automobiles—the illusion of their immediate usefulness, but their huge social costs—the "eye-watering" price tag on the bike lanes is still negligible. Why? The higher reason makes it obvious that the social costs (the long-term costs) diminish until they turn from red to black (for example, bikes provide the kind of exercise that reduces the risks of socially expensive health conditions such as heart failure). But let's not head down that path of thinking, and instead give Westneat credit for providing the city with a marvelous way of measuring what is and is not important to our Mayor Durkan. This or that local crisis can now be examined with this in mind: would it or would it not give her a heart attack.

Last week, Westneat published a column about "the number of homeless students in city schools." It rose "by 45 percent—to an all-time high last year of 4,280." Can we imagine that this stunning increase in misery would cause Mayor Durkan a heart attack? No. Not at all. This would make her a little sad, maybe; and she would certainly be concerned about all those children "living in an unheated homeless shantytown." And she would certainly express this concern at some community event. But there is no way we can picture her going to the emergency room because a city official informed her of the crisis and its scale. But the cost increases of the Seattle Streetcar? That's ER type shit for Durkan. She is clutching her chest and swirling around the office and demanding something be done right now before she collapses. The sharp increase of million-dollar homes in Seattle? Durkan only needs a cool glass of water and a moment to think about how she is going to convey her concern to the public and the poor who can no longer afford to live in the city.

You can do this with every crisis of our day. Which one will give her a heart attack? Knowing this tells us exactly who she is and what to expect from her time in office. Thank you, Westneat and the interim director of SDOT.