A few months ago, I wrote that Seattle should elect our city council by districts. Hey, maybe I’d know who represented me instead of it being everyone and no one. But as the legislative session started, I wondered why all of the Seattle legislators seem so willing to go along with the cost overruns provision of the tunnel. not to mention their support of this project that will increase traffic on surface streets downtown and eliminate the downtown exits (making my bus ride through the free ride area longer, as well as making it tougher to drive around). Surely the people who represent Downtown should join the mayor and should lead the effort to oppose the tunnel, or at least the cost overruns.
But if you look at the districts, it turns out nobody really represents downtown. The urban core is split into 3 districts. So the 36the represents the Northern part of Belltown, but its legislators represent Ballard, so it’s sort of understandable that they’d support the tunnel (even though I’m not sure it’s as good for Ballard as advertised; if people want to go from Ballard to Downtown, a tunnel sans exits doesn’t exactly help).
The 37th represents Pioneer square and SoDo, and while there’s no real reason for the legislators from the 37th to support the tunnel, their district sprawls pretty far South. So I can understand why they wouldn’t think of downtown issues as their issues.
The space between Belltown and Pioneer Square is represented by Capitol Hill legislators in the 43rd District. Those legislators should worry about what losing capacity on 99 will do to I-5 (I do too,and I’m a big supporter of Surface/Transit/I-5). If done right, S/T/I-5 could get significant numbers of people out of their cars. But if done wrong (basically not investing in transit or improvements to I-5), it could clog I-5, and push a lot of cars to the surface streets. And if we’re honest, the anti Seattle legislature could easily not do things right. I understand their pushing the extra cars on the surface to downtown as opposed to further East.
So I sort of get why no legislator has taken the lead in opposing the tunnel and the cost overruns provision. The most logical people to oppose them also represent neighborhoods with the most potential downside to the tunnel alternatives. And the other districts that will be hurt by a tunnel also represent a significant portion of non-downtown Seattle.
And while the tunnel is the most conspicuous issue, there are quite a few issues in the legislature that effect downtown residents, and where nobody really takes the lead. So there isn’t a legislator who’s taking the lead on the state parts of McGinn’s nightlife initiatives. And while we’ve got some good legislators on public transportation, density, and biking, it’s decidedly a mixed bag.
This could be improved by anchoring a district in the urban core. It seems to me that most of the people who live in the large chunk of blocks where you pay for parking (pdf), or at least most of the contiguous ones, share a common set of needs from the legislature that people in largely single family homes further from the urban core don’t.
And I know that any redistricting is going to make legislative seats that is cut some neighborhoods, or cities in strange ways; there are only so many ways to cut up the map. Still, there are 2 districts that represent Greenlake (43rd and 36th), and those same 2 districts also represent Belltown. So there is room for improvement. Combining the parts of the 36th, 43rd, and 37th districts that constitute the urban core would give downtown residents a voice in Olympia we don’t have now.
This post has been corrected because I mislabeled one of the districts.
Just out of curiosity, how many people actually live in the downtown Seattle core area? Yes, I know about the condos in Belltown, but hoe does this compare with the other districts mentioned (Capital Hill, Ballard, etc.)?
Office buildings don’t vote (at least not yet – the U.S. Supreme Court hasn’t weighed in on that one yet). So while the downtown Seattle core remains a vital destination for the entire central Puget Sound region (work location, restaurants, theatres, sport events, fireworks displays, waterfront, etc.), it seems to me that it may not have enough residents to support a district of it’s own.
An Idea for Carl and Goldy!
While I think the tunnel needs to go forward, I think Carl’s point about representation is very important.
Not only does “downtown” not have a state rep, downtowners (downers??) are still a politically invisible group in the way Seattle is governed.
The downer (sorry) community is also grwoing incredibly rapidly. I have seen estimates of over $100,OOO people living in those sterile towers (hmm downers in towers???) The downer community (gotta stop that!!) is also very different than any other part of Seattle .. it is affluent, multiethnic, often single person family, few or no children, transit oriented, and web aware.
Given the wealth of this high rise community, perhaps together with adjacent areas of First, Capital and QA Hills, there must be enough of a common interest for some sort of organization.
Carl .. one idea. As HA transitions, would this be a good time to organize a blog built around people in those communities? It seems to me that such a blog would not only be liberal but powerful politically because f the numbers of folks with relatively high incomes.
Using HA as platform, could jump start such an effort.
Speaking for QA and of course lower QA (uptown), most folks seem to want the the ability to bypass downtown easily, which the tunnel does. Going downtown is pretty easy from here already. The tunnel also gives us better access to South Lake Union and beyond, because it buries more of the great wall of 99.
I would have been fine with a surface route, but no one ever listens to me. Maybe I should join the tea party so I can rant & rave about politicians who don’t listen to me, but that’s what I thought bars were for.
@3 uptown
I agree with you.
Also, Seattle is hemmed in by two bodies of water and there really is very little chance to do anything about the way this thin strip of land is used as both a city and as a freeway stop.
The TUNNEL routes the commercially traffic unbder the city and, hopefully, will dscourage use of I99 as freeway for folks going from Everett to Seatac.
Instead, it will open up Seattle as a city and provide a rare opportunity to plan what could become a new section of the city … not just the viaduct but a lot of what is just East of there as well.
Of course, that dream depends on having a government smart enough to let the new waterfront turn into another Slutown.
having looked into this, the law defining the duties and factors of the redistricting commission has nothing in that suggests downtowness is one of the factors. They don’t even have a guideline saying “don’t let district boundaries cross a huge interstate freeway” and when you look at the 1st cd federal and the 11th state districts, god, it’s senseless.
meanwhile today there are likely apps that would let everyone play with the data and propose district lines that make sense. the districting commission should post such an app, call for public submissions, then show them and let us vote on them and then take whatever wisdom they glean from that, to write the new districts.
At another level, the at large nature of seattle city districts makes each councilmember supplicant to the Big Money, housed in downtown and in downtown bellevue, and that’s why they all represent Downtown and I don’t mean the people living downtown either.
Well, how is it that the 46LD all voted against the legislation with the cost overrun language in it but the fractured representation of downtown didn’t?
I am completely in favor of isolating downtown to one LD, the rest of Seattle would be better off.