Only two more weeks (and some change) until i’m headed to New York! I’m busy reading maps and googling for H&M locations and Apple stores with free internet access, so the minute i step out of the cab onto the streets of the Upper East Side (my surrogate home for 6 fleeting days) i can discard like yesterday’s fish papers all the stupid, confused tourist questions and slide right in with the “normal” newyorkers… at least until i stop mid-block to gawk at something taller than 30 stories and am assaulted by a thousand elbows.

I’ve been diligently scrolling about on a Google map and trying to memorize neighborhoods (Greenwich Village is between 14th St and Houston) and points of interest (the Flatiron is at the intersection of 5th and Broadway), but i get distracted every, oh, 5 seconds with something else, like subway tunnel construction, or the Beaux Arts architectural style, or the capacity of Yankee stadium (58000). Between Google and the Wikipedia, there is no stone i cannot turn upside its head. Apparently there’s like a whole chunk of the interweb dedicated to NYC (who knew?) chock full of goodies for me to seek out.

It’s also full of lies, outright lies! I submit this Craigslist posting to the court as Exhibit A. It’s an apartment in Hell’s Kitchen but that’s not the kitchen that concerns me… it’s the one in the apartment! Sure, it’s tiny, occupying less space than an armchair and small, matching ottoman. But this is probably only a 135 sq ft apartment, considering the rent and its proximity to the Amish Market (well Smear Joshua all over with jam a piece of bread, nawonce!) and there needs to be room left over for a small color television, a modest dresser, purposefully yet needlessly strewn-about clothing, a thin rattan sleeping mat, and one of those clickety typewriters with which to write the great American novel. Oh, and an empty bottle of cheap gin. On its side.

Look closely, however, and you’ll see where the truth in advertising police have been sleeping on the job: “chef`s kitchen with new appliances”. Ok, chef’s kitchen? I know a couple chefs, they would cut off their own ears with an improperly-sharpened fillet knife if that phrase reached their ears when describing a mini fridge, 18″ of counter space and a stove that my toaster could beat up. And those appliances are not new… the stove has knobs! Knobs, people! New appliances are shiny and have buttons, and generally possess more CPU horsepower than space shuttle Discovery. The kicker: “ample cupboard space”. There are three. Three is not ample; three is several. Three is a few. Modest is 5-8, Plentiful is more than 10. Ample means a whole girl scout troup could play hide and seek in your apartment and no one would have to hide inside the dryer. “Ample cupboard space” does not fit in the back of a ford taurus station wagon. Have i made my point here?

Now I know after i’ve done such a nice job of selling this place to all of you, you’re going to race to the phone and try to secure it for yourselves. That’s why i was crafty enough to delete the important contact details – this one’s all mine, baby! Now if i could just find my typewriter and a shoebox to pack all my kitchen things in, i’d be all ready to relocate for that fabulous job in a Chelsea design studio…

I can see my breath this morning at the bus stop. There’s a distinct possibility that it’s actually fall. … Let it snow!

"Without beaches we’d be Nebraska" – bus advertisement for coastal water quality

So as i mentioned in my wireless post from the international district bus tunnel station, i rode the bus tunnel one last time before the eternal 2-year closure for some light rail project thingy that i don’t remember voting for (that’s because it’s private – even tho it’s receiving public funding assistance – augh, let’s not start that). Anywho, i had a quiet lunch to myself of lobster bisque and Groove Armada and pondered Seattle’s mass transit future. Also, i bought that belt i needed. ;)

I found a map on the Sound Transit site that gave me a good laugh. Check it out. You’ll notice there are 5 different train-type systems overlapping each other – light rail, full-scale rail, monorail (both vintage and proposed) and trolley car – and all trying to serve a different, niche need. Throw 1,183 buses into the mix along with 5 or 6 taxicabs, close 3rd avenue and parts of 5th to non-bus traffic, and it’s going to be a very confusing and inefficient two years. Of course the complexity will come down quite a bit if the SMP Green Line is never built, which is apparently how the mayor and city council would like to see things go. I live-blogged the council meeting a bit over on 2045 Seattle for all those who were likely still trying to install RealPlayer (it had never seemed useful before…). I think there were some council members who were genuinely saddened by the vote and the discussion around it, as they had at some point believed in the monorail project. Apparently the arguments presented outweighed their faith in the dream, however, as the council voted unanimously on a resolution that would withdraw city support for the SMP. As the council president said, the only power they really have over the project is their ability to grant permits for use of city right-of-way, and for zoning and construction, and that is the tool they will wield to hold back an elevated future. They are also asking the state legislature to wither the SMP’s funding source via a revocation of the previously voter-approved vehicle licensing addendum.

I’m one of many very disappointed to see the monorail get shot down like this after so much hard work and struggle, and i don’t think the voters of Seattle – who have passed via majority four different referendums supporting the monorail – will be pleased at the polls. I don’t purport to know the details of the SMP’s funding debacle, nor will i try to assess their trustworthiness or fitness for the task at hand, but i do feel confident assuming that even despite their shortcomings they must have learned a great deal about monorails, mass transit, and Seattle’s chances of escaping gridlock hell and i hope that precious research doesn’t die with the SMP’s bankroll. If anything is ever going to come of this city’s 7 zillion different transportation initiatives and if those plethora of tiny solutions to localized problems is ever going to organize and regroup as a consistent regional strategy, we at least need to be able to learn from our mistakes as a collective community and not keep starting from zero.

I’d like to see everything the Seattle Monorail Project has gathered, from environmental studies to financial statements to blueprints to swatches of seat fabrics, be made public and readily available so that all of us may be more well-informed the next time our one-track (pipe) dream shows up on the ballot. Because there will be a next time.

Taking a ride uptown for lunch, using the bus tunnel one last time before it closes tonite for the next two years for a light-rail retrofit, relegating the buses to downtown surface streets in a migraine-inducing chaos. I was supposed to make this trip today with some coworkers but missed them because i was at my desk watching the live feed of the city council meeting where they withdrew city support for the monorail project. How ironic is that?