All The Latest: "Where We Live" Update

Oh, let’s see… I’m up to 34 “Where We Live” columns for Shoreline-Lake Forest Park Patch, so for the 35^th let’s just do a few updates and follow-ups.

My first was “”. So how’s Highway 99 doing these days? Much better, thanks. If you’re interested in the blow by blow report Shoreline will send an email newsletter to keep you informed. The upshot is that the second leg of the project, from N 165^th St to N 185^th St is getting close to finished. “The next segment, North 165th Street to North 185th Street, is under construction now and is expected to be done summer 2011. The part up to North 192nd Street will be done by winter 2012, and the last piece, to North 205th Street, is already contracted to start in 2012.” I wrote at the time, and it’s still on pace to do so.

In addition, as announced June 16 on Shoreline’s website, “As part of the 2011-2013 Transportation Budget, the State awarded the City $385,000 in Safe Routes to Schools program funding. The money is to be used to build sidewalks near Briarcrest Elementary and implement a program to encourage safe walking and biking to school. The City also received $6,357,839 in Regional Mobility Grant Program funding for the Aurora Corridor Project.” This will make the community that much more safe and walkable.

North City continues to thrive, settling in well now that all the street work is long done. Laughing Ladies Café, which bought Hotwire Coffeehouse, runs a full slate of music and serves up great coffee. Welcome to the neighborhood (two years’ late!)

The demo Project is long-complete. It’s filled in nicely, but I’m awaiting word as to how it has been assessed. Can we expect more of its ilk here?

is still being negotiated around and you can contribute to the discussion. Perhaps we can still work on long-term solutions (remaking our built environment so the water doesn’t invite itself in) rather than merely pouring money into trying to bully the stream into ‘behaving’.  

The  community in general is very much involved in the effort to convince Shoreline not to permit an Urban Center in Point Wells. I’m leery of the idea only because A) it will certainly increase traffic and B) it’s a low point accessible by just one road, so problematic in emergency situations, especially an earthquake/tsunami scenario.

In “” I wrote “As a rule, demolition is a profound statement of disrespect- disrespect for the material and energy which went into building a structure, disrespect for the people who built it and their aspirations, disrespect for the building’s place in the community, disrespect for the residents’ and community’s history.” In “” I pointed out some specific examples. “Sadly, we actively removed our most historic retail buildings along Aurora to clear land for the Town Center Park, … , and permitted Walgreen’s on 175^th to tear up a significant swath of Judge Ronald’s road, the only remaining piece of the original North Trunk Road.” and Janet Way strongly reinforced it in her “when she wrote “The trick is we need to allow beneficial development that does not inadvertently destroy what's left and which can enhance our remaining heritage.” We may be a new city, but we need to treasure our connections to the past and grow our own roots or our city will be the lesser for it.

My thoughts in “” were that we should fund all nonautomotive transit, and it seems to be under way, but there’s not much news on the subject from Sound Transit, but a blogger has a piece on our portion of the Link Light Rail.    

“” was about better technologies allowing us to maintain a high, dynamic lifestyle by not continuing our blindly suicidal path of overconsumption, and “” had specific ways of going about it. Seattle City Light came around a few days ago and installed new CFL bulbs everywhere I hadn’t yet. Cool! Another ‘Cash For Clunkers’ concept, and now we’re more energy efficient and have brighter light to boot.

That’s enough for now, I think. Thanks for the opportunity to sound off.