Yellow Tent Adventures

I just received an invitation to a meet-up with the makers of Pandora (the Music Genome Project)  held at Seattle’s downtown public library, and it was all well and good until I got to this:

Parking: Pandora will provide complimentary parking for attendees at the Seattle Public Library parking garage on Spring Street between 4th and 5th Ave. The entrance is mid-block on the south side of Spring St.   Please bring the ticket from the machine to the meeting and you will be given a coupon that you can present to the parking lot attendant after the event.

Really? Pandora is going to pay people for driving to downtown Seattle? That just strikes me as an old, tired way of thinking which I didn’t expect from such an exciting new company and our über modern library.

So this was my response to their invitation:

Hi Tim,
It would be wonderfully  progressive if Pandora gave an incentive for arriving by public transportation, foot or bicycle instead of rewarding people for driving a vehicle to a downtown urban center. You want to change the way we listen to music. I want to change the way we live in our communities.

Does the Seattle Public Library and Pandora really want people to drive to the event? They offered drivers a carrot…

The gray days of winter are here. The kind of days that look like it’s perpetually 4pm even when it’s 11 in the morning. Saturated to the point the ground no longer drinks in the pissing rain, we are steeped in grayness. These are days that test the carfree.

But I’m itching to move, and with new walking shoes and an adequate rain jacket I go out to breath in fresh air, clear my head, and pump up my heart rate. And it’s working. I’m rewarded by flashes of color that brighten my day.

Wide load

It is amazing what you can strap on to the back rack of a bicycle.

Passengers exit light rail at the airport station

Life on Beacon Hill just got a little bit better yesterday. We can now ride light rail to the airport. Kat and I boarded the train around noon and ran into neighbor Andy Sodt and his son Lee. Twenty-two minutes from the Beacon Hill Station to the airport station. From there it is a 4-5 minute stroll to the terminals. The walkway that is separated from the parking garage leads you to the far north end of the terminals.

Andy and Lee check out the new ride

Kat strolls over highway 99 on the ped bridge

I’m sure there will be those who will complain about the walk. But it doesn’t appear to be that much longer than the walk from the bus station at the extreme south end of the terminals.

The pedestrian bridge from the station over Highway 99 to the kiss-and-ride parking lot is worth checking out for the fun piece of public art.

The ride back from the airport all the way to Westlake Station took 38 minutes.

The long wait is over … and now a new countdown begins. We look forward to riding light rail to Capitol Hill and the U-District in 2016.

This is part one of a project of photographing our small city garden for a year. Life without a car means living closer to home. At times we miss jumping into our old Subaru and heading out for a hike on the spur of the moment. But we’ve also loved the fact that we’ve learned to appreciate our neighborhood and our city at a slower pace. So rather than heading up to the Cascades or the Olympics for a photography tour, I stepped out my front door and into our garden, day after day. What a pleasure to visit such a small and beautiful world so intensely. On my knees or on my stomach, straining to get the tripod in just the right position.

I also hope that this exercise in extreme local travel will help make me a better world traveler. How often I’ve been thousands of miles away in an exotic location, only to have my eyes and ears not truly take it all in. Wasted opportunities passing me by.

The photos in the show were all taken in our small city garden with no flash or filters. Take some time to soak in the beauty, then go out and take a walk. Travel is a state of mind and is only a few steps away.

Portland Saturday Market

I love the soundtrack of a city. It is a hodgepodge of sounds. Sometimes harmonious. Sometimes just noise.
The above photo was taken at Portland’s Saturday Market. On the left is a street preacher. On the right is a street musician.

The musician

The preacher

The audio clip above was recorded and not mixed. Give a listen. At first I thought these two were at odds, trying to drown each other out. But the more I listened, the more they seemed to fit together–as if the musician was providing the urban soundtrack to the sermon. You also get an AMTRAK train and a street drummer across the street into the mix. Harmony? Noise? You decide. It is all part of the eclectic sounds of the city.

Beacon Hill sidewalk (Seattle, WA)

In the United States our city streets are so auto-oriented that we rarely think of what the alternative could be.  Consider the sidewalk. It is rarely continuous. If you are lucky enough to have sidewalks in your neighborhood, they are block-long segments, interrupted by the asphalt roadway. Every block, you cross through the the right of way of the autos to get to your next section of sidewalk. The law says that you, as the pedestrian, have the right of way. A car is supposed to yield to you. But everything about the physical environment says that the auto has the right of way. The road or street is a continuous flowing stream, while the sidewalk is chopped up into little segments.  That’s just the way sidewalks are.

Really?

Bogotá sidewalk (Bogotá, Colombia)

What if your city planners thought outside the “norm”? What if the sidewalk was a continuous stream, while the roadway was chopped into small segments? The above example is from Bogotá, Colombia. The pedestrian or cyclist continues through the intersection on a clear, smooth path—while the autos have to negotiate a ramp up and then down again. Visually and physically, it is the auto that is crossing the sidewalk, rather than the pedestrian crossing the street.

Believe me. It makes all the difference in the world. I’ll take the physical right of way over the legal right of way anytime.

Now THAT’S a sidewalk!

Hardly a day goes by that I don’t walk somewhere in our neighborhood. Walk to the grocery store. Walk to the library. Walk to light rail. Walk to a friend’s house. Walk to take a walk. And hardly a walk goes by that I don’t run in to someone and have a conversation … almost so much so that sometimes I walk off the beaten path to get lost in my own thoughts.

The other day was such a day that I wanted nothing more than to walk in my own space and soak in atmosphere. The dry summer heat had turned to cloud cover for a day or two, and as much as I am a sun seeker, the ch’i in the air was refreshing my body and soul.

So I walked to the Red Apple to pick up some wine for dinner and took a right instead of a left when I walked out of the parking lot. I was ready to wonder and my feet took me West towards the view overlook park. Student drivers cautiously gave me plenty of room as we both rounded the bend in the road where the sidewalk ends before the park begins. The park is usually a solitary place especially mid-morning on a weekday, but there in my favorite spot to sit and breathe in the city was a man and his bicycle. A twinge of disappointment darted into my heart.

As I approached, the man turned and smiled a genuine smile. We exchanged hellos before he said, Do you want to hear a poem? Yes. I answered matter-of-factly.

I stood beside the bench looking out across the city, Elliott Bay and beyond to the Olympics touched with mist.  Heavy sculpted clouds filled the sky, he read:

This is not a day for asking questions,
not a day on any calendar.
This day is conscious of itself.
This day is a lover, bread, and gentleness,
more manifest than saying can say.

The longer he read the more my heart filled with the ache of words mixing freely with the beauty before me. Swelling with love for this place, I listened to these words by mystic poet Rumi.

Spring, and everything outside is growing
even the tall cypress tree.
We must not leave this place.
Around the lip of the cup we share, these words,

My Life Is Not Mine
If someone were to play music, it would have to be very sweet.
We’re drinking wine, but not through lips.
We’re sleeping it off, but not in bed.
Rub the cup across your forehead.
This day is outside living and dying.

Give up wanting what other people have.
That way you’re safe.
“Where, where can I be safe?” you ask.

This is not a day for asking questions,
not a day on any calendar.
This day is conscious of itself.
This day is a lover, bread, and gentleness,
more manifest than saying can say.

Thoughts take form with words,
but this daylight is beyond and before
thinking and imagining. Those two,
they are so thirsty, but this gives smoothness
to water. Their mouths are dry, and they are tired.

…

By the time he finished, I released the deep breath with a somber, wow.  He laughed a nervous laugh of two people caught unsuspecting in an intimate moment. He said he felt the same way.

I never know what will happen on a walk, but I’m glad this happened. Thank you for reading the poem… I mustered hardly holding back tears.

Thank you for wanting to hear a poem, he simply said.

I smiled and walked away. Any more words between us would break a spell — this exquisite moment shared between strangers in a park on Beacon Hill. Magic can happen on any given day.

I’m already getting inquiries from folks asking … is anybody responding to your open letter?

The answer is yes.

Richard Conlin (Seattle City Council) was the first to reply. He has given up his car for 5 or 6 days at a time. He is a true bicycle advocate who pedals the talk. Go for a week or more Richard!

Norman Sigler (candidate for Seattle Mayor) gave up his car 3 years ago and donated it to KPLU!

Brian Carver (candidate for Seattle City Council position #4) has given up his car for long stretches, but has vowed to give it up for a week again … soon. Even asked me to check back with him on that promise.

Dorsol Plants (candidate for Seattle City Council position #4) gave up his car in 2007 AND won the Candidate Survivor!

Sally Clark (Seattle City Council) sent a long and thoughtful reply. Not yet ready to take the carfree week plunge.  I see her sans car pedaling around my neighborhood all the time. Go for a week Sally!!

Mike McGinn (candidate for Seattle Mayor) let me know that he has a car but rarely uses it. You may have seen the stickers around town “Mike Bikes.” But I think even Mike McGinn could learn from having no access to a car for a week. How about it Mike?

Tom Rasmussen (Seattle City Council) didn’t respond personally, but a staff member did. She let me know that many city staffers have given up their cars. Good trend. Maybe they can convince Tom to do so … for just a week.

Richard McIver (Seattle City Council) won’t be taking up the challenge. But I admire that he took the time to respond.  He lives in the Seward Park neighborhood which isn’t well served by public transit.  He hopes that one or more of his colleagues will take me up on my challenge.

Mayor Nickels–give it up. Seattle City Council members. You too. As well as King County Council members, Governor Gregoire, State representatives and ALL candidates for the above offices.

I’m talking about your car. For a week. Just a week.

You see, my wife and I answered the call to help the region and the planet by giving up our car over four years ago. With climate change upon us, it was imperative that we transition out of our auto-centric society. Get on the bus. Get on our bikes. Get out and walk.

There were plenty of incentive programs offered by our city and county governments, including the Way to Go Seattle–One Less Car Challenge. We took advantage of the Washington State Vehicle Redistribution Program … our car was stolen. We opted not to replace it.

We were in a good position to give up our car. We don’t have kids. We live on Beacon Hill with frequent bus service (and now Light Rail). We have stores, restaurants, a library, and a park all within a ten minute walking distance of our house. We both do most of our work from home.

Easy.

OK. Walking up the hill from the grocery store with a 20lb Thanksgiving turkey in an excursion-size backpack wasn’t easy. Waiting outside in a 40 degree drizzle for a bus that never came wasn’t fun. And taking 4 buses and a ferry to get to Sequim wasn’t convenient.

It didn’t take long to understand that for someone who owns a private vehicle, our city and region’s public transportation, bike paths and pedestrian corridors are top notch. Because when it isn’t easy, fun or convenient … you take your car.

When I joined the ranks of the carless, I began an education in how auto-centric our green little region is, and how far we have to go to get to be a truly livable place … for everyone.

How many of my neighbors park their cars across the sidewalk. How cracked and poorly maintained those sidewalks are. How fast the cars fly by on our residential streets. How few cars yield to me in a cross walk. How few bike racks there are outside the businesses I frequent. How poorly signed (or not at all) the bike routes are throughout the city. How terrifying biking can be in downtown Seattle. How little park space we have downtown and how much space we devote to parking.

So many issues and problems invisible to me while driving in my own personal vehicle.

Now I’m asking you all to give up your car. Not for four years. Just seven days.

For seven days live the life that few have chosen and many have no choice but to live.

Believe me, no matter how long you have lived in or served this region, you’ll learn things that will surprise you.

I know I did. And I’ve lived here for 25 years.

The best decisions about transit and neighborhood planning will be made by government officials who have taken the time to live a life without a car as an option.

Give it up.

We’ll all be glad you did.

Sincerely,

Willie Weir
Beacon Hill, Seattle