Senseless Violence

For those of you in Seattle you are probably aware of two violent events of the past month that both occured within a block of my office. It is hard to make any kind of statement abut them that sounds intellegent. It has been interesting that the one (the shooting at the Jewish Federation) has been covered massively in the media. The other (the stabbing at the King County Health Department) has gone almost un-noticed by the media. The woman who did the stabbing had been inexplicably released from Western State Hospital after an attempted murder several years ago. I think that a press interested in using their position to improve things would now be asking a lot of hard questions about why someone with a history of violence was allowed on the streets again. Anyway, here is my free-form verse inspired by what has happened around here.

Senseless violence?

I don’t understand this phrase.
Shooting six women at the Jewish Federation was senseless,
Achieved nothing but brutality and suffering,
The shooter didn’t even understand who he was shooting,
Angry with Israel he shot people in Seattle who were not all Jewish,
Let alone necessarily Zionists,

But then again, does bombing thousands of Lebanese make sense?
Was Hezzbolah’s initial attack on Israel logical?
What is the rationale for killing tens of thousands of Iraqis?
To overthrow a dictator? So that the people can live in constant fear
Of car bombs and civil war?
Stabbing two women and boys and then setting fire to
The house to try and cover up? Was he crazy? Or blind drunk?
Why not ask if the President is stoned or insane?
His actions are as illogical.

Perhaps WWII was a case for “sensible violence”?
Overthrow Hitler and the Nazis, liberate the concentration camps…
The Allies were the good guys.
Are we there yet?
I still cannot get my mind around the fire-bombing of Dresden and Tokyo
Let alone Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Were these sensible, sane things to do?

Nic Rossouw
2 August 2006

Post Intellegencer Op-Ed on the SR-99 Viaduct

the following Op-ed was pubished in the Seattle Post-Intellegencer on 21 August 2006.

Friday, July 21, 2006

Great cities built around pedestrians

By NIC ROSSOUW GUEST COLUMNIST

The Nisqually earthquake of 2001 has provided Seattle with an incredible opportunity to correct possibly the greatest urban design mistake in our history.
The Alaskan Way Viaduct makes moving cars through the city as fast as possible more important than the quality of life of those living and working in the city. We have allowed auto efficiency to direct our most important urban design decisions for almost a century, destroyed an extensive streetcar system, made roads more dangerous for cyclists and built urban highways.
We have seen the impacts of the viaduct, and it would be unforgivable to repeat this mistake in 2006. Creating a denser, more livable downtown is critical to reducing urban sprawl, air and water pollution and slowing global warming. As with baseball diamonds in the middle of corn fields, if you build it they will come, and the viaduct has become so heavily used that many people think it unimaginable to live without it. Great cities are built around pedestrians, not drivers, and it is time to take back our city from the car.
We need to dismiss the elevated highway and ask whether to build a tunnel or a surface boulevard. My analysis of the tunnel solution is that it is as auto-centric as the elevated highway. This encourages the use of cars and does nothing to increase the availability or use of mass transit. The tunnel buries cars for a portion of downtown, allowing for an improved waterfront, but there are two massive portals where the highway transitions from the surface to underground. The proposed south portal is in an area that is mostly industrial currently, but it is the natural long-term extension for housing and commerce from Pioneer Square to the south waterfront. The proposed north portal is an abomination. The roadway would rise sharply from below sea level to meet the Battery Street Tunnel. The steeper grade required by the tunnel solution will increase, not decrease, vehicle and roadway noise at Victor Steinbrueck Park. Highway designers have attempted to create a partial lid in front of the Pike Place Market, but it will be at great cost and to limited effect.
Seattle needs to hold firm against state demands that vehicle capacity be maintained or expanded in this corridor. The city should not be forced to build a highway along our waterfront. We need to improve the mobility of people and the quality of life, not protect the right of people to drive at high speed along the waterfront. Instead we need to provide effective choices for people to get where they need to go. We can do this and create a wonderful city for the next 100-plus years by building an appropriately scaled boulevard along the waterfront that connects to the city street grid. It has to be combined with improvements to the West Seattle Bridge, modifications to Interstate 5, improvements to the major avenues downtown and expanded mass transit as well as adding bicycle routes downtown.
When that is done, people will shift modes, change routes and discover that getting out of highway traffic will make their lives better. People are adaptable, and we need to take advantage of that to create the city we want.
We also have to maintain freight mobility from the Port, Sodo, Georgetown and Interbay. This is where the viaduct becomes part of the solution. I am talking about the Spokane Street Viaduct. The city is in the process of expanding it and changing its connections to the street grid and the port, so that freight can still flow during the extended construction period that is envisioned for the Alaskan Way Viaduct project. The remaking of Mercer Street at the other end of downtown will allow for freight to connect back to the industrial area in Interbay and to Ballard.
Seattle needs to take seriously Mayor Greg Nickels' Climate Protection Agreement. If we are going to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from our city, we need to limit car trips. Rebuilding a highway along the downtown waterfront flies completely in the face of that goal. Seattle is blessed with an amazing natural setting, and we have an opportunity of a lifetime to build an incredible downtown waterfront.
As long as we see the viaduct replacement as a highway project, we will not be able to create a true "front porch" for the city, where people can live, work, stroll, play and eat by the Puget Sound.
Nic Rossouw is a founding partner and engineer at the structural design firm Swenson Say Fagét in Seattle.