Editor's Note: The follwing letter, addressed to District 1 City Councilmember Lisa Herbold was also shared with Westside Seattle. 

 

Hello Lisa – 

This is a first for me – e-mailing a city official – but I really feel I need to share and provide my inputs about a couple topics concerning the City of Seattle.  I’ve been a resident of West Seattle for 32 years.

Certainly this coronavirus is unprecedented, and I’m sure it will change our way of life moving forward, but I’m confident that with time things will return to or turn in to a new “normal” that can be functional.   I don’t expect things to be normal, or to a “new normal”, until well in to 2021.  At least that’s the timeframe we’re taking before we do anything “normal” again.  

The purpose of this email primarily is to voice our concern regarding the absence of normal access to/from West Seattle and connecting it to the city and the whole Puget Sound region for that matter.   The “Homeless” problem also figures in to this so I’ll provide my two cents worth on that subject as well and how/why it’s connected/related to my concern for the West Seattle bridge problem.  

First of all, regarding the West Seattle bridge, I have to say I am extremely grateful and proud to be living in a city where the government officials had the courage and decisive capability to completely shut down the bridge when they saw a safety issue developing.  That is so much better than pretending a problem doesn’t exist, looking the other way, hoping it will get better, etc., then the bridge collapsing with people on it.  There’s been numerous examples where city (other city) officials have disregarded safety issues (Flint Michigan water system for example) because they didn’t have the courage to raise a red flag early on before any damage or injuries occurred.  

I also want to thank you for providing very detailed complete statuses on the West Seattle bridge subject.  My wife has been getting them and passing them on to me and I’ve been reading them in full.  I’m an engineer so it all is very valuable and quite informative to me. 

My wife and I live in the Genesee Hill area above Alki (West of Schmitz Park), and have lived here for 23 years.  We just recently retired from Boeing in Dec 2016.  Needless to say based on where we live the West Seattle bridge was our only access to/from West Seattle.  Certainly now that it’s closed we can go south to the 1st Ave South street bridge, or even the 16th Ave South street bridge, to access the city or I-5, but that adds I’m sure at least 30 minutes each way to the drive to get to the east side of the West Seattle Bridge.  And that is currently – when now there is a drastic drop in commuters due to Governor Inslee’s “stay at home” order.  I’m sure eventually when people start commuting again en masse that figure will definitely climb.  I’ve already encountered mass traffic jams at the 1st Ave South street bridge where all of West Seattle AND Burien and all points south along 509 all converge to cross the Duwamish River.    And that’s not including when the 1st Ave South street bridge has to be raised to let shipping traffic pass.  I can’t imagine when the rush hour commute gets back to “normal” and all the commuters who used to use the West Seattle Bridge all converge at the 1st Ave South street bridge, along with Burien and all the other folks who normally use that bridge from points south on highway 509.  Commuting to/from West Seattle will basically cease to function at that point.  

So, putting this West Seattle bridge problem in prospective, I think it’s accurate to compare it to the Alaskan Way Viaduct problem and replacement, as a form of extrapolation of how long this project might take to address.  The Nisqually earthquake in 2001 forced Seattle and the State of Washington to start working on a replacement for the Alaskan Way Viaduct, and it took 8 years to identify how it would be replaced.  Then it took another 10 years for that replacement to be functional.  That’s 18 years from deciding the Alaskan Way Viaduct needed to be replaced to a functional replacement for it.  So it appears to me that we’re effectively now at the status of the Alaskan Way Viaduct in 2001 with the West Seattle Bridge.  Following the timeline for the Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement project, it will be 2038 before we have any replacement roadway to of West Seattle.  Granted the Alaskan Way Viaduct was a State route (with their funding), and covered a much longer distance, and was replaced with a complicated tunnel, in one respect though now with the West Seattle Bridge it is is entirely the City of Seattle’s responsibility (with no state funding).  And it comes at a time when Seattle’s cashflow is going to almost zero with this coronavirus.  Past history with the City of Seattle’s focus on replacing bridges shows it is dysfunctional - the Magnolia Bridge was identified in 2001 after the Nisqually Earthquake as needing replaced – and here 19 years later there still is no plan or funding to replace it.  Fortunately for the citizens of Magnolia it’s still functional.  Some element of repair was done immediately following the Nisqually Earthquake – but what happens when that repair ages beyond it’s life, and ominous cracks start appearing on that bridge, necessitating it’s closure too?  Then there’s two bridges closed and cutting off it’s residents from the City.   Could it be possible that while the Alaskan Way Viaduct took 18 years to replace with State funding and State oversight, it could well be more than 18 years for the City of Seattle to replace the West Seattle Bridge with city funding and city oversight?  It certainly seems to me to be entirely possible.

In all of the statuses I’ve been reading about the West Seattle bridge – I don’t get the impression that the City is placing the kind of high priority on this subject as it deserves.  The West Seattle bridge is the lifeline for 20% of the City’s residents.  My wife and I have already decided to stop attending several theatres, the Seattle Symphony, and the Seattle Mariners as a result, not to mention all the restaurants we go to for each of those evenings out.  If my fellow West Seattleites do the same – that could potentially be as much as a 20% drop in cashflow to the city from West Seattle.  

This subject simply cannot get mired in a “forever” debate, study, review, analysis, funding campaign, etc.  The quickest cheapest replacement should be pursued.  My first impression, based on the success of “Bertha”, was to throw a tunnel boring machine in to the ground and grind out a tunnel under the Duwamish, since it’s not deep at all to get under the Duwamish River.  Certainly not as deep as Bertha went to bore under the city in the Alaskan Way Viaduct Replacement Project.  But then I read the following article in Westside Seattle:

https://www.westsideseattle.com/robinson-papers/2020/04/24/op-ed-bridge-history-its-time-immersed-tube-tunnel

This to me is a no-brainer – very cheap and quick (compared to a bridge), and extremely simple relative to a bridge.  Many many of these structures exist throughout the world as noted in the article, so it’s certainly not new technology.  Shoring up and potentially repairing the West Seattle Bridge will take time and funding that could apply to a submersible tunnel replacement.  Yet I see no mention of this technology in the bridge updates as a potential option being studied.  Just a) shoring, b) possible repair, and c) bridge replacement if a repair cannot be done.  If a submersible tunnel option will work, the $33M spent for shoring could be partially applied to straight immediate demolition, since a lot less planning would be required with demolition vs. shoring, then have money left over to start the submersible tunnel option.  The project then could be a) demolition, b) submersible tunnel replacement; instead of throwing shoring, possible repair, and bridge design/construction in there as well.  The submersible tunnel option certainly to me sounds quicker and cheaper.  At least it should be on the list of concepts to consider.

So this leads me to the “homeless” problem in the city.   The reason these two are related is because I’m still seeing reference to addressing Seattle’s “homeless” problem, in light of 20% of the City of Seattle being effectively cut off from the city.   To me – based on how much priority the city has been providing to this issue in the past – I’m afraid the “homeless” problem is going to continue to take and get a higher priority from the city than replacing the West Seattle Bridge.  If not a higher priority, then certainly a disproportionate percentage of priority vs. the absolute emergency West Seattle is facing right now with no West Seattle bridge. 

I moved to Seattle in 1985 from Ohio to take a job with Boeing right out of college.  I initially lived in Normandy Park for a few years, then moved to Arbor Heights when I got married and bought a house, then now to Genesee Hill since 1997.  All along these 35 years I would go downtown and occasionally see what then was considered “homeless” people, but in reality they were really just mentally ill people.  Every time I would encounter one on the streets there was always an element of mental illness in some way.  But still likely truly homeless - because they were mentally ill.  So hence that problem is not a “homeless” problem, but a “mentally ill/healthcare” problem.  Then eventually in addition to encountering these people on the city streets, I began to see blue tarps erected in various places on the edge of the downtown core.  Not many, but some.  Along the way a city official – Mark Sidran – tried to address what was happening to the city and tried to enforce what was happening on city streets with the “homeless” population, trying to keep it from degrading in to the appearance of a Third World country, but then he faded away.  Then over the last 10 years the blue tarps and parked RVs literally exploded everywhere – on the hillsides along I-5, along bike paths connecting the outskirts (like West Seattle) to the city, all over sidewalks down town, in some downtown parks, residential neighborhoods, etc., etc.  I began to think to myself – “are all these people really and truly ‘homeless’ ”?  How could so many people have had the misfortune of losing a job and their income, then not able to find a new job, then get evicted and have to live outside?  All the while during Seattle’s economic boom that rivaled any other economic expansion in the country?  How could that be?  I began to wonder just exactly what was happening here in Seattle with all these people living everywhere out in the open within our society that was flourishing economically.  I started to surmise that not everyone was “homeless” in the truest sense of the word as I described above, but instead choosing to live outside.

What I’ve seen about the catchall phrase “Homeless” situation – this issue can be broken down in to 3 categories based on my observations:

1. Truly “homeless” - as I described above – lost job, no income, evicted, no home.  An able bodied person who can have and hold a job, and who wants to get back to work and get back in to housing paid for from their own earnings.
2. Mentally Ill and/or Substance Abuse - a mentally ill or drug dependent person similar to 1) above, but is not able to have and hold a job, and likely does not want to get back to work even if they were offered a job.
3. Urban Camper – they have a job, they have income, and they can afford a normal apartment/housing within the established guidelines of housing cost relative to their income.  They choose instead to live in an RV or a blue tarp to avoid paying for housing so they can save money.

So out of the catchall phrase “homeless problem” that the city is working and spending to address – how many people are actually homeless as in category 1) above?  How many are really part of a “mental illness/healthcare problem” in category 2) above, and how many are in category 3) above and just simply taking advantage of the whole “homeless problem” situation and being allowed to live in an RV on the city’s streets or erect a tarp wherever they please just to save money?  As far as I can tell – the city doesn’t do anything to assess the breakdown of the “homeless problem” to really only address the people in category 1) above.   No city official analyzes the status/cashflow of every person living in an RV on the city’s streets or under a blue tarp.  They’re all just lumped in to “homeless”, and the City gives them a bye on the laws preventing urban camping and RVs parked on the city’s streets for several months or more.  If you remove the Urban Campers from category 3) above, forcing them to actually go get and pay for their own housing, and provide the necessary healthcare for the people in category 2) above, how many people would actually be left as truly “homeless” in category 1) above?  I have been thinking quite a small amount, but I never really had any data to back that up.  Until I saw a story about Emilee Broll.

I first saw Emilee Broll in an indie film about the Seattle homeless problem created by Tomasz Biernacki:

http://www.pechara.com/

Right there – at time 1:40 in the movie (at the beginning) – I saw the lady who lives in the RV I have always seen parked along my regular Alki bike route for the last several years.  It specifically noted in the movie that she is a full time Postal Carrier for the United States Post Office.  Right there was the data I was looking for to prove my theory that at least some percentage of “homeless” people are actually just living in an RV or under a tarp to save from paying for their own traditional housing.  “Urban Campers” if you will.  Looking up on the web the income a postal carrier earns, assuming the low end of the range in a benefit-of-the-doubt worst case scenario, Emilee could easily afford an apartment up to several hundred dollars per month and still stay within the 33% maximum amount allowed for housing relative to income.  But instead – she’s living in an RV on the streets and the City is allowing it, and she’s saving probably around $15,000/year doing it.   Not to mention – how many Postal Carriers do we have in the city of Seattle?  And then how many are living like Emilee in an RV or under a blue tarp?  I can’t imagine that there would be very many other postal carriers having to resort to living on the street because they can’t pay for any housing.  I think we would see a lot more postal carriers in the news if that was the case.  I know my own postal carrier not only is doing just fine with housing, but also has a boat and has a very comfortable lifestyle.    Considering the standard nature of the job of Postal Carrier – I can’t imagine too much of a spread between Postal Carriers on pay.  Emilee is a subset of society that has chosen to save money on housing, and live on the street in an RV.  Multiply Emilee by some number – those that are merely taking advantage of the City’s tolerance for this lifestyle – and you have some number of RVs and blue tarps across all of Seattle that makes Seattle look like a third world country in the shadows.   When the city doesn’t analyze this problem to really verify if someone really needs to live on the street (category 1 above) then the reality could be quite a large percentage are choosing to live in an RV or under a blue tarp just like Emilee. 

 

Then last Fall, the national news magazine “60 Minutes” did a piece on the Seattle “homeless” problem, and there was Emilee again:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/homeless-in-america-the-issues-forcing-people-in-seattle-onto-the-street-60-minutes-2019-12-01/

The interesting difference here with 60 Minutes reviewing Emilee vs. the piece on her in the Pechara Film by Tomasz Biernacki is – she did not have her RV parked at her normal permanent location along Alki for the 60 Minutes piece where she has been living for the past several years (2161 Alki Ave) like she did for the Pechara film Trickle Downtown.   Where it was parked for the 60 Minutes piece I don’t know, but she clearly portrayed herself as living in some other location for the 60 Minutes piece, then at the end of the piece it was reported (by Emilee) that she’s “moving out of Seattle to find cheaper rent” – when in fact she merely just relocated her RV back to 2161 Alki Avenue.  Clearly her whole spin in the 60 Minutes piece was “rent is too expensive in Seattle”.  But in the end she can afford it, hence she’s just choosing to save money by living in an RV.   If Emilee’s situation was truly all above board – then why did she not have 60 Minutes to their piece on her where she normally lives in her RV?  My only conclusion can be that she’s scamming the system to support her lifestyle.  

Emilee and others like her get to save $15,000/year in rent, and the city lets them park their RVs on the streets and erect their tarps wherever they want, and the Seattle “homeless” problem looks bigger than it truly is, and the City of Seattle focuses more time, energy, and money on this than they really need to.  

My wife and I travel quite a lot – even more so now that we’re retired.  Every city in the world I’ve ever been to in the last several years – I never see as many RVs and blue tarps as I do in Seattle.   In fact – I hardly ever see any large visible evidence of people living outside in all other cities in the world, except of course in Third World countries.  So if the Seattle “homeless problem” is legitimate – then why aren’t ALL cities experiencing the same rate of RVs and blue tarps in their societies?  All major cities have high housing costs.  This was especially evident and directly comparable to New York City.  New York City has approximately twice the cost of housing than Seattle, yet New York City spends half as much on their “homeless problem” per capita than Seattle does, and there’s very minimal evidence of any RVs or blue tarps anywhere in that city.  Think about that – their housing is twice as much as Seattle’s, they spend half as much per capita on their “homeless problem”, and yet visible evidence of it is almost non-existent.  That tells me the Seattle “homeless problem” is fundamentally flawed in it’s definition – it is not really the problem it is portrayed or appears to be.  Without true evidence of exactly how many people are like Emilee Broll – there could be quite a large majority living by choice in an RV or under a blue tarp to save money from paying for their own housing.  If those people were removed from the landscape and forced to pay for their own housing just like everyone else Seattle would appear like any other city – a very small amount of RVs and blue tarps visible in society. 

So why am I emailing you about the “homeless” problem and the West Seattle Bridge?  The apparent “homeless” problem when in fact many could be choosing that lifestyle like Emilee Broll has been forcing me to think about my future in the City of Seattle and that was before the closure of the West Seattle bridge.  I don’t want to live in a city with elements of a Third World country evident everywhere - we’ve been to various cities in Africa, India, and Argentina so we know what they look like.  Now with the closure of the West Seattle bridge – where 20% of the population of Seattle has been cut off from the City – I’m still seeing the usual headlines about the city tackling the “homeless” problem instead of a real emergency effort to replace the West Seattle bridge – which based on past similar city timelines likely will take more than 18 years, or quite possibly never occur at all (like in the case of the Magnolia bridge).    So with the continuing “homeless” tolerance and no West Seattle bridge for at least 18 years – our future is no longer in this city.  If I’m an example of the rest of West Seattle – cashflow from West Seattle, property values (which translates to tax assessments), jobs, sales tax revenue, etc., is certainly going to take a hit to the city’s finances.  

The City needs to clean up the streets and do what cities are normally supposed to do - provide basic infrastructure (roads) for commerce in a clean environment instead of prioritizing – legally and financially - people camping out everywhere across the city. 

 

Sincerely,

Tom Walton

West Seattle