Many thanks to the Vespa Club of Seattle for inviting me to their monthly meeting this past Tuesday night at Cafe Racer. I love any meeting that's conducted with beverages and chili. I also love any meeting that gathers together people who want to make a difference. The Vespa Club of Seattle invited me to connect with them and look for ways to advance the cause of safe mobility for the motorized, two-wheeled set in Seattle. Personally, I've never ridden a scooter or a motorcycle and I was raised to fear them. I may overcome that and join them, though, as scootering presents a viable alternative to the automobile. They're cheaper as far as initial investment; certainly use less fuel; newer scooters are getting increasingly cleaner in terms of particulate emissions; and they take up less parking real estate. The challenges are obvious. You're on a small vehicle seemingly invisible to many automobile drivers. Many people consider Vespas and the like "cute," but not serious transportation. You're exposed to the elements. Others can simply pick up and move your scooter if they want your parking space.

I'm psyched to work with the scooter people on making it safer in Seattle. Watch for details on a "scooter summit" in 2008. We're talking a lot about pedestrian safety and bicycling in the City. Let's add scooters to the mix. Check out Vespa Club news.

Just to be clear, the effects of predatory lending are no laughing matter. Too many people in our area will lose their homes due to financing arrangements they were assured they'd never have to face or, worse, clauses in contracts they never fully understood. "Mike in Laurelhurst" read about the Council's resolution calling on the feds to take action to both stem predatory lending practices and assist people preyed upon. He sent the link below to a site he and a team have built to shine the bright light of irony on the problem. It's a very well done site. The site isn't funny in the "ha ha" kind of way, more in the "I can't believe this got this far" kind of way. Check it out and be appalled.

Perhaps you're interested in how condominium conversions are measuring up this year compared to last. Conversion requests are tracked by the City's department of Planning & Development as owner/developers come in for permits. In 2004 we saw 430 apartment units convert to condominiums. In 2005 that number jumped to 1,551. Last year the number jumped again to 2,352. So far in 2007? Through the end of September 1,550 units have converted from rental to ownership. I have to imagine we'll exceed the 2005 total. The real estate economists say this shrinking of the rental base creates unmet demand for rentals and, after a little lag time, production of rental units. The tightening of home mortgage rules probably also keeps more people looking for rentals rather than stretching to buy.

Interesting information and useful as we debate how to create more opportunities for people to find housing they can afford in the city.

For many years neighborhood residents and businesses have had the opportunity to nominate pedestrian safety projects to the City through a program called the Neighborhood Street Fund (NSF). The City builds ped projects all the time, but most are part of bigger plans and lists developed over years. It is impossible for City Hall to know about all the great neighborhood projects and priorities. Through NSF, people annually nominate projects (e.g. ideas for new sidewalks, traffic circles, speed humps, curbing, and other ideas to make streets safer for pedestrians, bicyclists and neighbors), and city staff review them for technical points and cost estimates. Neighborhood groups then prioritize the projects, and the city funds as many as the funding will allow. Every year a few dozen projects in the range of $10,000 to maybe $80,000 and more get accomplished around the city totaling around $1.2 million yearly.

Pretty cool, except that the list of pedestrian improvement ideas is l-o-n-g. Thanks to Seattle voters last November who approved the Bridging the Gap transportation maintenance levy, there's now more money to fund these kinds of projects -- and the City just announced the first projects to receive funding.

When the Mayor first proposed Bridging the Gap, I was concerned. I thought the package did a great job on big bridge and street maintenance, but I thought it should make more money available for neighborhoods to direct. I put forward the idea and Council required that $1.5 million be added every year to the NSF. Seattle Department of Transportation has taken that "extra" NSF money from Bridging the Gap and built a variation on the original. Every year there are projects that wash out of the regular NSF program because they're bigger and more expensive than other projects and would suck up the funding. SDOT is now pooling three years worth of the new NSF in order to build a $4.5 million fund for bigger, more expensive, neighborhood-nominated pedestrian safety projects. The Mayor kicked in an additional $1.5 million in his proposed 2008 budget for a total pool of $6 million for these projects from 2008-2010.

Neighborhoods sent in their nominations this summer, staff reviewed and helped refine the proposals, and voila! Out of 150 nominated projects, 17 will be built over the next three years. Click here to see the list of projects all over the city.

The process SDOT used for this first crack at the new money may have been a little clunky, but I think we can learn from it for the next set of projects. Thanks to everyone who nominated a project and who helped to review and rate the projects!