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dmazeSo here I am over on the left coast, for my little cousin's wedding. (It was a nice wedding. Very scenic.) I've never been to Seattle before...
Scenicity. Seattle is very pretty. There's a quite high shoreline-to-land ratio, and lots of hills, and lots of trees. So even though WA-99 is an elevated highway along the waterfront on the west side of downtown, it's okay because several blocks in is several stories higher and there's still a nice view of the water from up a bit. The west end of I-90 has done pretty well on using trees to make a freeway-in-concrete-trench be moderately nice.
Roads. There's some amount of the "what the %@!#$ were they thinking" here. In particular, let's look at the express lanes on I-5 and I-90. There's a normal 4-lane half-a-freeway going north. And a normal 4-lane half-a-freeway going south. And a third 4-lane half-a-freeway, which depending on time of day goes either north or south. The "express lane" concept just seems bizarre, particularly given that it's not obvious where you can get off (and in particular, "I'm going all the way across the city" doesn't cut it) and that you get to see functional road signs in your rear-view mirror. There's also a lot of left entrances and exits, leading to a lot of "must cross four lanes of highway in half a mile".
Transit. There are lots of buses, maybe even as many as the T has. There's a tourist monorail which isn't particularly useful, and a bus tunnel that doesn't look particularly useful. There are several bus stops along freeways; are these useful? It's hard to tell from observation whether Seattle has a bus network or a transit system.
Sprawl. It's also tricky to tell how suburban Seattle gets. The main city is geographically constrained, and so there is a reasonably dense downtown area. (Pike Place Market is in this area, and there's lots walkable around there.) Places around seem to be moderately suburban, though not necessarily with the wide high-speed boulevards and office parks. Bellevue is just that suburban; in some ways areas like Ballard (part of Seattle but north of the main city) are more like rectilinear analogues of Camberville.
Microsoft. ("Eew! Get it off!") We stayed at a hotel in Bellevue, which apparently is the nearest hotel to Microsoft and the canonical hotel for interviewees to stay at. We got a quick tour of some of the campus. Very pretty, very nicely landscaped, nice water features. Your Windows tax has gotta go somewhere, I suppose a pretty office is a reasonable use.
Scenicity. Seattle is very pretty. There's a quite high shoreline-to-land ratio, and lots of hills, and lots of trees. So even though WA-99 is an elevated highway along the waterfront on the west side of downtown, it's okay because several blocks in is several stories higher and there's still a nice view of the water from up a bit. The west end of I-90 has done pretty well on using trees to make a freeway-in-concrete-trench be moderately nice.
Roads. There's some amount of the "what the %@!#$ were they thinking" here. In particular, let's look at the express lanes on I-5 and I-90. There's a normal 4-lane half-a-freeway going north. And a normal 4-lane half-a-freeway going south. And a third 4-lane half-a-freeway, which depending on time of day goes either north or south. The "express lane" concept just seems bizarre, particularly given that it's not obvious where you can get off (and in particular, "I'm going all the way across the city" doesn't cut it) and that you get to see functional road signs in your rear-view mirror. There's also a lot of left entrances and exits, leading to a lot of "must cross four lanes of highway in half a mile".
Transit. There are lots of buses, maybe even as many as the T has. There's a tourist monorail which isn't particularly useful, and a bus tunnel that doesn't look particularly useful. There are several bus stops along freeways; are these useful? It's hard to tell from observation whether Seattle has a bus network or a transit system.
Sprawl. It's also tricky to tell how suburban Seattle gets. The main city is geographically constrained, and so there is a reasonably dense downtown area. (Pike Place Market is in this area, and there's lots walkable around there.) Places around seem to be moderately suburban, though not necessarily with the wide high-speed boulevards and office parks. Bellevue is just that suburban; in some ways areas like Ballard (part of Seattle but north of the main city) are more like rectilinear analogues of Camberville.
Microsoft. ("Eew! Get it off!") We stayed at a hotel in Bellevue, which apparently is the nearest hotel to Microsoft and the canonical hotel for interviewees to stay at. We got a quick tour of some of the campus. Very pretty, very nicely landscaped, nice water features. Your Windows tax has gotta go somewhere, I suppose a pretty office is a reasonable use.
