A Queen Anne citizen writes of his attempt last Friday to take care of his banking, visit his hospitalized mother and pick up supplies for his work. He found Nickerson clogged from Fremont to SPU, stopped at Queen Anne Drive's access to Aurora, and backed up at West Mercer Place. More than an hour after leaving home he says "I gave up, did a U-turn at Elliot and West Mercer Place and came home."
Dear Citizen:
Thanks for you email, however it does raise a few questions.
I believe we are required to be sustainable to the smallest unit possible so your initial error was in leaving your house, not just Queen Anne. And, yes, you did mention walking several times. Need I point out that was to your car and not to public transportation? Surely you put your mother in a hospital convenient to a trolley.
Preparation will help should your mother need to be taken to the doctor or hospital following her current stay. Keep transit schedules on hand for the routes from your house to your mother's residence and from there to clinics or hospitals. Metro does accommodate wheel chairs if necessary. Alert her to the travel time involved so she can call you early. Then you will have time to catch and transfer buses, trolleys and trains if your help is needed in an emergency.
While City Hall does not approve of traveling to get supplies, or of operating a private business for that matter, it is tolerated. But, please, in the future carry those supplies with you on the bus. If that will not work, trailers are available for bicycles. There are other benefits too. This will help you meet upcoming government requirements that you send a 1099 tax form to everyone you have ever met. Limiting your access to suppliers shortens that mailing list.
I will not ask if you are driving to your job-site on Monday with tools and supplies because you are too sensitive a citizen to offend Mayor McGinn to such a degree. It would be best if you would change your business model so that your income is from paying yourself to work on your own house. This may not seem to be viable but many government economists say that it works fine in theory.
It does eliminate any number of offensives to political sensibilities and you will be able to sell your vehicles and keep that Orca card filled up. On second thought, if you sell your vehicles, someone else may drive them so we have solved nothing. Better they go to a recycling center. As I recall you own no limousines otherwise they could be donated to supplement the fleet used by our bureaucrats and elected officials.
I've avoided mention of an activity that our betters at City Hall may find most offensive but can do so no longer. You write of visiting not one, but two banks.
I realize it is a serious charge but I fear you may not have been there to make wire transfers to the Seattle city treasurer. I hope I'm wrong but many still harbor the seditious idea that they work first for themselves and their families and not for our collective good as represented by City Hall.
Such sentiment must be rooted out. There are massive projects to be done, new rules to be implemented, a bureaucracy that must continue growing and streets to be re-striped. Such middle-class ideas are impediments to achieving Mayor McGinn's green nirvana. Remember the mayor prefers gridlock so, please, no dissent. It confuses him.[[In-content Ad]]
