Transit Nerds Taking Over Town Hall Tonight

Transportation nerds, civics geeks and mayor's office moles will all likely be in attendance tonight for the People's Waterfront Coalition's event at Town Hall with John Norquist (former mayor of Milwaukee, New Urbanist type), Scott Bernstein (Brookings Institute Center for Urban and Metropolitan Policy), Anne Vernez Moudon (UW professor of Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and Urban Design and Planning), Bruce Agnew (Cascadia Center, Discovery Institute) and David Brewster (founded Town Hall, founded Seattle Weekly). That's a lot of expertise in one room, even for Town Hall. They're going to talk about the impact of replacing elevated highways with grade-level streets in presentation and discussion formats.

At least one transportation nerd won't be there; Sadly we're not going to make it (I'm not going to make it - Hopefully one of us will be there, ahem, mvb). Tomorrow is a new day, though, and a new opportunity. If you can't make the Town Hall gig tonight at 7:30 a group of sympathetic City Council members (Steinbruek, Conlin, Drago) are hosting Norquist for a brown bag special tomorrow from 12 to 1:30. Councilman David Della apparently won't be joining those three in annointing Norquist our new patron saint of transportation. In a recent P-I editorial he blamed the destruction of the Embarcadaro for making San Fran a "city of the very rich, the very poor and tourists." David, we're already a city of very rich, very poor and tourists so what do we have to fear? Admittedly you are getting screwed on the retrofit study, though. For those that missed that one, the group that was assigned to study the viability of a viaduct retrofit (and deemed it not viable) has been assigned, again, to study the viability of a viaduct retrofit. Wonder what their verdict will be this time!

Where Seattle Meets the Water: Expressway or Avenue?
$5
Town Hall
7:30-9:00 tonight

Highways to Boulevards: What happens to the traffic?
$free
City Hall 2nd floor Council Chamber
Noon-1:30 Tuesday