What the Hell's Going on with Road Repair, Greg?
The failing state of the roads on Capitol Hill (and maybe all over Seattle, we just happen to spend most of our time cursing Capitol Hill potholes) has been getting to us the last few days. Biking around, we're spending as much time avoiding potholes that will swallow our front tire as sleep-deprived drivers on cell phones. We wanted to get a photo to illustrate what we're talking about, and the only issue was, which huge pothole would it be?
Should we bike down 17th or 16th (by Trader Joe's), 15th (by the QFC), 14th (by the Coffee Co.) or 13th? We decided on 13th. This one's dug in between Pine and Olive. What a beauty. But that's just potholes. There are also cracked, heaved sections that run for blocks, asphalt rumpled by buses and trucks starting and stopping on hills, pre-pothole dips that drop three or four inches on you--making for exciting night-time bike rides as our handlebars occasionally try to break our wrists.
We don't think this is doing anything good for cars, either, except sell SUVs and anything else with a truck's clearance and heavy-duty suspension.
Over the weekend (here it comes) we were down biking around southeast Portland. Things are different there. We can't complain about the road conditions, for one. For another, they have these things called bike boxes at stoplights, so bikes can pull up and not risk getting creamed by a car making a sudden right-hand turn. But mainly--we're not starry-eyed dreamers--we just wouldn't complain about the road conditions. They weren't new, but they weren't a quilt of failing patches, either.
We're not sure where the Pothole Rangers have been hiding out, but it doesn't matter. All of these streets have passed their expiration date. (We won't get into the sidewalks.) And now there's a whole hill's worth of them, ready to open up a huge pothole in the City's budget.
