Winter Is Coming

Dear Diary,

Do you expect King County to reach Phase 3 and public buildings to re-open before spring of 2021?  Sorry, but I don't.  Now, coming from Wisconsin I don't really think Seattle has a winter - by my standards, February through May is spring, June through September summer, and October through January autumn.  But each of the past two years we've had a week or two of snow, and this time's supposed to be a La Niña, meaning colder and wetter.  So even by my standards, some sort of winter is probably going to happen before we're all happily vaccinated.

So I think it's worth returning to this November 2019 document, listing park restrooms meant to stay open last winter.  It is, of course, possible that this winter, more restrooms will have been winterised, but I haven't so far seen any sign of that.

I know of three parks whose restrooms are currently open 24 hours in North Seattle - Gas Works Park, View Ridge Playfield, and one I haven't introduced yet.  I suspect but do not know that Green Lake Park may be another.  Ballard Commons is sometimes listed as one more, but only has "sanican"s.  Fortunately, all of these are due to remain open except the one I haven't named.

Otherwise.  For the southeastern part of "NE", we have Laurelhurst Community Center, lower Ravenna Park, and further north Dahl Playfield and the beach restrooms at Magnuson Park, besides View Ridge.  Elsewhere in "NE" we have Maple Leaf Reservoir Park, Matthews Beach, Jackson Park (different hours), and the playground-side restrooms at Northacres Park.

In "N", besides Green Lake and Gas Works, there's Wallingford Playfield, some of the restrooms in the eastern part of Woodland Park, and presumably at least some of those in the Woodland Park Zoo (they haven't gotten back to me).  Not much at the north end of "N".

In "NW", Carkeek Park, both sets of restrooms at Golden Gardens Park, and Loyal Heights Community Center seem to be it.  I have no idea why the restrooms at Ballard Community Center should close, but they aren't on last year's list.  (Unless they're what the listing of Ballard Commons actually means.)  This represents a real shortage at the south end of "NW", for which the limited hours at the Ballard branch of the Seattle Public Library will hardly compensate.

Keep in mind, also, that all bets are off if it snows seriously, since all except the 24-hour restrooms need to be opened daily.

That said, this is far better than the water fountain story.  Northacres Park's playground-side fountains are the only winterised ones I found in North Seattle.

My theory is that the reason nothing has been done about this this year has to do with the fact that Seattle also hasn't done much to house us homeless this year.  The idea is that we'll all keep warm hiking to Northacres Park for water (let alone lugging it back) so we won't need housing.  It's so good that our mayor always has our best interests at heart.