Abandoned Pages, part V: Other Cities

Dear Diary,

This next project is one I'm really not sure about resuming.  So let's take it through the format and see if that sheds any light on the decision.

Why?

On impulse, I hiked across Tacoma in July 2021, and discovered that such impulses could be surprisingly dangerous, because although I passed many major parks, none had water fountains available.

What?

I was going to apply my methods to accessible cities of over 100,000 people, so as not to punch down too much.  Just go there and see what I found.

Cities that large in Washington, other than Seattle:

• Spokane, very unlikely to be accessible
• Tacoma, accessible
• Vancouver, unlikely to be accessible
• Bellevue, accessible
• Kent, accessible
• Everett, accessible
• Renton, accessible
• Spokane Valley, very unlikely to be accessible
• Federal Way, accessible

Why not?

I'll let my slightly younger self answer that.  As hinted in part II of this page, I took two project management classes earlier this year, and early in one we were supposed to pick a project gone wrong and explain how it had done so.

Insufficient Research and Data:  "The Grass Isn't Always Greener", My Seattle Parks Diary, July 2021

... I hiked North Seattle parks three times in 2020-2021, before I got housed, mostly pushing a shopping cart ... to hold all my food and bedding, with the help of a battery ... to recharge my phone. ...  But then I did get housed, and ... felt pretty cocky.  That summer, following an unbelievably parched hike across Tacoma, I decided to go visit other large cities in the area and see how they handled running water accessible to homeless people during the still-raging pandemic.  On my first visit to Tacoma for this planned thread ... I visited a bunch of parks, took lots of photos, actually found a few running water fountains.  And missed the last bus to Seattle.  Which meant I got to spend the night in a park without any bedding, and also without a battery to recharge my phone.  Oh, but it doesn't end there.  In the morning I found that I was miles from the nearest grocery, and once I finally got breakfast, I gave up.  See, I'd never actually grasped the lesson of that unbelievably parched hike.  When I later ran the numbers, it turned out all the large cities in the vicinity have much lower population densities than Seattle.  They're more spread out, and so are their grocery stores and water fountains, and for that matter their parks.  They are, in other words, intrinsically less amenable to my methods, which really amounted to just hiking; they're places made for drivers, and I've never learnt to drive. [1]

What now?

The obvious solution is transportation.

The question is whether it'd be worth it.  Recall, dear Diary, that we're unlikely to see any more water fountains encased in garbage bags.  We already know that, five years ago, Tacoma had way too few water fountains.  What else would justify these hikes?

Transportation is also problematic.  I don't expect to have money for taxis until I'm out of school.  I'm picky about bicycles, and electrical transport relies on charging.  And nothing is as safe as a car.  This will come up again later, re "The Counties of Western Washington".

If any of your readers, dear Diary, actually want this project revived, they'd best say so, and make good arguments for it.

[1] My mother wouldn't let me take driver's education in high school, because having a male teenaged driver in the house would drive up her insurance rates.  I never put together money and time to pay for adult driver's education until she died and the inheritance started coming, in 2004.  And before I did that, I noticed my reaction times were already much slower than they had been, and gave up.