A Requiem for Seventy-Seven Bus Stops, part VII: The Route 28 north of NW 97th Street; also, beaches and buses

Dear Diary,

No, I didn't sleep enough.  How about you?

Anyway, though, this is the last big heave of this page.  I want to talk not only about the sad collection of stops closing in the far northwest, but also about beaches, and bus service thereto.

I visited most of these stops on Saturday morning, then went back Monday afternoon, having found that Open Street Map maps three stops I'd ignored.  One of those, however, turned out not to be closing, because it's also a stop on the route D.  I also had doubts that two other stops (which I hadn't ignored) were really closing, but that was because I was applying the wrong standard of evidence to the new schedule; I should've been using preponderance of the evidence, not beyond a reasonable doubt.

See, the map shows a transfer point, no less, at NW 100th Place and 7th Avenue NW.

However, the schedule clarifies:  northbound trips end at that stop, stop #28680, where people can indeed transfer (to the route D).  But southbound trips, having turned at 3rd Ave NW and then at Holman Road NW, can't reach the stops across the street from the transfer point, and so they start instead at NW 97th Street:

This is apparently the way the route has worked ever since the extension north became a commuter-only route, which may be all the way back to when it started, for all I know.  (This extension is on the 1973 transit map but not the 1970 one.  The 28 reached NW 105th Street by the time of the 1965 map, but not further north.)  For some reason, none of my copies of the schedule map the Holman-route turn-around used by the non-commuter runs.  Now that every single run uses that turn-around, though, there's no excuse for not showing it.

As before, the links in the lists of stops go to my Google Drive, to folders there containing at least one photo of each stop listed.

Anyway.  The stops:

3rd Avenue NW

Northbound, three stops:

• Stop #28890, north of NW 143rd Street.
• Stop #28880, north of NW 140th Street.
• Stop #28870, north of NW 137th Street.

Southbound, three stops:

• Stop #27790, south of NW 145th Street.
• Stop #27810, just south of NW 140th Street.  A photo of a bus stop with none of the amenities I'm following:
  
  
  
  
• Stop #27820, just south of NW 137th Street.
   

NW 132nd Street

Northbound, one stop:

• Stop #28850, halfway between 4th Avenue NW and 3rd Avenue NW.
  

Southbound, one stop:

• Stop #27840, just west of 3rd Avenue NW.  This is one of the two closing stops on this route that I missed on Saturday.
  

8th Avenue NW

Northbound, two stops:

• Stop #28830, south of NW 132nd Street.
• Stop #28810, just north of NW 127th Street.
  

Southbound, two stops:

• Stop #27860, further south of NW 132nd Street.
• Stop #27880, south of NW 127th Street.
  

NW 125th Street

Northbound, two stops:

• Stop #28800, just east of 8th Avenue NW.
• Stop #28780, just east of Eldorado Lane NW.  This is the other stop that's actually closing that I missed on Saturday, probably because my attention was on a chat with a resident across the street.  While I was photographing it on Monday evening, the 28 bus actually pulled up and stopped.  I saw plenty of 20 buses while walking that route; few 73 buses Saturday evening, but several yesterday; but that was the only commuter bus I saw.  I wasn't on the 322's route at the right times, either Sunday or yesterday.
  

Southbound, one stop:

• Stop #27890, east of 8th Avenue NW.  At this stop, someone had recently installed a new cement pavement.  (Most, but not all, of the stops north of this one are unpaved, like stop #27810 above.)  Who paid for that apron, the home-owner, Metro, or someone else?  What will become of it now?  Does the home-owner get to use it for a grill, or for outdoor parties?
  

3rd Avenue NW

Northbound, five stops:

• Stop #28760, north of NW 120th Street.  This is the first, in this part, of four stops, both northbound and southbound, that have a rather bizarre appurtenance - I can't bring myself to call it an amenity.  Each of these stops has some fencing, of the same kind at each, clearly related to the stop, not the nearby residences.  I have no idea what it's for; it's hard to imagine crowd control ever being called for at the stops in question.
  
• Stop #28750, north of NW 117th Street.  117th is the northernmost route into Carkeek Park along public streets (as opposed to private back yards).
  
• Stop #28740, north of NW 115th Street.
• Stop #28720, north of NW 110th Street.  110th is the middle route into Carkeek Park along public streets.
  
• Stop #28700, north of NW 105th Street, and across the street from Viewlands Elementary School.  Also has fencing, not arranged in any plausible manner for student crowd control; just two panels, one leaning on the other.  This is the southernmost northbound stop closing.
  

Southbound, six stops:

• Stop #27910, some way south of NW 125th Street.  This is the northernmost of three southbound stops along this route that have benches.  While I was photographing this stop, a gentleman came out of the adjacent house and started discussing the closures with me.  He pointed out that it's fine for people on 3rd Avenue to walk over to Greenwood Avenue N, as the rider alert signs suggest, but that 8th Avenue NW is downhill from 3rd.  Were bus riders there supposed to walk five additional blocks uphill?  He said he'd written a letter.  I tend to think of commuter buses, buses that go only one direction in the morning, and only the opposite direction at night, as second-class bus service for a neighbourhood, but evidently there's a wide gulf between second-class and nothing at all, and people who live along commuter bus only streets are well aware of that gulf.
• Stop #27930, just north of NW 120th Street.
• Stop #27940, south of NW 117th Street.  Again, access (though difficult) to Carkeek Park.
• Stop #27950, just south of the line of NW 115th Street.  Has fencing.
  
• Stop #27970, just north of NW 110th Street.  Has a bench.  Again, difficult access to Carkeek Park.
• Stop #27990, just north of NW 105th Street.  Adjacent to Viewlands school.

NW 103rd Street

Southbound, one stop:

• Stop #28000, some ways west of 3rd Avenue NW.  Has both a bench and fencing:
  
  
  

NW 100th Place

Southbound, two stops:

• Stop #28010, just northeast of 7th Avenue NW.  On Saturday I was stunned and more than a little displeased to find that what I'd thought would be the first working stop is instead slated for closure.  Only when I reached 97th Street did I learn that the 28 is only hourly on weekends anyway.  I ended up walking all the way to NW 85th Street, going to a rummage sale along the way, and still made it just as the 28 did.  This stop is the nearest to the street access (6th Avenue NW) to the Eddie McAbee Entrance to Carkeek Park, which involves a whole lot more dirt trail than the NW 110th and 117th streets entrances mentioned above.  The stop across the street from this, which is not closing, is the remaining shred of an excuse Metro has for claiming that the 28 reaches Carkeek Park.  See not far below.
  
• Stop #28020, west and a little north of the intersection of 8th Avenue NW and NW 100th Street.
  

Beaches and buses

Two days before I started you, dear Diary, and a month after the March 13, 2020 lockdowns, Cliff Mass wrote a blog post arguing that outdoor air was safer than indoor air, and, essentially, that it was classist and ableist to close the parks, as was happening in many parts of the US, including (for large parks) Seattle.  It's probable that that post contributed to my decision to start you.

On July 1, 2020, I wrote in you, dear Diary, about Golden Gardens and Carkeek Parks for the first time.  I cited Cliff Mass's post, and then wrote:

"It's piffle anyway.  Seattle is a progressive city, no more capable of classism or ableism than of racism.  Next thing you know, someone will claim the President behaved badly."

Nota bene, at the time the United States President was the esteemed Donald Trump, not the current incumbent.  Anyway, I went on to suggest that if the powers that be really wanted to put a spike in Prof. Mass's argument, they should put a bus up Seaview Avenue NW.

I then wrote to Prof. Mass, saying I'd disagreed with him, and giving him the URL.  Some time later, I discovered he'd killfiled me:  I could no longer either e-mail him or comment on his blog posts.

Whatever that says about his sense of humour (well, there's a reason I stopped writing you all that satirically, dear Diary), I think this is a good occasion to say it straight:

Yes, there actually should be a bus up Seaview Ave NW, and into Golden Gardens Park, as there was from 1977 through September 2012, although toward the end of that time Metro had so completely lost the plot that the route 46 was, guess what? a commuter bus, Mondays through Fridays only.

And there should be, not just a bus that gets a rider within a mile or two of hiking to Carkeek Park's beach, but one that actually goes up NW Carkeek Park Road.  The beach itself is only reachable by stairs, but they're planning to build a new beach access soon, and dollars to doughnuts that'll have an accessible path too.  But instead Metro is getting rid of the risibly poor substitute they provided, that never got within a mile of Carkeek Park Road.

And there should be a bus that goes not just all the way down NE 65th Street, but then up Lake Shore Drive NE in Magnuson Park, all the way to the beach.  Just as if Magnuson Park existed in the same physical reality as the rest of North Seattle.

The lack of beach access by bus, all across North Seattle, isn't precisely ableist:  as far as I know, disabled people can use Metro's Access vans to reach beaches.  (Except, so far and probably for a few more years, Carkeek Park's beach.)  But it is ageist and it is classist.  And it contributes to parking problems well documented in signage all along Seaview, and about which I wrote in "Escaping Carkeek Park".

I don't get it.  This is the agency that invented Trailhead Direct.  So they can work with parks.  What do they have against beaches?  Is it illegal fires?  Who's more likely to start illegal fires at Golden Gardens - arrogant young people who drove there in cars that can carry wood or coal and kindling, or impoverished old people grateful to get to go there at all by bus?  Is it the near-nudity?  We'll get back to that in the last part of this page, but I'd hope not.

It would be stupid of me to expect my words, your pages, dear Diary, to have any direct impact, but all we can do is keep trying.  In any event, we're almost done.  28 stops on the route 20; 14 stops on the route 73 on 15th Avenue NE; 29 stops on the route 28 - that's 71.  There are six stops left, three of which are only route 322 stops, three of which are also route 73 stops as route 73 is (for a few more days) currently configured.  Soon.  Happy minutes or hours until then.

An Update to "A Sweep"

Dear Diary,

Well, I may have survived what indeed proved to be an infection with COVID-19 - if I had to guess, with the omicron variant.  In any event, I didn't work on any of your at-home pages, dear Diary, while sick, so still have them all to do.  But now that I've returned to work, I have an update for you on the rocks whose quiet retirement some of my former peers were so rude as to disrupt for the sake of something so trivial as shelter.

Yes, that's right, those rocks are now protected from human beings by a fence!  Isn't Seattle a wonderfully kind and compassionate city?

Unfortunately, the fence is only temporary, even by humans' standards, let alone rocks'.  So I'm not at all sure these rocks will be protected long term from those so wicked as to want protection from the weather.

All for now, dear Diary.  I hope soon, though, finally to tell you about Lezlie Lowe's book No Place to Go.  Until then, a good night and good days.

Seattle's water fountains and the June heat wave

Dear Diary,

In today's Seattle Times, a front page story indicates shut-off water fountains (sigh, park drinking water fountains) as one of Seattle's heat wave preparation failures.  Now, you and I documented those shut off fountains in May, but a comment on one of your pages, dear Diary, and a fountain I've observed repeatedly for myself, but not yet told you about, showed that during June, the city had turned at least a few more on.  And after the heat wave, we've found and revealed numerous park fountains on that were off in May.

Furthermore, Seattle Public Utilities, before the heat wave, published a pseudo-map of running street water fountains.  It was incomplete, and it lied some, as I've documented since belatedly learning of it, but most of the fountains it lists that I've checked both exist and were running when I found them, as were a bunch of the fountains it omitted.

From my perspective, having followed Seattle's water fountains desultorily for years and rather more assiduously for the past year-and-some, Seattle's water fountain response to the heat wave wasn't a failure.  It may not have been any better than a C, but it wasn't a failure, and at the very least, post-heat wave, Seattle is heading towards an A.  (It is not, in this case, stupid to close the barn door only after the horses escape.  There could very well be more heat waves this summer.)

Let's back out.  The excuse officials have used, probably coast to coast, but certainly around here, to save on water bills by shutting off drinking water fountains, is a valid excuse, it just isn't a good one.  Early in the pandemic, dear Diary, even later than when you were born, it was accepted wisdom that COVID-19 could be spread by touching a surface on which the virus was concentrated.  This is what underlies the mania for sanitiser that has driven much of this country's hygiene theatre this past year and more, for example.  This accepted wisdom was wrong, however, or at least beside the point:  maybe it really is possible to catch COVID-19 by touching infected surfaces, but it's much easier to catch it by breathing, and that's how the vast majority of patients caught it and are still catching it.  You may remember, dear Diary, that at the same time as this touch thing was believed, we were also being told not to mask.  That's how committed, in particular, the CDC was to the touch theory.

Even after the CDC backed down, which it did far too late last year, it continued to represent the touch theory in its detailed pages, notably those relevant to outdoor water fountains.  My belief is that it did so because what those pages actually called for was frequent cleaning ("at least daily"), and cleanliness is next to godliness anyway.  Yes, I really think the CDC maintained that advice, thus justifying this year's Durkan Drought, on the basis of something that unrelated to COVID-19 and unresponsive to strained municipal budgets.  Most of the advice in the main page cited in this context isn't really relevant to outdoors (the rarity of outdoor transmission is another thing the CDC was slow to admit), but when I researched this on May 18, a more often updated FAQ specifically recommended against trying to disinfect sidewalks.  However, a page about buildings, of all things, gives reasonably clear outdoor-specific instructions, and backs up this idea of washing outdoor water fountains.

Now, dear Diary, if any of your readers have been checking those links, they've found that the main page about parks, the first link in the previous paragraph, has effectively been cancelled.  It's "no longer being updated".  The Internet Archive shows that this notice was inserted sometime between June 9 and June 24 of this year.  Far too late, but still before the heat wave.  A city that was thinking of publicly available water as a Good Thing, that it should try to offer its citizens, would have checked that page regularly, and noticed that notice before I did so this morning.  For all my complaints about Seattle's policy throughout the pandemic, it seems clear that Seattle did that, hence the changes announced in June and those I've found so far in July.

It's hard for me to believe that I'm defending the City of Seattle, on water fountains, against my friends at the Seattle Times, but it's true, dear Diary.  Now let me recover from that shock for a while before explaining how Tacoma's response has differed.

More details of yesterday's hike

Dear Diary,

Now that I can write in you from my laptop again, it turns out I already told you everything that mattered from Saturday's hike in "NE" and elsewhere.

My plan for yesterday's hike was actually more ambitious than just for "NW", but, well, I haven't hiked for you in summer before, dear Diary, and as I should've remembered from long summer hikes in years past, I don't move as fast when it's hot out.

Anyway, there are some things worth mentioning from the parks of southern "NW".

I'm sure you remember, dear Diary, but perhaps people who read you need to know that all the photos of running (or not) water fountains and open (or closed) restroom doors are in a public Google Drive folder.  All these photos are dated partly by including the relevant day's newspaper, and photos of those newspapers' front pages, for comparison, are in a sub-folder titled, um, "Front pages".

Golden Gardens Park

The park's hours are being cut, lumped in with Alki as a violent beach (apparently for good reason).  Before the pandemic, the park was open the usual schedule, 4 A.M. to 11:30 P.M.  During the lockdowns, it was one of the parks whose closing time changed every few months.  And now that that's apparently over, it isn't going back to normal, but to the less common standard schedule, 6 A.M. to 10 P.M.:

In more pleasant news, the external water supply that enables showering has definitely been turned on.  I saw the lower spigot used, and the amount of wet pavement, plus an actual puddle (not shown in this photo), near the spigots makes it plain:

The only water fountain I found that I couldn't elicit water from yesterday was here.  I'm pretty sure it wasn't running, and it had a hole in it that suggests it was disabled, but based on a previous photo, it has an unusual control:

Yesterday I didn't notice that control:

Okay, looks like I didn't ignore that dial, but rather it was actually missing.  The thing intruding into the lower photo's bottom is one of the earpieces on my glasses.

Loyal Heights Community Center and Playfield

At the Community Center, child care is still the main thing going on.  As a result, during summer at least, the entire upper half of the Playfield, which was a construction site when I last visited, has replaced construction's metal fences with orange plastic fences.  Nobody showed hostility to my photographing the water fountain.  But remember, children are still ineligible to get vaccinated, so for them, the pandemic is still in full swing.  I saw a sign urging that park visitors mask up and keep distant, and couldn't justify photographing it as an oddity.  Anyone who visits upper Loyal Heights Playfield anytime soon should mask up and keep distant.

On the other hand, this sign still stuck to the fence of the playfield proper, lower down, is surely past its time:

Is anyone really going to try to close a park in Seattle this summer because it's busy?

The water fountain attached to the Community Center, but in the lower half of the Playfield, is running, but its drain seems to be clogged.  The bowl was full the entire time I was there:

Webster Park

The water fountain which only supplied a trickle of water all last year is now actually running properly:

Seattle Public Library, Ballard branch

This time, the door to the restrooms appeared to be locked, as on a previous visit, but the security guy was right next to the door, ready to let people in.  On the other hand, that won't last much longer:

Now, naively, this looks like bad news.  But the restrooms at Ballard Community Center are open, if not too reliably on Sundays.  Or if one specifically wants library restrooms, the Green Lake branch is open Mondays, and the Northeast and University branches are open Sundays.  And,y'know, the libraries have been expanding their hours every couple of weeks; it's possible, if somewhat unlikely, that by July 21st, the Ballard branch will actually be open seven days per week.

Or, of course, people could just discipline themselves not to need restrooms on Sundays and Mondays.  Isn't self-discipline what homeless people need most anyway?

Speaking of downtown Ballard and homeless self-discipline, during my visit to Ballard Commons yesterday, I didn't hear any yelling or arguments.  How unusual.

The Burke-Gilman Trail

In Seattle Public Utilities's pseudo-map of street water fountains, one is listed with an address of "6049 Seaview Ave."  Now, assuming this to mean Seaview Ave NW, it turns out 6049 is a real address, quite a few yards north of the NW 60th St Viewpoint:

It's private property.  I didn't see any water fountains, street-style or no, in any of the areas more or less publicly accessible, nor on the verge.  There is a street fountain on Seaview, but it's half a mile south, near the NW 57th St Street End, and also on the Burke-Gilman Trail, which in the relevant block is the sidewalk on the south side of Seaview.

Mind, SPU has done something rather impressive here.  That fountain had been knocked over and eviscerated by metal thieves.  It takes some guts to put another in the exact same place.  But I don't understand why they're advertising the wrong location for it.  Metal thieves are very unlikely to consult SPU press releases to find targets.

 

Anyway, the new fountain's water is good.

OK, that seems to be it for yesterday's hike.  Something different soon, dear Diary.  Until then, happy days and good nights.

On Release

Dear Diary,

Now that I'm fully vaccinated, in principle it's simple.

People still in masks might be vaccine-hesitant, for which they might have good reasons; or they might be vaccinated but scared anyway, for which they might have good reasons.  I worry about how long those people will feel the need to mask up, but in any event, it's common courtesy to continue to stay away from these people.

People unmasked like me might be fully vaccinated like me, or might be Trumpian never-maskers, never-vaxxers.  The former are unlikely to catch COVID-19 from me and the latter deserve to.  So I shouldn't need any of what's now called social distancing (I used to call it hygiene discipline as I practised it at UW when homeless and smelly) with these people.

But it's all kinds of more complicated than that in practise.

I never seriously considered staying masked on my hikes.  (Except when walking into the restrooms, or running hike-unrelated errands.)  I currently own three pairs of glasses.  I think I had two pairs when I came to Seattle in 2006.  One was broken sometime beyond memory, one lens split into two, so although I still have it, it really can't be worn.  The other, also broken but only in the frame, was stolen in mid-2014, as narrated in  "Stealing from the Homeless".  As also narrated there, this resulted in Sound Eye and Laser giving me a pair, the second pair I now own.  In late 2016, I went to one of the giant United Way-sponsored medical events at Seattle Center, and got a pair of bifocals, which came in a wonderfully sturdy glasses case.  The bifocals encountered an angry drunk fairly early in 2017, and can only hold together with tape.  So the 2012 pair went into the sturdy glasses case, and became my default glasses, until in late 2020 they encountered an angry mask.  By this point I'd forgotten that glasses have to be taped, so when Superglue failed, I just stuck them into the sturdy glasses case only to be removed on special occasions.

Anyway, though, in February I was in a carpeted motel room, and I experimented.  Both of my broken but whole pairs fogged up when worn with masks.  On top of that, one was broken by a mask, so I really don't trust masks with my glasses.  But I did re-learn how to tape glasses.

Since I value eyesight, then, I was never going to stay masked outside once the vaccine released me.

But it turns out I often have to get my glasses out of the way when taking photos on my phone.

And I have to mask up when going into restrooms, let alone when running errands, or taking buses at the beginning or end of the hike.  Which means handling the mask every freaking time.  And I also need to eat and drink while on those hikes.  I'm just choosing to ignore it, to assume that the outside of my current mask is not actually a foetid midden but an ordinary piece of cloth.  But what if I'm wrong?

And then there's the whole social distancing thing.  Avoid the masked, but not the unmasked?  But what if a masked woman stands three feet from the path I must take at Golden Gardens Park, as happened last night?  Should I have felt differently, as I in fact did, when I noticed that she is pregnant?  Unmasked people like me can block the masked in the same exact way, be it noted; this is an equal-opportunity way for people to inconvenience each other.

Also, while my principles may say I shouldn't socially distance myself from the unmasked, years of enforcing hygiene discipline on myself makes that a notion not much honoured in the breach.  It will take me a lot longer to get over this than to get over masks.  I find myself stepping into the street to avoid not only the masked but also the unmasked, much more than I did when I was masked.

There's a kick to this.  It turns out my vaccine, the Johnson and Johnson one, is only 2/3 effective at preventing COVID-19 infection.  Should I in fact not only continue social distancing, but resume masking?  Should I, at a time when India needs something like twenty billion vaccine doses, try to do better with a more efficacious vaccine?

This is not entirely off-topic, dear Diary, and not just on-topic in the sense that you are, after all, a Primary Source of the COVID Era.  Four days ago, I wrote:

| I've been comfortable, over the years, attributing a lot of 

| damage to water fountains to "vandalism".  Something 

| striking I've noticed today is that many of the "fountains" 

| I've mapped are really fountain locations, with two or as 

| many as four actual fountains either attached to one pillar, 

| in the majority case of free-standing fountains, or to one 

| building, in the minority case of attached fountains.  I 

| would think that both "vandalism" and wear and tear would 

| differentially affect these multiple fountains, but in reality, 

| the entire time I've been hiking for you, dear Diary, I've 

| never found one fountain working at a location, another not, 

| except to the minimal extent that flow differences might 

| make one harder to use than the other.  This makes it hard 

| for me to attribute the red list even primarily to user 

| misbehaviour. 

Well, there's a first time for everything, or to put it another way, in Bitter Lake Playfield yesterday I encountered the exception that proves the rule.  This is what it looks like when "vandalism" - actually, in this case, I'm pretty sure, metal thievery - differentially affects multiple fountains:

 

Not only is the spout missing, but so are the pipes one would expect to see through the hole it left.  Metal thievery is the most economical hypothesis.

But this is actually fairly uncommon, damage in this way to the spout, which allows access to the pipes.  I've much more often seen damage to the controls, so often that, considering the controls don't easily offer access to the pipes, I've come to doubt that it's really vandalism I'm seeing, as against deliberate disabling of the fountains by staffers of the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation.  Few examples are as extreme as the fountain at Green Lake Park that I noticed for my first time yesterday:

But even this could be a staffer's work, and I like to look on the bright side when I can; it's a help against depression.

So what will release mean to the parks department?  Will they bring the fountains back all at once, as they did last year when demanded by Public Health?  That seems a lot of work.  And remember, all those controls-damaged fountains in Woodland Park didn't come back last year.  Almost every fountain in Green Lake ran, but only two in all of Woodland.

The parks department has two maintenance crews in North Seattle, Northeast and Northwest.  Northeast is responsible for the parks from Gas Works Park to Woodland Park; Northwest is responsible for the parks from Green Lake Park north, including Northacres Park.

I've already looked, this month, at most of the water fountain locations for which Northwest has responsibility - 25 out of 32, at least assuming Northwest handles Sunset Place.  That and five others, six out of 25, are running.  Northwest has a head start on the end of the Durkan Drought.

I've looked at fewer than half of the locations Northeast is responsible for - 19 out of 44.  Only two of those 19 are running.  Also, Northeast has a lot of disabled controls in Woodland Park and elsewhere; Northwest has considerably fewer; so if I'm right that that's something the parks department will have to fix, Northeast has much more work ahead than Northwest.  Although all the people I've had friendly conversations with work for Northeast, their management seems to expect the Durkan Drought to continue.

And why shouldn't it?  The mayor has already shown willing to turn the fountains off; why shouldn't she keep them off until she's out of office?  It's not like she plans to answer to the voters.  Presumably once the governor releases us from the state of emergency, she'll feel free to sweep all the campers foolish enough to remain in the parks.  Maybe then she'll turn the fountains back on, or maybe, for fear that some homeless person somewhere might get free water, she'll keep them off right up to the end of her term.  I just don't know.

It's been striking how, after initial fumbles, the restrooms have mostly been open, and "sanican"s sprouted up not only at the beginning of the pandemic, but continue to appear - I saw a bunch in Green Lake Park, near the Small Craft Center, last time I went there.  Our mayor doesn't want cholera, which isn't much of a respecter of persons.

But it's also striking how she's been happy to limit access to clean drinking water.  Hepatitis, giardia, shigella, cryptosporidium, the list goes on.  As long as the majority of victims are homeless, the more the merrier, it seems, the housed victims just collateral damage from the hatred.

Dear Diary, I don't use with you the words that can most economically express the image that comes to mind:  We, the homeless, have been allowed to excrete during the epidemic, but not to drink.  Or maybe just not water.  "Let them drink brandy" - is it that, dear Mayor?

So Seattle, like me, isn't as ready for release as we like to think.

The Extreme Left

Dear Diary,

As a lifelong pedestrian, I've been very puzzled by something I've observed hiking as much as I have this past year.

I've made it a point to walk on the right about as far back as I can remember.  (But of course, dear Diary, you know well how inadequate my memory is.)  Normally I've found this a reasonably safe proposition.  But since this pandemic got going, more and more people have insisted on walking to the left, specifically to my left at that.  It's gotten to the point that I worry one of these people will succumb to road rage and attack me for my obdurate right-side walking.

At first I encountered this mostly in situations where the street was on my right and these people's left, so it was easiest to see this as a rational response to the occasional need to go into the street to maintain social distancing.  But I don't think it was ever entirely that way, and I was recently really, though thankfully not literally, struck by a guy who clearly would have pushed me out of the way if I hadn't allowed him to continue walking within an inch of a building to my right and his left.

I think we can rule out one obvious explanation.  In normal times one could imagine Seattle overrun by people accustomed to walking on the left in their home countries.  But during the pandemic Seattle hasn't been overrun by anyone.

Another obvious explanation is too weird to believe of rational Seattleites, except that, well, these are weird times.  Maybe these people think there's some prophylactic effect from switching sides of the sidewalk.  Like the old advice to turn clothing inside out so demons couldn't see you.  Maybe these people figure the virus has Americans pegged as right-side walkers, and won't notice them if they walk on the left.

Anyway, whatever the reason, I really hope these people get over this before pedestrian traffic in this city returns to normal, or there will be a boom in pedestrian collisions, and maybe even some murders.

What an unpleasant thought.  Oh, well.  Tomorrow, dear Diary, southern Ballard.

We're All In This Together

Dear Diary,

Today is almost another boring day - restrooms open at Burke-Gilman Playground Park and Ravenna Park, closed at Ravenna Park, Cowen Park and University Playground; water fountains working at BGPP and Ravenna Park, but not at Ravenna Park and University Playground.  (I forgot to check Cowen Park's water fountain.)

But it wasn't completely boring because BGPP's restrooms weren't actually opened until an unfamiliar guy showed up at 8:30 A. M., quickly unlocked them, and drove off again.  In the short term this delay forced me to do Number One at BGPP, but not in its restroom, dear Diary, yet again falling short of our mayor's high ideals.  But seen from a longer perspective, the events suggest that the parks department is aware that it needs to get the rooms open, even when it's short-staffed.  If true, that would be great.

I took the usual door photos, but will commemorate this pleasing development by posting instead some neat-stuff photos.
Here's a closer view of BGPP's sundial and fortress:

And here are a couple of things from University Playground - the beginning of a rather challenging exercise program, and a troll trying to knock down some playground equipment:

Now, seriously...

Dear Diary, I've realised that I'm shortchanging you, depriving you of things you need.  You're a Primary Source for The Time of the Coronavirus, but I've hardly mentioned the disease, and have taken for granted that your readers in the far future will just know why park restrooms mattered at the time.

I have a solution.  I'm going to give you some data.  Actual numbers.  Won't that improve your standings in the primary source competitions?  Not only that, but these may be unique data.  Sure, everyone talks about the importance of handwashing to beat the coronavirus, but I haven't seen anyone else publish a count of their handwashings.  So to proceed:

Friday, 24 April - 4

1.  At the beach restroom at Magnuson Park, at its sink, using the soap provided.

2.  At the right-hand restroom at Laurelhurst Community Center, same conditions.

3.  Same place, same conditions, a few minutes later.

4.  At Ravenna Park's restroom, same conditions.

Saturday, 25 April - 2

1.  At Burke-Gilman Playground Park's restroom, in its left-hand sink, using the soap provided.

2.  At Ravenna Park's hand-washing station, in the basin facing east, using the soap provided.

Sunday, 26 April - 2

1.  At Burke-Gilman Playground Park's restroom, in its left-hand sink, using the soap provided.

2.  At Safeway at University Village's restroom, in its sink, using the soap provided.

Monday, 27 April - 3

1.  At BGPP's restroom, you know the dtill.

2.  At Ravenna Park's restroom, ditto.

3.  At Safeway's restroom, ditto.

Tuesday, 28 April - 3 so far

1.  At Burke-Gilman Playground Park, in its water fountain, using my own dish detergent.

2.  Same park's restroom, an hour later, usual routine.

3.  Ravenna Park's restroom, usual routine.

So what do you think, dear Diary?  Is that enough?  Will I win a Healthy Citizen Award?

I think those numbers scientifically demonstrate that I need to get some hand sanitiser.

One more number:

Percentage of time spent wearing a face mask:  0.00%.

Honestly, I can't even maintain my usual low standards of hygiene; how am I to tend something we've all been warned about handling with care?

Hypotheses

Dear Diary,

Today was very different, but in a boring way.  So I'll be trying to explain those differences instead of focusing on the boring facts.  Are you excited, Diary?

See, for the first time I found all the park restrooms closed.  No, strictly the second - the first was a few days ago, but fixed by Ravenna Park's opening that afternoon.  Nor did I literally check all the parks; I mean here the chain north of 45th St - Burke-Gilman Playground Park, Ravenna Park, Cowen Park and University Playground, and I took the latter two on faith.  But Ravenna Park's rooms were still locked at 9 AM today, and Burke-Gilman's at 9:45.  I even got pictures!  Look:

So of course I shifted the burden to private companies again, this time bolstered by the statements of a neighbour walking his dog, who said the parks were running on half their usual staff.

Now if you're trying to save staff time by opening fewer restrooms, regional is the only sensible way to do it.  But from the point of view of a homeless person trying to follow Mayor Durkan's instructions, it looks rather creepy.  Are we just supposed to skip eating and drinking on days our neighbourhoods' park restrooms won't open?  Maybe fasting is a great way to boost immunity!  But how can we do this when we don't know which weeks we're out of luck?

Or maybe the closed restrooms are being penalised for not transitioning enough of their users into stable housing?

Or maybe the reason the restrooms get closed at all - surely expensive - is that each is occupied at night by a spiritually high-powered hermit, praying for the city, and in the current crisis they need more time to work?

Or maybe it's because exercise is good for us, and we really are all meant to trek to Magnuson Park day after day, socially distanced, of course.

Beats me, Diary.  I have to assume that the decision makers really do have our best interests at heart, and just move in mysterious ways, their wonders to perform.