The city is like a mirror.  If you're trying to drive, and in a hurry, it can reflect frustration back at you.  If you're not in a hurry, and willing to bike, you see a different city; even though it is the same city.  It's up to you.

Update 2003.  Since 51 failed washington State Legislature has passed a more modest 5 cent per gallon gas tax.  Safety upgrades on highways, some mass transit and H.O.V. lanes.  Tim Eyman threatens to put another initiative on the ballot to repeal it even this.

I don't live in Seattle, but a few locals even commute to jobs down there.  It's 90 miles away.

Since highway building Referendum 51 has failed, I am especially thankful to be living with-in walking distance of my job.  For people who face long commutes by car, it looks like there is no solution to traffic problems.  Land prices are getting so high that new freeway lanes are unaffordable.  If I was a politician, I would just throw my hands into the air and say that there is no solution.  This would be an act of candor.

Maybe we need to look beyond transportation planning for solutions to this problem.  Lifestyles will have to change.  Land use planning will need to change also.  There are a lot of solutions, but it requires some new thinking.  Living closer to the job must become a priority.

This could mean working at home, rather than commuting to an office.  Internet technology offers some possibilities.

Land use planning needs to be updated also.  We can no longer afford to build sprawling residential areas where large lots use up acres of space.   I hear that the average American lot has become larger in recent years.  This trend can not continue.  Neighborhoods, with smaller lot sizes, work better.  These can be desirable if city parks are provided for open space.  Bellingham's older neighborhoods are more convenient than most of the newer development.  We need to start planning our new areas in the same way that our older city neighborhoods are designed.  Let us bring people and jobs closer together again.

When people, and politics, fails at unsnarling traffic, let technology do the job.  Tele-commute.  Work from your home office.

If people don't change from lifestyles dependent on fossil fuels, technology might save us.  Mini blinds in space.  Reduce sun's rays to a greenhouse effected Earth.  Some people might say, "This is really keeping the blinders on!"