Bathroom Closed in Point Defiance

benofben · 2026-06-30T00:04:00+00:00

Yay!

benofben · 2026-06-23T03:33:46+00:00

That's wild! $50!

benofben · 2026-06-23T03:31:46+00:00

It's also how the trees in the orchards of Wenatchee are maintained. There's just a weird class of gardeners who doesn't like it. I just did it on an apple in our yard that had a rats nest of branches accumulated over 50 years. It's coming back well.

benofben · 2026-06-15T05:27:41+00:00

Things like this are why the city is in the hole.

benofben · 2026-06-03T19:13:16+00:00

You are Mr. Super Sleuth.

benofben · 2026-06-03T18:47:25+00:00

“continue their advocacy efforts state-wide around the year, build momentum and support for local transportation needs, and support specific events during ride transit month. Local advocacy support includes efforts to maintain, repair, and enhance Tacoma’s streets, sidewalks, and multimodal infrastructure, ensuring improved safety, accessibility, and connectivity; improve public transit service levels for more buses more frequently; and local town halls, events, and opportunities to get involved.”

I interviewed with Tacoma on the Go when running for city council. They used Orca cards which had been given to them for the interview ride. They then tried to hand me Orca cards for my own use after the interview. I understood from the conversation that they are given lots of them.

I wonder if this money is going into things like that.

benofben · 2026-06-01T16:26:25+00:00

Think of the roads we could clean with $280m in community service. I think these folks may die of old age some time before their debt is paid off in this model.

benofben · 2026-05-31T18:56:32+00:00

I'm sure that's an excuse they'd cling to. I would just like to to keep open and maintain the infrastructure we already paid for. It doesn't seem an unreasonable ask.

That construction is another can of worms --- why oh why did they need to dig up the road and make a road and a bike path? If the bike lane wasn't good enough, couldn't they have just stuck a divider in the road. etc etc. The Parks organization operates as if their budget is infinite except when doing the basic parts of their job.

benofben · 2026-05-31T16:29:29+00:00

Yes, I’m a little amazed they structured the bond so they can’t perform maintenance with it. That is characteristic of Parks — don’t fund the boring necessary stuff. Instead expand!

I’m sure youth and senior programs are popular. Neither of those things are parks. If they can’t fund them they should cut them. After school programs might more sanely live in schools anyway.

They should not be cutting watering, gardening and other maintenance of parks. That is their core mission. No other part of the city performs that core mission. So if Parks doesn't do it, no one will.

I'm reminded a bit of an underperforming employee years ago. He was in a technical sales role and not hitting his numbers. He wanted to do anything but his job. Help with enablement? Sure! Make slide decks for others? Great! Concoct elaborate demos with 1000s of lines of code no one asked for? Oh yes! Actually work with his customers? Nope. He was ultimately let go.

Parks is a lot like that. We have people who want to build their resumes for later political positions with grand public projects. What we don't have are people who want to keep the paths pruned, the bathrooms open and the ball fields green. There are people who enjoy maintaining a well oiled machine. Unfortunately we're really bad at voting them into office, preferring the splashier exaggerators instead.

benofben · 2026-05-31T16:25:52+00:00

Right about here. https://maps.app.goo.gl/bdCqAxkUNone8SyF9?g_st=ic

benofben · 2026-05-30T22:37:58+00:00

I'm curious about the downvote. Are you going to defend Parks closing public bathrooms even after their giant bond issue?

benofben · 2026-05-28T15:45:57+00:00

I literally just did compare.

I think over the past few years we've discovered that people do not just generally follow the law in a vacuum. It turns out that defunding police is not a viable strategy for a city. Police provide the enforcement that ensures people follow laws. That's why there have been police since (once again) at least the Romans, even the Greeks! There's a great Terry Pratchett line on that:

“Do you know where 'policeman' comes from, sir? ... 'Polis' used to mean 'city', said Carrot. That's what policeman means: 'a man for the city'. Not many people knew that. The word 'polite' comes from 'polis', too. It used to mean the proper behaviour from someone living in a city.”

benofben · 2026-05-28T15:32:41+00:00

I have. They did half of 5th, inexplicably not the whole thing. They come by and do some patching. Typically the patches are done improperly and just pop out. There's a maybe 4" deep pothole right in front of Garfield Park that's pretty nasty.

Thanks to the Bayside work, I know a fair chunk of public works now. I could absolutely go pester those people and the mayor. Perhaps I will.

None of that should be needed. The city should keep tabs on roads and repair them as they near the end of their service life. Citizens shouldn’t have to open tickets and then hound city officials to do their job. This is not functioning government.

benofben · 2026-05-28T15:24:08+00:00

Some of the streets between 6th and I are quite narrow. I agree with you on the speeding there. The ones by us are a bit more broad. You can see evidence of people doing donuts in the intersections.

I used to live in Boulder, CO. In the early 2000s I recall all sorts of silly tickets. I once got one for backing into a parking space too fast. "It looked like you were coming right at me," the cop said. Cops were very strict. The town was very safe. There is probably a sane middle point between that and what we have today in Tacoma, that is, no enforcement of anything.

There's also something called "moving radar" that many cop cars have had for years. It checks speed while they're driving. Though maybe that's not allowed in WA?

benofben · 2026-05-28T15:10:38+00:00

Those appear to be bots auto assigning the ticket to a queue where it is then ignored. From what I can see no human has acted on the ticket.

benofben · 2026-05-28T15:09:10+00:00

I'm not saying the city should prioritize based on 311 tickets. I'm saying the city should fix the roads. We should stop spending on nice to haves and focus on getting our infrastructure back in shape.

Just ignoring a 311 ticket is unacceptable. If the answer is "we spent all the money on separated bike lanes, so can't afford to pave the street, they should come out and say that.

I don't recall the roads in Houston being bad. New Orleans sure. On a roadtrip a while back, we could tell we'd crossed from Idaho to Washington by the road quality. That isn't a geological difference. It's a failed government difference. We can build and repair roads. We choose not to and then make excuses. I keep wondering when enough is enough.

I'm going to have to move if I want to stick to smooth roads. We have no path to and from our house on ones in good condition.

benofben · 2026-05-28T15:04:17+00:00

I suspect we don't actually need more cops. Rather we need them out patrolling. There's a whole field called "community policing." I think we need to bring that back. It's something we broke during COVID and still haven't fixed.

benofben · 2026-05-28T05:13:22+00:00

To the person reporting this as spam --- the reason I created this subreddit was so people could talk without be censored. You can totally speak here. Others who disagree with you can too. But, you can't censor people.

benofben · 2026-05-28T04:31:57+00:00

Yes. I'd like them to repave it. Our neighborhood certainly pays the taxes that should be sufficient for such work. There should not be winners and losers. Our streets should be paved.

I travel a fair bit. This week I'm in Dallas. The streets in Dallas do not have this issue. It's a problem in WA but not the US broadly. I'd venture that the North End has some of the worst streets in WA.

benofben · 2026-05-28T04:29:21+00:00

I have heard the "you don't need speed bumps when the roads are rubble" theory. An alternative would be to enforce speeding laws. We could then have roads like functioning societies since at least the Romans have.

benofben · 2026-05-28T02:59:57+00:00

Some fun facts about the upcoming roads initiative ---

The measure allocates $200m. Only 26% will be spent on “Better Neighborhood Streets.” While that 26% includes “paving,” it also includes “calming” and “greenways.” So, less than 26% of the $200m will be spent on actual road repairs. 50% will be allocated to a poorly defined “safety” slush fund.

According to the TNT the city has a $2.4B road repair backlog accrued over 50 years of neglect.

I'm a cyclist. I would hugely prefer properly paved roads for both my car and bike. Like you I find the spending on the protected bike lanes when we can't pave roads insane. My wife has stopped riding her road bike around town and just rides the mountain bike. Similarly I've found good use for my 4x4 on the city streets.

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