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Totally agree with this characterization. Everything is immensely well funded and completely unimpressive for a city with this kind of budget. Whether it is mas
by throwawaysea 6y ago
Totally agree with this characterization. Everything is immensely well funded and completely unimpressive for a city with this kind of budget. Whether it is massive utility bills or shocking costs for bike lanes in the millions per mile, it seems they simply can’t manage funds responsibly and yet complain that they are owed more in taxes from “the rich”.
Even the city’s vaccination efforts have been focused on “systemic racism” and “equity”. Apparently their vaccine list prioritizes zipcodes with higher representation of races they deem disadvantaged. Many people sat in the Seattle queue with no notifications coming their way before finally finding out about this insanity and seeking vaccinations through other means.
The sewage treatment plant you reference is also not even doing its job. Every year it leaks millions of gallons of raw untreated sewage into the Puget Sound (example https://www.king5.com/article/news/3-million-gallons-of-sewage-spilled-into-puget-sound-closes-several-seattle-beaches/281-3e9b1b8e-a837-4723-8ed7-0cab9d846970 https://www.king5.com/article/news/3-million-gallons-of-sewa...). For a city so focused on the environment they only seem to pay lip service to it, as both water bodies and parks (from drug addicted vagrants) are polluted.
The internet service here is fine and the costs are less enraging than city utility bills. Personally I don’t want a public run alternative to kill the acceptable service I get now. At worst I would be worried that Seattle would censor the content accessible via a public internet service given the city leadership’s politics.
- kevin_thibedeau 6y agoCan you buy 20Mbit service for $20? Municipal ISPs are the only hope to break the price fixing of the incumbents.
- throwawaysea 6y agoI just checked and Comcast provides 25 Mbps service here for $20/month. There’s a large number of tiers going up to 1000 Mbps at $85/month, and an even pricier 2000 Mbps option. Other providers are available including CenturyLink, who offers 100 Mbps for $50/month and 1000 Mbps for $65/month.
- lotsofpulp 6y agoVery few places have access to a symmetric fiber connection. I know from plugging in addresses over and over into Comcast and Centurylink’s website while searching for properties.
- KirillPanov 6y agoAnd Centurylink is desperate to ensure that this kind of manual plugging of addresses into websites is the only way to find out anything about availability.
- lotsofpulp 6y agoI learned to assume any development older than 2010 with buried utilities does not have fiber.
- KirillPanov 6y agoUnfortunately that's not really accurate. :( CenturyLink has aerial fiber and underground copper in several areas. For example, in Aberdeen it happened because they got a grant from the FCC. The whole situation is a mess, and CenturyLink likes the mess.
- 8note 6y agoThe bike lanes being expensive is mostly that it's a lie that they're bike lanes -- the money is really going to replace the whole road