The Chimeras' Log

Pretty good turnout in Bothell, counter had over 600 which is a good number given the rain in the morning and the unavoidable timing against Easter. It’s not what we had two weeks ago, but again, conflicts and worse conditions. Still a bit larger than the 2018-era protests, so I’d call that another win.

There were still people on the far downtown bridge, too. There were just gaps in the crowd between us and them.

I’d post pics but I totally forgot my phone, oops. And I actually did, not “lol no phone oops” did.

There was one (1) counter-protestor/heckler on the ground; he didn’t like my “NO KINGS” signs at all and started ranting about how Biden was the real “king” they got rid of. He didn’t have a sign himself and stayed pretty far back; I came across him accidentally while walking around testing our FRS radio range.

(As an aside: FRS handheld radios are f’real, team. Consider getting some and getting practice with them. No license needed, they’re channelised so can’t be used against you as “police scanners,” the range is shockingly good, and even with prices going up they’re super affordable. Ignore the only review on that Best Buy link; those are the exact model we bought. If you want to spend a little more you can get the T30 version, which has a headset and I think is rechargeable, but is otherwise pretty much the same radio and only comes in black. We specifically wanted replaceable batteries for extended-blackout reasons. Just remember: they are NOT private. Just relatively obscure.)

As with every other protest here, we had overwhelming support from the vehicle crowd. Hundreds to one in favour, easily, just like in person. I even got support from a presumably embarrassed Tesla driver.

I don’t know if there were more Bothell PD out this time, or if it just felt like there were. Might’ve been a difference in crowd to cop ratio, might’ve just been the escalating situation, might’ve just been where they were standing. But I wasn’t the only one who noticed.

Keep on your toes. Even here, the cops are Trump’s friends.

Anyway, that’s it for this week’s report, I hope your protests went well. Remember to save the date for May 1st, and to turn out at your local Tesla Takedown or similar before then, too. Momentum is everything, and we need to keep it.

Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.

I’ve got an alpha of the Greater Northshore Bike Connector Map posted in a temporary location. [EDIT: There’s now a Beta. Use that instead!] It extends the map northward to Lynnwood City Centre, tho’ not all the way up to Alderwood Mall.

If you have any knowledge of southwestern Snohomish County biking, give it a look? I’ll get up to Mountlake Terrace to catch a train and I’ve biked the Interurban and North Creek trails pretty far up, but that’s it, and is nothing like on-the-ground knowledge.

The uploaded version had to be trimmed at the bottom a little to stay on 11×17 paper with one-quarter-inch margins. Here’s what the full thing looks like; I’m honestly a bit up in the air about what to do about this. Staying on a single row of tiled 11×17 strikes me as kind of important.

(Just because I happen to have some 11×17.625″ paper for reasons doesn’t mean most people do, because ALMOST NOBODY DOES lol)

Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.

I’m finally expanding the Greater Northshore and MEGAMAP the extra mile or so into Snohomish County as I’ve been promising. This expansion gets users to Edmonds and Lynnwood Town Centre – including the light rail station – so there’s some real meaning to it. In the east, it’ll eventually be important for the expansion of the Rail Trail, too.

Sometimes, tho’, when you’re doing stuff like this, you discover something. That happened tonight.

Check out this incomplete little map section-in-progress. There’s something to infer from it:

The crossings of Highway 99 at 208th and 228th have weight. Cyclists use them, even where the infrastructure stops short of the highway. They’re okay with both.

But they don’t use 220th. That’s fine – 220th interacts badly with I-5 not much further to the east, and has no infrastructure east of Highway 99 anyway. Of course they don’t use it.

212th, on the other hand, doesn’t have those problems. Infrastructure on both sides, even if a little short on the east. No I-5 issues.

And yet, people DO NOT WANT TO CROSS there. They REALLY don’t. They want to go half a mile or more out of their way north and cross at 208th, or a mile and a half out of their way south and use 228th instead.

It’s very specific to the crossing, too. They do use the infrastructure on 212th, on both sides. It lights up on the heatmaps, nice and bright.

But they don’t leave it. They don’t cross 99. Not there. They go north. Or maybe south, but mostly north.

And I can’t for the life of me tell you why. Not from looking at the maps I have. The intersections at 212th and 208th seem much the same to me, even from streetview. Infrastructure’s a little more complete at 208th, but not all that much – what’s half a city block between friends?

And yet.

People who bike there, they know something. Something I don’t, and something I can’t see on a map or from a satellite.

Neat, eh?

I wonder what they know.

Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.