At 12th & Jackson in Seattle’s Little Saigon, there are always hundreds of fentanyl addicts loitering on the sidewalks. On both sides of both streets, there are ongoing sales of stolen goods, and all the associated problems the city can’t/won’t do anything about.

These lost souls are rarely violent to the normals, but they’re scary for tourists and suburbanites and the old and fragile, so Metro Transit has closed the four bus stops at that intersection.

This solves the symptom — no more worried drivers or passengers — but does nothing for the problem. You want to address the problems? How very uncommon of you:

This would solve 99% of the problems of homelessness, but it would cost money that neither Republicans, Democrats, nor most taxpayers are willing to spend, in the world’s richest nation. Thus there’s no solution, and 12th & Jackson is a glimpse of America’s future.

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With so many bums and rabble at that intersection, it’s oddly still a hopping neighborhood for small businesses. There are at least a dozen restaurants, and it’s gonna be a pain in my ankles to walk a few extra blocks to get there for lunch.

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As America moves closer and closer to collapse, a Seattle bus driver was murdered yesterday. Reports I’m not sure whether to believe say that a passenger was cold and wanted a window closed, but the driver, Shawn Yim, wanted the window open to prevent windshield fogging on a cool overnight. So the knife came out, to settle the dispute.

We live in an insane society. Everyone knows it.

This was a middle-of-the-night bus, well past my bedtime, but I’m wondering, what would I have done? My life’s been spent observing and writing but rarely getting involved, so I would’ve watched the argument, and taken notes to write about it later.

Once the knife was pulled, though, finding a comic spin for the story would be more difficult. What would I have done then?

Heck if I know. Hope to never find out. I think I would’ve hollered bloody murder, hoping to frighten the perp. After that, who the heck knows what might’ve happened. I don’t even carry mace, these days. Maybe I should.

Maybe bus drivers should, but there’s a rule against it. Drivers are not allowed to carry any form of self-defense — no weapons of any kind. Can’t even fathom the reasoning behind that, but it’s 2024 and the rule needs to be rescinded.

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In 1998, another Metro driver was killed on the job. His name was Mark McLaughlin, and I knew it without researching, because the anniversary of his murder is observed annually on the bus system.

The announcements call it Mark McLaughlin Day, and on buses all across the county, drivers pull to the side of the road and idle their vehicles for a minute of silence at 3:10 PM. That’s the time McLaughlin was shot, and his bus careened off the Aurora Bridge.

Shawn Yim will get a minute too, every year.

12/19/2024

Transit Takes

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