It's rough down here (compared to my last trip) - I have never felt unsafe in Seattle in all my years and this week has not been the case.

I was in the University district's food strip and hurried away pretty quick. It was no DTES but I would have figured that something near the university would be clean, safe, and bustling but it was anything but. It was if Westbrook Mall was scummy.

Same goes for downtown near the malls - it all smelled like dried piss and it was just sad seeing some of the folks there. There was a lady panhandling for money for school supplies - her kid was with her. Don't know if it was legit or not but it's believable in the US.

I haven't spent a lot of time in DT Van since COVID and I know it's probably gotten worse too but it didn't seem that bad the last couple times I was down there - just the fucking Canada geese that kept trying to steal my Jollibee in Robson Square.

Must be a huge fire somewhere in Burnaby right now. Never heard so many emergency vehicles blaring their sirens for so long. I live fairly high up, so hear trains, fog horns, fireworks, etc. all the time, but just now, so many..........

hope it's not too big a fire and no loss of life

As far as I can remember, Seattle was always a dirty city. Smelly and filthy. I missed going to the Century 21 World's Fair, but I remember going there shortly afterward. That was probably the last time I could say Seattle was a clean city. Downhill ever since.

The other thing is, the city is always under construction. Never ending. Always building new overpasses and shit, but not taking care of the existing roads.

Speaking of Seattle, anyone been to Pike Place recently? It's been a while and I was thinking of going (depending on what RS member say, lol).

I'm not just talking about the road surface, but the general infrastructure available. Wide shoulders, ramps/overpasses everywhere, long exit/merge lanes, multiple lanes obviously. The reason the surface is so rough is that a lot of stretches still use concrete whereas we use asphalt exclusively for all our highways which gets replaced more often. I-5 is being constantly pounded by cars and trucks 24/7 whereas if you drive on Highway 1 in metro Van in the middle of the night it's practically empty.

Then again I haven't driven down since pre-pandemic so who knows it might have all just crumbled to the ground for all I know. Maybe I'll check it out this weekend..

West Seattle Bridge upgrade/construction ... added easily an hour to travel because you have to dip south and around. Detour signs were hell to follow. Can't imagine what it is like for those who live in the West and work in the East side! Apparently, it was closed for over 2 years ... since Mar 2020 ... due to open in mid September this year.

Imagine any bridge in YVR if it was out of commission for 2 years !!!

talking about roads

the recent Knight street repave was the fastest i've seen a road ripped up and repave in my lifetime in vancouver.

they ain't playing, the backlog even for 1 block is nuts :heckno:

Anyone know what the waterfront service Canada lineups are like recently for passports renewals?

I've got mine but friend was wondering if he needs to go lineup the night before

A colleague told me that the passport office told him to come back when he is within urgent timeline window and they will expedite the application and get you to front of the line. Apparently, when the massive backlog about a month ago, they printed the passports in Manitoba? or something. Now they can print them in YVR and it can be done quickly IF you have to travel like in 2 weeks (or whatever the urgent timeline window is). .... I know ... system is pretty stupid, government bureaucrats.

Yes, there are stretches of I5 where the basic quality of engineering is better - better and longer ramps, and more lanes but those are really exceptions where there's enough space for it. South of Everett all the way down to Olympia and it's a goddamn logging road - it's a bucking bronco that's not just about concrete but a failure to build LEVEL surfaces - my 3 year old thinks we're on a roller coaster in the back. Basics like emergency lanes disappear in this region.

They went this morning and got their passport by the afternoon, said there was no lineup for urgent applicants

Guess things r back to normal

So they are only processing urgent ones ... what exactly is 'urgent'. My colleague was told to go home and come back when it is urgent.

If u have to leave within 24hrs or 48hrs

Yikes, that's kinda putting it close !!!

Is that the passport with the white cover? I got a passport done in like 4 hours because I lost mine and didn't realize it until the day of the flight WutFace

Naw it's still the regular passport

I didn't know about the white passports until tiktok, it'd be great if our regular passport was snow white

I find the I-5's surface is rough, but the lane markers are far better then HWY 1. A dark night with rain I can actually see the lanes when driving down to Seattle, where as here in Vancouver it can be a total shit show.

Speaking to Seattle though, I don't know if it's just me, but I feel an overwhelming feeling of sadness when driving through downtown Seattle. I can't put my finger on it but the city makes me feel uneasy, not due to homelessness/crime or anything, just the overall look and feel of the city. It's just not a pleasing place, it doesn't flow well structurally, I generally want to GTFO as soon as possible or pass through entirely.

Oddly enough once I get to Portland that feeling goes away completely, maybe because Portland reminds me somewhat of Vancouver?

Seattle is not a nice city aesthetically. I completely agree with that feeling. No wonder Kurt put a shotgun in his mouth

Seattle DT is a horrible place to drive. It's really sterile, there's a lack of green spaces, the road conditions are horrible, and it's super confusing for those who don't know their way.

I watched a couple of Blue Jays games there in July and on a Friday night at 8pm the city was fucking dead. We were walking around the hotel area and nothing was open, and started noticing we were one of the few people still out that weren't homeless so we just went back to the hotel.

How quick is the turnaround for that? My paperwork was received 14 weeks ago and I'm supposed to be driving down to Seattle in 2 weeks so now I'm starting to get worried because the website went from 10 weeks to 17 weeks estimated wait time.

Do you guys find that the onramp to highways in the US (eg. I-5) is noticeably shorter than here in Canada? The distance to merge onto the hwy seems quite short.

Can't really generalize like that, different parts of the same highway can have different merge lane lengths due to physical constraints, and the era they were built. Case in point highway 1 built in the 1960s in West Van has crazy short ramps but Highway 1 in Burnaby built in 2012 has good ramps. I can imagine I-5 to be similar but Interstate standards for these things are higher than most BC highways. Highway 1 in its current state within BC especially the Upper Levels and out in the Valley between Abby and Chilliwack would not fly down south.

Road tripping as a kid my fam n I didn't like seattle either, we were like "meh" but once we hit portland we were like "omg let's stop there, it looks so nice" etc

Same feeling now, even if we drive down for a short trip we go to Bellevue instead (although Bellevue is kind of zzz)

He went to lineup at 7am, got in to see someone an hour after opening, and picked up his passport by the end of day

He said there were people who applied months ago, and couldn't wait any longer cuz their trip came up n no passport, so they were in line to submit an urgent application