If we would just have some public parking garages and build up a little, than we wouln't need so much ugly street level lots.

The westside is a freaking abomination. Trying to walk through the shopping district is ridiculous, and I'll tell you, biking through a parking lot is not much fun either. The drivers can't see over the other cars, they're not expecting to see a cyclist, and they're often looking for a spot instead of watching where they're going. The giant artery-style roads connecting each strip mall island are another problem. They're WAY less efficient than the grid system we have downtown. They get horribly congested during the holidays, it's like 500 miles between each crosswalk (so people don't use them), the bike lanes start and stop...

My (least) favorite example is the bike lane on Black Lake Blvd., which goes about a block from the entrance of Ken Lake, where I live, and then disappears as you're going through the free way entrance/exit. It stops right as it passes the exit that heads toward the mall, so if you've gone under the overpass in the lane, you're going to need to negotiate a line of cars coming off the freeway while you're merging into traffic. And the road you're merging into, like the other arteries, is pretty much off-limits for cyclists who aren't in good enough form to keep up a high speed, which isn't very cool if you're rehabbing a knee injury, like I was. And then if you're biking on the sidewalk, there are the parking lot exits, where cars routinely pull out into the path of the sidewalk and stare to their left for a gap in traffic. So if you're coming from the right... Well, you can tap on their window, but they'll just roll it down and call you an asshole. I could go on.

And that's to say nothing of the impact on our streams, our Sound, our groundwater...

Our response so far has been to keep expanding outward and building on wooded lots... What we should be doing is tearing up the parking lots and building on top of them. I'm kind of shocked more people aren't replying to this thread. Sprawl is the #1 issue in Olympia if you ask me...

Build up, but about 7 stories, that's walkable in case the elevators stop working.

Totally unnecessary, totally wasteful. If we want to increase urban density downtown a good way would be to build a parking garage, which for some reason is opposed by some folks because business owners on the City Council want it, buy the parking lots and develop them and take away Olympia's rule preventing vertical building above a certain amount of stories.

It's so funny, so completely funny...I remember spending some time in Vienna about four years ago on a trip, staying close to the city center in a hostel. Looking at that city you can tell how people used to think about constructing towns in a way that's built to last, that avoids idiot quick fixes like suburbs and excessive roads through the city and parking lots. I went to a place marked as being the oldest section of the old town there, which was a square, and noticing that it was built in the 13th century. Still in use, still functioning, although not much of the original architecture remains. Most of the houses are from the 16th century.Oh, and the point is this: the construction is so dense and so thought out that beyond the historical value it beats the pants off of most medium sized downtowns in terms of efficiency.

The BE (Business Examiner) Daily gave us a nod here.