As Seattle additional emerges from the pandemic, I’ve a hopeful imaginative and prescient of metropolis life. I might like to see a metropolis the place some individuals earn a living from home, or have a hybrid schedule, dwelling in corners of Seattle which might be extra reasonably priced. And whereas they’re dwelling, they can stroll down the road to a meals truck for lunch, or dinner, or late evening munchies.

I will annoy some TSF readers with this assertion, however once I lived in Portland (it is OK, I will not point out that metropolis once more … breathe) a few years in the past, it was fairly straightforward to seize a chew en path to work, class, or a good friend’s place. Meals vans had been tucked into numerous corners of town. An array of progressive, enjoyable, and handy meals was accessible. Upon transferring again north, one criticism I had of Seattle, it is that I needed there have been extra meals vans. The vans we’ve got are superior. Why would not we would like extra?

As KUOW’s Ruby de Luna stories, Seattle is reconsidering lots of its laws round meals vans with the purpose of constructing a greater enterprise surroundings for them. These guidelines have been in place since 2011. However the Seattle Division of Transportation seen they did not make a lot sense throughout pandemic occasions (they did not make a lot sense in 2011 both, for my part), so SDOT modified meals truck guidelines over the previous couple years to make issues a bit simpler. Now, SDOT is trying to replace town’s strategy to meals vans when these modifications expire in 2023. In brief, it desires to “streamline” the meals truck course of and supply “one-on-one teaching” for companies.

“I feel if SDOT can carry down the road merchandising allow charges, it is best to see extra meals truck exercise within the streets of Seattle,” mentioned Lori Johnson, govt director of the Washington State Meals Truck Affiliation.

“Earlier than SDOT determined to vary the laws, they weren’t permitting greater than two meals vans per block face, that is why you were not seeing lots of them grouped collectively,” she added. “And it is tremendous exhausting, and tremendous costly, to search out personal property to group them collectively.”

When you’re a meals truck in Seattle, you will discover a plot of personal property, in an honest nook of town, with loads of foot site visitors and prospects, to arrange store. Or you possibly can undergo town to discover a public spot to dish up. However that is Seattle, so both of these choices are going to come back with hefty worth tags. Both the personal landowner goes to need sky-high lease (or what some would laughably name “market fee”), or town goes to need sky-high charges, however that can hopefully change as SDOT evolves into 2023.

Among the many modifications SDOT is proposing, that restrict of two meals vans per block can be nixed. Additionally, restrictions that push vans 50 ft away from buildings can be gone. And a ban on meals vans from being inside 1,000 ft of a highschool will go away.

Additional modifications for road merchandising will transcend meals vans and affect outside eating alongside eating places. And they’re going to open up street-side merchandising to companies exterior of meals, like flowers and crafters.

There’s one different piece of not-news that I wish to deal with with all of the TSF readers on the market.

This is the factor: Nina and I eloped in 2020. Two years later, we will have a honeymoon. So in different phrases, I will be away and In the present day So Far can be taking a break for a pair weeks.

However here is one other factor: I feel we should always use this time to show the tables. I take advantage of this article to spotlight KUOW’s work and supply some nuance for tales that’s extra typically mentioned round a water cooler (does that also occur?). And I present some authentic reporting from time-to-time. Are you able to do the identical? Whereas I am away, ship me the tales you discover fascinating on KUOW.org, and inform me why they’re fascinating or necessary to you. What’s the context round your information? In a means, you will take the helm of In the present day So Far, and I am going to do a spherical up once I get again. Electronic mail me at dyer@kuow.org. I sit up for seeing the way you interact!

AS SEEN ON KUOW

Seattle’s Whim W’him is performing a sequence of out of doors dance performances this summer time, impressed by the pandemic. “TOUCHED” explores the methods we come collectively to help one another as we transfer by means of this time limit. (Whim W’him)

DID YOU KNOW?

It’s troublesome to pinpoint precisely when the primary meals truck emerged. It was probably an evolution that concerned a couple of components. There was the chuckwagon again within the 1800s, which served meals out of a coated wagon. Ultimately, corporations had been producing skilled coated wagons with the only goal of constructing meals. The U.S. navy started outfitting automobiles with kitchens within the early 1900s.

There may be an argument that the primary car our trendy eyes would think about a “meals truck” rolled out in 1936 — the Wienermobile. Oscar Meyer developed this roving automobile formed like a scorching canine to advertise its wieners throughout the USA, and scorching canine started being served on 4 wheels far and broad. And it is nonetheless rolling to at the present time.

ALSO ON OUR MINDS

Drought threatens coal plant operations — and electrical energy — throughout the West

The western U.S. hasn’t been this dry for greater than 1,200 years, however 30 western coal crops proceed to suck up 156 million gallons a day of the area’s scarce water, in keeping with the Power Info Administration. Now the very crops whose emissions assist drive local weather change are vulnerable to shutdowns, as a result of the water they should function has fallen to unprecedented ranges.

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