Private health insurance sucks ass in WA, but other than that it does look good :)
I wasn't aware of any place that was particularly ~good~ for private health insurance.
It looks like agents are able to find a much better option, presumably inside group plans, but still.
I judge health insurance by the coverage for catastrophic accident or major illness; lifetime limits, access to best doctors, etc., not on the $0-20 copays.
I'd use leaky.com to do the comparison, once they expand from cars to health insurance (which I assume they will).
The traffic and lack of good public transport options is a serious negative :(
But yeah, the other forms of transportation (including plodding your own car through the traffic) kinda suck.
[1]: https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&msa=...
As for public transit there are two big problems. One, coverage outside of the core downtown areas is comparatively sparse and irregular. Two, buses generally get stuck in the same traffic as cars and metro isn't smart enough to figure out how to adjust the schedules. This can mean that the same commute by bus can take an additional hour depending on the time of day. Also, using public transit for anything other than commuting to/from a normal 9-5 weekday job can be a huge hassle. These problems are very slowly being fixed though.
Granted, there's currently no subway, but within the city there's light rail, a decent bus system, streetcars, and generally bike-friendly infrastructure aside from the steep hills. There may be a lack of an excellent public transportation system, but there's still a good one in place.
I've been using a combination of Zipcars and Uber for my other transportation needs.
Don't you get bored with the constant sunshine?
NO
(former Seattleite, and the weather has been the absolute greatest gain from moving away)
NYC has it beat, but how could it not?
It's serviceable for some contrived use cases, but a long, long, long, loooong way from "fantastic".
I lived in Belltown first, and then Capitol Hill (right along the Broadway corridor) - both transit experiences were pretty shitty.
The transit is serviceable during off hours, but during rush it is an absolutely, completely unmitigated clusterfuck. All buses leading out of downtown are at crush capacity, and the ridiculous rule that back doors can't be opened means that at every stop there is a massive pile of human bodies as people towards the back shove and squeeze their way to the front to get out - only to run into crowds of people outside trying to get in.
If you work in the central business district, and live in one of the nicer "trunk line" neighborhoods, and you can stagger your work hours to avoid the worst of the inhumanity of Seattle transit during rush hour, you can get to work pretty well. If any one of the three conditions is not met, commuting via transit is going to be absolutely dreadful.
The only place I've ever experienced transit worse than Seattle was in the industrial slums of London, Ontario.
There were drivers who were enforcing this with an iron fist.
They've since backed off, but it's pretty clear that the people making the rules at King County Metro do not ride the bus.
Also, unless the attendants with portable scanners are present, you can't enter the back of the bus unless you're willing to cheat -- it's a double-edged sword.
Eliminating the free-ride zone has solved all the problems from my perspective. I see no issue with only allowing people to enter at the front; it doesn't cause any hassle as far as I have seen. I guess it would be an issue if you really felt the need to sit at the back?
You are correct about rush hour busses out of downtown being absolutely packed though. While it can be an unpleasant ride, passengers are very rarely turned away.
I live 2.4 miles from my workplace -- Capitol Hill to Pioneer Square and I could run to work faster than the non-transfer bus that went between my front door and 2 blocks from work.
Now that they've changed the bus system (Sept 2012)? That's a transfer. Yes...between one of the most densely populated neighborhoods and a reasonably dense job district.
During rush hour, with bus transfer, that could take over 48 minutes for 2.4 miles -- that's 20 minutes/mile or 3 miles per hour. I've walked it in that amount of time +/- 2 minutes.
See http://discovermagazine.com/2012/extreme-earth/01-big-one-ea... if you don't know what I'm talking about.
The odds are high that it will not go off in the time that the United States of America is a country.
The odds are reasonable that it will not go off in the time that homo sapiens is a species.
If it does go off, it will be the largest disaster on record, the United States as we know it will be destroyed, and it will be a worldwide threat.
Let's not worry about it, shall we?
Either it happens, I have enough warning and I live, it happens and I don't have enough warning so I die, or it doesn't happen. No sense worrying in any case.
My point is just that if it goes off, the problem won't be just Colorado's.
Earthquakes are a good reason not to live anywhere on the Pacific coast. Hurricanes are a good reason not to live in the southeast, or apparently, New Jersey. And I don't want to live in "tornado alley"...
Edit: That article is just more FUD, designed to be fed to people who enjoy being afraid. There's no new knowledge there.
I absolutely know this to be false.
I grew up just north of you in Victoria. I was a teenager when they began piecing together evidence that earthquakes of that magnitude actually could hit the area. Before then there was no thought to preparation. And large parts of my home town are still on landfill, close to sea level. (Which is not what you want during an earthquake...)
Earthquakes are a good reason not to live anywhere on the Pacific coast.
The earthquake risk in California is well-understood and the area is prepared for it. That risk is quite acceptable to me. The Pacific Northwest is less prepared, and has the potential for an earthquake over 10x bigger than anything that California has to worry about.
That article is just more FUD, designed to be fed to people who enjoy being afraid. There's no new knowledge there.
It was one of the top links when I searched for "Cascadia superfault". I did not research it carefully. I would not expect it to contain novel information.
I respect your difference in risk tolerance, but don't think we're oblivious to earthquakes here. That's just slanderous :)
That's probably one of the top links because it's so new, but most of its details are from more than 20 years ago. It doesn't even mention the expectation of the "big one" triggering a reaction from Mt Rainier, causing a "burp" and a lahar landslide.
On the other hand, living in N. Central FL, there were several times where my life was disrupted for days by hurricanes.
Concern over the possibility of that earthquake happening in my lifetime is one of the reasons why I do not want to return there, or want my children to put down roots there.