The Rebuild: Nickels Was For it Before he Was Against It
In light of the mayor’s current over-the-top PR campaign for his $4.4 billion Alaskan Way tunnel proposal (and against a rebuilt viaduct, which the Nickels tunnel campaign refers to as “the Big Ugly”) it seems like a good time to drag out this old chestnut, from Nickels’s first campaign for mayor in 2001:
“The Alaskan Way Viaduct carries 100,000 people a day - aside from I-5 it’s the only north/south corridor through Seattle that isn’t a city street,” said [King County] Councilmember Nickels. “It is incumbent upon the Governor and Department of Transportation to fund a replacement right away. Talk of a huge new tunnel is another expensive, wasteful vision of the Mayor [Paul Schell] and we simply don’t have the time or resources to travel down this path. We need solutions immediately.”
Nearly five years into Nickels’s administration, we still don’t have any.
Great catch Erica...Mayor Gridlock spent his first campaign railing against the wastrel ways of Paulie and the straitlaced Sidran and then once in office he adopted many of the worst traits of both.