I thought of you guys when I saw that headline. Nice job!

Go Nickels! Millions of dollars were cut from infrastructure repair and maintenance by Eyman initiatives and the legislatures panicky response to them. If Nickels has found a way to replace that funding, bully for the Mayor.

Now if the Governor could only come up with a way to permanently replace the funding for our public schools.

Sail,
Too bad that very same mayor was freaked out by a monorail tax. Forever Tax Nickels was angry that the monorail tax would last, gasp, over 30 years. One of Forever Tax Nickels's requirements when he asked the Monorail agency to come up with a new plan was that the tax last no longer than 30 years.

What a boring hypocrite. I can't wait until 2009.

For up-to-the-minute local wonkery, I rely on Feit/Barnett over the P-I anyway. Those people are swimming in your wake.

Mayor Gridlock:

Don't wait for 2009 - cuz then you'll be too late (see: Runte, Al). If people really want to take down Team Nickels, they're going to have to start organizing in 2008, and they'll need a credible candidate declared right after the Presidential election, or soon thereafter.

Oh please, Eyman had very little to do with the City's current funding shortfall. The real problem is that literally tens of millions of dollars that could and should have gone toward the maintenance of basic infrastructure has instead been diverted into studies of the AWV tunnel, lowering Aurora, and about $500 million in subsidies for Paul Allen's development plans. Funny how the latter figure about matches the current basic backlog of street maintenance (and, by the way, there is a similar figure in deferred parks maintenance, too)...

Mr. X: $500 million in subsidies for Paul Allen's development plans.

Can you cite any sources for this figure?

Also, I thought it was the state, not the city, that has been spending the significant money studying viaduct replacement.

Nope - when the DOT was in danger of running out of money for the AWV EIS a couple of years ago, Greg Nickels took $5 million from the proceeds of the Mercer corridor land sales and used it to keep the tunnel study going (not to mention a shitload of City staff time). BTW, those funds had been earmarked to fix most troublesome intersection in the Mercer Corridor (the westbound jog at Fairview/Mercer).

Of course, that all went out the window - along with the stated policy of the City to live w/the Mercer corridor fundamentally as is - after Paul Allen was allowed to buy City property originally purchased for the Bay Freeway and then decided that the policy under which he was sold the property didn't fit his "vision".

Paul Allen subsidies (from the Seattle Displacement Coalition website - http://www.zipcon.net/~jvf4119/ -but many of these figures appeared in both the Times and PI after SDC unearthed them and have not been refuted by Nickels or Hallivulcan)

Turning Mercer into a 2-way street between Dexter and I-5 = @ $90 million

Lowering Aurora Ave north of the Battery Street Tunnel and closing Broad Street (this is really part of the Mercer proposal, but has been put into the AWV budget at Vulcan's behest in their role on the AWV "Leadership Group") @$250 million. I suppose WSDOT expects them to fund the tunnel campaign since they're getting 1/4 billion inserted in the project for a frill that has nothing to do with the actual AWV or seawall.

SLU Streetcar - public share of capital cost $25 million + $1.5 million per year to run it.

New underground parking garage (not public yet, but something they've been studying) = $50-70 million

Repaving Terry Ave - $20-30 million

Plan to "centralize" SLU utilities that includes undergrounding utilities, new power substation, system to pipe cold water in and use it to heat/cool biotech businesses = est. $300 million

This list is only partial, by the way, and doesn't count what probably now approaches $1 million in City staff time just spent studying this nonsense.

...there's other stuff the City is spending discretionary funds on that I didn't mention - such as the Woodland Park Zoo garage, $4.2 million in SLU Park overruns, $1.2 million for Occidental Park, etc. etc. etc.....

HI! routzen here. type Pensacola PYP into your search engine, then select ricks blog. I like young boys!

how about the chamber of commerce? they are selfish. they want Seattle to reduce the commercial parking tax or the employer tax if the Legislature allows another transportation revenue source. it will not be implemented until after the Legislative Session. in fact, the parking tax is the best tax available to Seattle and not the one that should be reduced first. it took Nickels several years to come around to ask for the tax. Steinbrueck suggested it during the first Nickels term. Seattle should levy a higher rate and use the extra revenue to begin to implement the improved transit service levels of the SDOT suggested transit network. It would help the urban centers where paid parking is and would help the school district deal with its transportation and budget crisis.

good points, Mayor Gridlock, after all, when all is said and done, Greg's Underwater Tunnel will end up costing us TEN times what a modern elevated Viaduct (or the Surface Plus Transit option that WSDOT studied but Seattle City Council didn't) would.

Think about it.

No extra capacity for ten times the price versus doubled capacity for the price that was "too expensive".

Now, I have to say I like Ron Sims' County transit increase - that's a good thing. Actual increases in traffic flow and transit ridership. Can't beat that!

The old school dailies move glacially compared to the wired and connected media sources... like the Stranger.