The former range was 3.0 to 3.6 billion. The range is now 3.56 to 5.54 billion.

The tunnel is dead. The rebuild is ugly and illegal. The only sane choice is Streets+Transit.

• Funding is available when needed
• Timely decision on selecting project option
• No lengthy litigation or project delays

Even if a quick decision is made, the other two aren’t happening, which means the costs go up.

Even if the Surface Plus Transit option was proven viable according to the WSDOT study they won't release until AFTER the election in Nov.

(... Just tryin' to sing the same tune as the other geniuses here.)

Do you honestly believe that once the Viaduct is removed the politics of Seattle will permit an even larger structure to be replace it?

I have written about that "Westlake Park phenomenon"
here.

Anyway, we don't even have the money for the Rebuild.

How's that prediction of $4/gallon gas by the end of summer coming along for ya, Nostradamus?

It would be nice if I were the one making that prediction. Mr. X, it's also nice to know that your keep-the-city-crappy agenda makes you an advocate for artificially cheap gas too.

Ah, retrofit. Sorry, I'm not a structural engineer. Are you?

But hey, if you want to be an advocate for urban blight preservation, however many millions of dollars in Band-Aids it may or may not take, be my guest.

2.) Wait until after the elections before you crow about low gas prices.

3.) Just what is the "Westlake Park phenomenon"? You allude to it in your blog, but you don't explain it. Personally, I think the "new" Westlake is hideous. Give me Ben Paris' bar any day.

If you don't have a degree in engineering, and you don't work at WSDOT, no one gives a flying fuck about your opinion. Get used to it.

What does Westlake Mall have to do with the Viaduct? (and yes, I read your post)

I didn't know it was part of Forward Thrust. What were we thinking?

The price sucks for any option, but we have to get moving here. Just because it's expensive doesn't mean we should just do the cheapest thing. And, we're not just doing it for ourselves, so let's do something we can be proud to have accomplished.

Something has to be done, yup. Let's get something out of the deal: No retrofit, no new viaduct. The waterfront should be reclaimed and should have a civic purpose -- big park. Downtown park.

So -- following my Opinion, here -- surface option or tunnel. Surface option throws a crap of a lot of traffic into this reclaimed area. And I see a horn of plenty of train tracks underneath the viaduct down to E Marginal and over into Sodo. Wait for any trains around there often? Tunnel? Will still connect Aurora to/wards 509. Keeps things moving, and doesn't put another million rats onto I-5.

Mr. X: How's that prediction of $4/gallon gas by the end of summer coming along for ya, Nostradamus?

It would be nice if I were the one making that prediction. Mr. X, it's also nice to know that your keep-the-city-crappy agenda makes you an advocate for artificially cheap gas too.

Posted by cressona - September 20, 2006 04:04 PM

Um, you actually did make that prediction -

"The average Angeleno spends over $10,000 a year to own a mid-size car. I imagine Seattle is not much different. But hey, we can afford that, right? When gas gets up to $4 a gallon, mass transit will be that much more unaffordable."

That looks like a "when" to me, dude, not an "if".

Of course, you evidently support keeping the price of mass transit artifically low, so I suppose I shouldn't be so mean to you.

I happen to love this "crappy" City - I just think it'd be even better without self-righteous pricks like you coming here and trying to remake it in your image.

In order for something to be "politically viable", it really needs to be financially viable too.

Are you saying that no civic space can be created because we've surpassed a critical mass of undesirables? A park is like accidently spilling a canister of bread crumbs in front of a flock of starlings, a bag of peanuts in front of newly post-partum squirrel, a bucket of pellets into a pond full of carp?

Seriously, not even a pocket park? I already have a coffee place by my apt.

Have a look at the cool new park next at Denny and Westlake via Google Satellite. That's the park?

So Mr. X, you distorted that statement I made into a prediction that gas will be $4 by the end of this summer. I don't think there's a sane, impartial person around here who doubts that gas will be $4 a gallon soon enough. Last I checked, it doesn't grow on trees.

Some advice. If you are going to lie and mislead to further your own narrow agenda, perhaps you should at least lie and mislead about issues that are more central to the discussion.

The fact is that even if gas were $1.50-a-gallon, building an elevated highway along a scenic downtown waterfront is such a monumentally stupid idea that -- if we didn't already have one -- no one would even dream of broaching the idea in this day and age.

I owe you a (slight) apology - I had you confused with numerous other self-righteous autophobes who posted things like this

Gas is predicted to reach $4 a gallon by the end of summer.

FUCK YEAH! Feel it bitches.

Posted by: Pong Rodeo | July 28, 2006 03:30 PM

Given your cavalier attitude toward the real hardships real people experienced with the rising cost of gas, though, I think many people could understand my confusion.

SR99 is there, and the State has no intention of replacing it with nothing. I suspect you won't like 6 lanes of traffic at-grade any more than you like them on a Viaduct, so you might want to be careful what you wish for when pushing for a teardown of the AWV. The Viaduct is already there, and it is perfectly reasonable position to propose retrofitting it (and Victor Grey's opinion that it could be is extremely credible - he was the State of Washington's lead highway engineer for decades)

I happen to think that getting people from SW and NW Seattle et al is more important than tearing down a functional piece of our transportation infrastructure to make way for an expensive waterfront promenade (which, by the way, won't get you an inch closer to the water than the AWV does), and which will largely be used by cruise ship tourists and downtown condo dwellers. That doesn't make me a liar, or mean that I'm misleading anyone - you just don't like my opinion. Tough shit.

Just for grins - where are you on the proposed Pacific Street Interchange for SR 520? That'll do a real job on Marsh Island and Lake Washington, but lots of the same politicians (and SLOG posters) who weep for our poor poor downtown waterfront seem quite happy to trash the Arboretum and that part of the lake.

That's what I'm saying.