Comments on More Momentum for Surface/Transit Option

The whole surface/subsurface controversy is just binary thinking. Please study your kabbalah. Kabbalah teaches that God is perceivable as ten different forms of light, there is no difference. All light and darkness, above and below is The ONE.

See beyond this dialectic into movement and release. Maybe the answer is neither surface nor subsurface. Perhaps in the near future we won't even be driving cars.

False Dialectic,

Well said. As someone else who has learned to see beyond the the dialectic into pure movement and release myself, I think we should concentrate on facing the face, and of course, doing the Lambeth Walk.

Surface transit option- hopefully that includes rickshaws since that will be the most efficient way to get around in an Erica C. Barnett fantasy no car/crappy bus system in Seattle world.

Yeah, this surface/transit idea makes no fucking sense. Why not use that 1/2 million for the tunnel instead of spending it on more studies?

More momentum for going nowhere fast. :(
What a waste of taxpayers money.
Any fool can see that the surface streets can't handle another 100,000 cars (or whatever the figure is).
Just take a look during rush hour!
And do we really want all those commercial trucks on city streets?
This affects those of those that don't drive (like myself) as well.
What do you think cycling will be like with all those cars, and worse trucks* on the surface streets?
The overcrowded buses we have will get more overcrowded (is that possible?) as people further flee their cars, and those buses will be trapped in traffic along with everyone else.
Including the surface train to nowhere, it'll be stuck right along with everyone else when (as usual) some asshole blocks the intersection.
*=No offense to the truckers, your rigs are just bigger than cars and have less visibility, I'm sure y'all don't want to share the road with bikes either!
And the person who pointed out that pedestrians are going to have a fun time accessing the waterfront through all that traffic has a good point too.

yeah JD- that would probably get the first 6 inches of the tunnel done!

Hey dave, how about we just drag this thing out for another few years waiting for the viaduct to fall down on its own? I am just saying there needs to be something done, not sit around analyzing it to death

The study isn't going to slow anything down (whether the gov chooses tunnel or rebuild). That process is going to take a lont, long time, and the study will happen while those steps are proceeding along...and i don't think there's complete agreement on the capacity issue, which makes it worth some more study.

I find it hard to trust The Stranger on transit. After all, this is the same paper that supported the monorail as late as August, 2005, after its financing had collapsed, after the rest us knew it was doomed.

Actually JD, I agree with you 100%. At least the first 6 inches could get done... and with Tricky Dick Conlin and the rest of the council crowd we might have either a transit system or a tunnel in the year 3465.

I'm all for input but there's been fucking process about transportation in Seattle since before I was born. Process is why Atlanta has a reasonable transit system, and we have Metro. Until we have the balls in this city to invest in proper transit (read: runs often, goes a variety of places and isn't mired in the same traffic that is on the current roadway system) we won't even have the option of becoming the world class city people talk about in this blog.

The monorail got killed not because it was too expensive (any solution will be) but because people, the media and the political leadership of our city, county and state don't have a spine to pony up and do what needed to be done 30 years ago.

Take the rail right of way over on the Eastside that Ron Sims wants to make into a park/trail. I love parks just like the next person- but then again a right of way that runs for miles already exists to run a tram or something along those lines from Woodinville to Renton. Of course, once this "trail" is developed Babs and her triplets will drive their SUV right to it so they can hike the 1.2 miles between the Hypermart and Ben and Jerry's in Kirkland.

As for the 520, I say make it 8 lanes wide. All the way. It'll piss off Mimi in Medina and Lester in Montlake, but part of living in the urban environment is the knowledge that change is constant. Cap it, do a tunnel/bridge option, whatever, but build the capacity.

The Swiss government is running a tunnel for 35 miles that is required to last 100 years. More expensive but can be financed over a long period of time and be done correctly. We should do our core transit planning on at least a 50 year basis so that we're not constantly playing catchup.

We should have an inner core underground train system of some sorts, with branches into the suburbs. That's the only solution that gets significant cars off roads. It needs to run at least every 10-20 minutes, be fed into by a proper bus/tram system, be clean and safe. The north parking lot of Qwest Field could serve as a "Central Station" and have a variety of lines from the extended suburbs. And yes, that takes money.

What bothers me even more is that this one issue really underlines the lack of vision and leadership in our local politicians. I love many things about Seattle, but the lack of vision pisses me off.

What good will another study do?
The self-proclaimed "surface/transit" option is not a politically-feasible solution.

Retrofit! Cheap(est), minimal disruption, that short stretch of Elliot Bay shore does not need to be "opened up," and we should use the $$$$ to do the huge 520 project right.

One of the dailies has this today:

“In other viaduct developments, a volunteer group of civil engineers will meet next week to review a viaduct-retrofit proposal offered by retired structural engineer Victor Gray.

In August, T.Y. Lin International, hired by the state to look at Gray's retrofit plan, said it had some merit but doesn't deal with the damage an earthquake might cause to the viaduct's foundation.

A team from the American Society of Civil Engineers, working with Gray, was asked to analyze the Lin report, and that review is expected to be completed sometime this month.

Paananen said the state is reworking cost estimates for a retrofit, which it initially said would cost about 80 percent of rebuilding the structure.

He called Gray's proposal "an incomplete retrofit," and said the state is looking to see what it would take to make a retrofit structurally sound.”

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003334243_viaduct01m.html

So I'm curious: multiple studies have shown that more traffic capacity leads to more traffic. Has anyone shown that reducing capacity reduces traffic?

My guess is that it does but I haven't seen any real data on it.

Either way, anything that makes it more difficult to drive down town and more appealing to take a bus, I'm for.

I'm really starting to like Jan Drago.

If that's so, ECB, nobody's told the dailies yet, which still state that the main options are the tunnel and rebuild.

BTW, see the P-I article yesterday on the plan to implement the tunnel?

If a cat farts on the moon, rest assured that the conscienceless shill Erica C. Barnett will tell us that it "provides momentum for the surface option."

Some things around here are just as predictable as the sunrise.

Also, here's the article.

But ivan, how does that fart on the moon show that funding the $5.6-6.8 billion (or whatever number the PWC chooses to use) tunnel feasible?

:P

Gomez:
What is the "that" referring to in your statement "If that's true..."?

I'm with Bacon Cheese Egg on this one: The Stranger can be trusted to support good transportation options for Capitol Hill. Now, I do love Capitol Hill, but I don't want to live there.

Does anyone else realize that the WOODEN seawall is failing? If that happens, the Port goes, and so we might as well go with the surface street option: all of those business around Harbor Island are gone. That's $32 billion in revenue impacted. This is a port city, people.

You have to dig to replace a wooden seawall. That's also a very, very expensive thing. The tunnel plans all call for a shared project. The elevated structure plan also calls for a replacement. So, there's digging to be done, no matter what.

David S is right. There is no viable political support for the Surface Plus Transit option, even though it is a viable plan.

'That' would be ECB's assurance that the surface option is a top alternative to the tunnel. The dailies still list the rebuild as the top option.

Gomez, I believe Erica said that the council "recently adopted [the surface/transit option] as its preferred backup plan if the tunnel proves too expensive." and that's true. on the same day that they passed the resolution identifying the tunnel as their preferred alternative, they identified the surface/transit option as the backup plan. i think the dailies covered that, but even if they didn't it doesn't change the fact that its true.

and all you transit+streets haters better chill the f out a little. this is going to be a long process (we're talking years before they start building) and this issue is going to continue to be on the table until that point. if you blow your wad too soon, you won't be able to keep up the fight. it's all about endurance.

If the dailies haven't reported that the council formally adopted the surface/transit option as their backup plan (and I think, actually, that they have) then they've got it wrong.

Journalists may be a day late, Ginger, but they're usually not THAT far behind. If the surface option is the city's preferred backup plan, then what does the P-I have to gain by not stating such a truth?

Now it's sounding like he said she said-ism... unless the author of this P-I pieces comes out and admits error on that fact.

Ginger is right. Chill: the only problem with the surface/transit option is that it doesn’t exist in the real world. Other than that, it’s fine. Since when has reality impeded transportation planning in Seattle?

For this proposal to work, there must be greater access from the north, but this can be accomplished by razing Queen Anne Hill.

So stop whining.

I don't appreciate the labeling of my skepticism as 'hate.' I'm simply calling a spade a spade. The plan isn't realistic and I've been given no relevant evidence to show me otherwise.

Some people just don't get it. It doesn't matter what the dailes say the preferred option is. It doesn't matter what the City Council says the preferred option is. It doesn't matter what the mayor says the preferred option is. And it god DAMN sure doesn't matter what Erica C. Barnett's preferred option or Cary Moon's preferred option is.

The only preferred option that matters is the Governor's preferred option.

Now I have been full of shit many times before, and will probably be full of shit many times again, but my guess is that the Governor will tell Seattle "Rebuild the Viaduct," and that after a lot of fuss and fulmination, posing and posturing, vitriol, venom, and vituperation, that is what will happen.

I'd totally agree, ivan, and it's technically their legal right to do so... if the Mayor didn't have the ability to block WSDOT from getting the permits to build. The city, sadly, can gum up the entire process.

The Mayor (and Council) doesn't have the ability to do anything but delay the process. He can't stop the State from siting an "essential public facility" anymore than the Snohomish County Council and Woodinville were able to stop King County from siting the Brightwater project (now that's some Orwellian language there) .

The City will lose in court (if they're foolish enough to go that far), and be forced to issue the permits. And the State will extract retribution in dozens of ways (mostly financial) that will actually hurt.

Gomez, I was using the word "hater" colloquially.

And as for the dailies, here's the Times's article covering the council's vote http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis.cgi/web/vortex/display?slug=viaduct23m&date=20060923&query=viaduct.

and it took me a sec to find, but here's the PI http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/transportation/286481_viaduct26.html.

Clearly Erica wasn't mis-stating when she said that transit+streets is the council's backup option.