Seattlest has a great find: the Wikipedia page on the Alaskan Way Viaduct, which was revised by “WSDOT Alaskan Way Viaduct Project” on Friday, October 27. (Update: And so does Sarah Mirk!) Most of the changes reveal a strong bias in favor of the tunnel.

From the old version:

Mayor Greg Nickels strongly favors the tunnel option, while the City Council is split among the choices, with a few strongly favoring the surface-level street options.

And the new one:

Mayor Greg Nickels strongly favors the tunnel option, and the City Council selected the tunnel as their preferred alternative by a majority vote in 2004 and 2006.

Old:

[The viaduct] is the smaller of the two major traffic corridors through Seattle, carrying up to 110,000 vehicles per day. Interstate 5, the city’s other major traffic corridor, handles about three times as many vehicles.

And new:

It is a primary north-south route through Seattle, carrying 110,000 vehicles per day, or about 20 to 25 percent of traffic traveling through downtown. The only other significant north-south route to and through downtown Seattle is Interstate 5. Interstate 5 handles about three times as many vehicles, but does not have the capacity to add trips searching for an alternative to the viaduct.

The new version also eliminates the surface/transit option (formerly defined as an option that would “tear down the viaduct and disperse traffic to surface streets and to Interstate 5”) from a list of alternatives under consideration. Instead, the rewritten version defines the surface option as simply “replacing the viaduct with a six-lane surface-level Alaskan Way.” It also includes a laughably biased description of the tunnel as an option that would “maintain the mobility provided by SR 99 and reconnect downtown to the waterfront” while “open[ing] up Seattle’s waterfront to more scenic views” and eliminating “an unattractive blight on the city that cuts off easy access to the waterfront.”

Nice spin, “WSDOT”. And nice catch, Seattlest.