Comments on Gregoire Punts: Tunnel Vs. Re-Build. Shot Vs. Hung

goddamn it!!!! I HATE HER! What a chickenshit moron she is!! FUCK.

The opening line of The Seattle Times story on the Gregoire decision:
"Gov. Christine Gregoire this morning called for a public vote on the Alaskan Way Viaduct to break the political stalemate between an affordable elevated structure and a tunnel that is still financially shaky."

Elevated = "affordable." Tunnel = "financially shaky." Anyone still want to believe that the relentless spin is confined just to the Times' editorial pages?

Well, after 8 years of the do-nothing Gary Locke vision on transportation, I thought we might have a real governor with some balls. Looks like I was wrong.

Y'know what, for anyone who is opposed to seeing Seattle become the only city in the civilized world in the past few generations to build an elevated highway along its downtown waterfront -- this could really be the worst possible decision. Gregoire has chosen to credulously accept WSDOT's capacity-expanding assumptions and give Seattle voters what is essentially a false choice. And she's chosen to do it in such a way as to give herself the most political cover.

Well, can't say I'm surprised...

Let Ed Murray and Jamie Pedersen take this over. The legislature should decide what to do as far as a SR 520 rebuild and SR 99 viaduct replacement goes. These are the state’s highways, after all. I’m none too impressed with how “local control” of transportation projects pans out in this neck of the woods. We elected the Legislature. Let it decide what to do, levy the taxes, and build what needs building. Nickels will shut up, and life will go on. No more crap advisory ballots need to be shoved in front of this Seattle resident, thank you. SMP made me do enough of that already, and I don’t like at all how that played out . . ..

This woman's political career is over. She if fatally weak. First she's bested by pharmacists, for Christ's sake... now the mayor of a city cows her.

If anyone can find Dino Rossi, tell him to put his cajones back on and get out there! Or better - McGavick. Just hold back on those weenie confessions man.

I'm trying to think what's the best political response to this situation, and I think it is to see Gregoire's bluff. It sounds like the city of Seattle has the power to put on the ballot what it wants to put on the ballot. So let's take Gregoire's false choice and make more of a real choice. Make it two options:
(A) A 50% larger six-lane elevated structure.
(B) A four-lane tunnel or, if the money is not there, a surface route.

Let's see the state pick a fight about whether four lanes preserves capacity. Really, it does because we're talking four lanes that are larger and have shoulders. WSDOT's dirty, little secret is that they really want to build something bigger that effectively expands capacity. And let's see Gregoire and the state try to defy the will of the voters in this case.

Tell me, "I've got an idea" above, what is Jamie Pedersen supposed to do about this? File and lose another lawsuit?

The Governor stated the City of Seattle must pay any extra costs for the tunnel. It’s time for Seattle to put its money where its mouth is.

She just said in the press conference, “if the City chooses a tunnel, it will have to pay the cost difference, and any cost overruns associated with a tunnel.”

A public vote gives Nickels a free shot at its #1 option. This would make it morally reprehensible for the City to obstruct a rebuild and push its #2 surface option, if they lose the vote.

It’s smart politics, and puts Nickels in a corner.

Yeah, and even people who like a tunnel are gonna choke on having City taxpayers pick up the (at least) $2 billion difference. She isn't just calling for an advisory vote on the concept, I suspect she's talking about an actual authorization of funds.

And when RTID fails, they're suddenly going to discover that retrofitting the AWV is actually feasible, after all. Pity about the tens of millions of planning dollars that will have been flushed down the toilet by then, though.

Nickels just said he’ll accept the results of a public vote. Touche.

Ok. ANYbody that votes for that woman in the next primary needs to die a slow agonizing death by evangelical prostelytizing.

Of course voting for her in the actual election could be necessitated by the extent of the fascism of her opponent.

Given that the costs won't be available in time for a quickie vote how much extra taxes - above and beyond the RTID and ST2 taxes?), this is EXACTLY the kind of meaningless feel-good ballot measure that monorail kept putting out there. Four ballot measures monorail got people to agree to, and it wasn't until two years after the fourth vote that monorail gave out its real cost estimates.

Let the legislature take over and run both these projects. We don't need the city and RTID in there with their greasy fingers. That just means extra layers of taxes and public employees. If the legislators mess up, we can vote in better ones. More accountability that way, and less taxes. As far as the rest of the state goes, they'll benefit from these state highways being improved.

Frankly, I trust the legislature more than I trust Nickels. His track record stinks when it comes to megaprojects.

The city of Seattle has no idea who it is or what it wants. There is no shared identity or understanding of the common good among the people here. It's not a community, it's a collection of bickering factions and subfactions.

And it's not Christine Gregoire's responsibility to figure this out for us.

The biggest tunnel in the world is not going to make the waterfront any more accessible to downtown.

The biggest barrier is the freaking hill that the city sits on ABOVE the waterfront.

No one wants to walk down cause it's too much to climb back.

AND,

If you think that faux park you've seen in the videos promoting the Greg Nichols Memorial Hole is going to be available to you, mere non million dollar condo dwelling mortal, think again.

Access by invitation only.

The view of the city and it's waterfront from the viaduct is the only one available to the grunts who make this town work. For 90 seconds, they get a glimpse of what is truly beautiful in this place, before they go to wherever it is that they live and work.

IMO, the tunnel is an elitist rip off of the last best view in town.

"If you think that faux park ... is going to be available to you, mere non million dollar condo dwelling mortal, think again."

Thanks, Joe Seattle, for illustrating my point. The idea of a single space shared by both rich and poor is simply beyond our capacity to imagine.

Rich vs poor, bike vs car, Christian vs Jew, neighborhoods vs downtown, white vs black, old vs young, women vs men, north vs south, paper vs plastic. We sure do love our conflicts.

Mr. X calls it correctly, as does Old Timer.

Josh Feit, does anyone at The Stranger know how to spell Retrofit?

I'll spell retrofit for you, David. I-D-I-O-T-I-C.

SAM Sculpture Park is the BIGGEST rip off to the citizens of Seattle. Even though we didn't have to pay for it with our hard earned money - they still screwed up a perfectly good piece of land. They said that it would provide a way to access the waterfront. Ha! Have you driven by that monstrosity lately. Why is Seattle's idea of always providing more green space mean that more and more concrete will be used.

You can't even see the damn water front anymore - they have these HUGE concrete barriers blocking the view...kinda like the viaduct.

And yes, I know that people are to walk over these structures and view the water and mountains from on high... but I gotta tell ya - it seems like a colossal waste of time and money.

Did they not visit any other world class sculpture parks around the world... ones where you can meander amongst the works of art - instead of being herded through them like cattle...

Why not plant some grass - have some open green space and quit trying to trick everything out all of the time...

Even lamer in my book: taking no position on the Pacific St 520 option. Telling neighborhoods to "work together" and figure it out is some leadership, gov.

And check out the $ shortfall: $3.9-$4.4 billion cost, $2.1 allocated even with RTID. That puts the shiv into the waterfront tunnel for sure.

I think the surface option is off the table for the simple reason that Gregoire recognizes that 100,000+ people west of Highway 99 will be mired in gridlock. Add on top of that the effect against commerce, and it's a no brainer, far as I'm concerned.

The only way through on a legitimate basis for the surface street proponents is to simultaneously tell the public exactly what kind of rapid transit will replace those trips. Not buses. Not BRT. Not "staying home" or "locally driven". The fact is that the city is growing, will continue to grow if the mix is right and those trips that the PWC magically makes disappear will at best, be gone only for a short while. Then you'll see a city of 700,000, with an even larger metro area, stuck in worse gridlock.

If I-5 were to get totally shut down- there would be no alternate route through the city. Gregoire has made her choice- good or bad. It's now up to Nickels to give his shot at what he wants, then seek the advice of the voters.

Gregoire has proven herself a useless governor, but she did the right thing in scrapping all but the rebuild options. We need to move forward and quit bickering about pipe dreams.

Speaking of which, citizen support lay heavily with the rebuild, even before Gregoire's cheap shot at the tunnel. It'll pass easily.

Build a transit system that can get me out of Georgetown to Downtown in 20 minutes, and build a system that can get people from West Seattle to Downtown and back, and you'll be better able to sell a surface option.

As it stands, it's infeasible and the governor saw it for what it was.

I know the spin is that she showed weakness and punted, but I think this is smart politics.

The money isn't even remotely there for a tunnel. The mayor's financing plan relies on a lot of imaginary money that may not materialize, and the Big Dig showed that we have to assume that any tunnel will cost far more than the initial estimates. So, the Gov. couldn't choose the tunnel in good conscience.

On the other hand, the mayor has sworn to stall a rebuild any way he can, so she couldn't pick that.

By putting it to a vote, which will almost certainly go in favor of a rebuild, she's allowing a higher power -- the will of the majority -- to pressure the mayor to accept the inevitable.