Comments on Mayor Ceis

Greg Nickels passed up an opportunity to spend time with Josh Feit? I'm shocked, shocked!

I thought Ray Liotta was mayor of Seattle?

You know, when the Mayor is on Seattle Channel has he EVER taken a tough question from either C.R. or a caller? Everytime I watch it, the show appears more staged than a Bush rally in Salt Lake City.

I just wish Nickels and the tunnel-visionaries had been pushing the four-lane, single-level tunnel from the get-go. Now that is something environmentalist/progressive Seattle could rally around -- or could have rallied around.

The ominous déjà vu with the monorail project is that the SMP went merrily along for two years knowing full well about their 30% revenue shortfall and figured they could just cobble together a Rube Goldberg financing scheme. The six-lane tunnel backers should have known for years that their project would be stuck in the same situation. Hey, we monorail backers were calling them hypocrites in 2005 for taking a hard line against the monorail financing plan when there was no viable tunnel financing plan.

Credit the surface-routers for having the foresight to know for a long time that the six-lane tunnel financing would fall apart, and that they would be there to step into the breach.

More to the point of Josh's post…

Y'know, the Seattle area has become the kind of place that attracts the best and brightest from across the country, and really the world. But the more you learn about the likes of Greg Nickels, Tim Ceis, and Nick Licata, the more you realize that Seattle-area politics does not attract the best and brightest among us.

And when you look at the downtown business interests, their lack of political leadership is even more striking. The words "intransigence" and "ineptness" come to mind. Why weren't they pushing for a more modest tunnel? And why weren't they more out front about something like a LID tax?

Perhaps we're not all that unusual in these respects. But damn, I'd hate to think that the mediocrity of our political and business leaders will doom us to a "new and improved" viaduct for the next 100+ years. I mean, I hate Tim Ceis' guts just as much as the next guy, but I don't want to cut off this city's nose to spite his face.

I have always been curious about how little Nickels does to reach out to the public. As in, "I want to talk to you personally, person to person, about why this is important."

Just a thought.

"bickering about density" - really?

#6, at this point if he had a real honest town meeting I think most of us would take him outside and beat the crap out him.

It doesn't matter which politico tries to push a $4+ billion tunnel for less than 2 miles of roadway - you just can't polish a turd.

@8, @9 - yup, no matter how you slice it, an underwater tunnel that adds zero capacity, removes transit (yo, West Seattle! them's your bus lines!), and imposes Seattle-only taxes to pay for vanity projects for ultra-rich developers and their comrades just won't float. Especially when it costs more than twice what the Monorail would have cost to actually ADD massive capacity.

oh, and @4, cressona - I remember you in specific not listening to myself in specific telling you that years ago about the tunnel. bygones.

LH @ 7,
Totally. The other reporters in the room seemed happily amused by the exchange.

Maybe Nickels gets nervous about engaging in back-and-forth or debate with reporters because most of them, unlike him, finished college.

Nickels is the best mayor I have seen in my 40 years in this town, and I support him and his administration on many other issues -- but not this one. I recognize his ability and his skill even though I favor a Viaduct rebuild.

This tunnel boondoggle has stayed alive as long as it has *only* because of Nickels' political skill.

Josh's post is the most laughably ignorant spin on this whole issue that I have read yet. I mean, this is true pie-in-the face territory.

CRESSONA Wrote:
"The six-lane tunnel backers should have known for years that their project would be stuck in the same situation. Hey, we monorail backers were calling them hypocrites in 2005 for taking a hard line"

Just as all our newly minted hybrid tunnels backers should now know they are stuck in the same situation...the
intransigence and complete lack of intellectual curiousity by the city and state regarding other proposals, be it surface-transit, cable stayed bridge, etc., has been both disturbing and
another example where political ego and incompetance trumps the better interests and needs of the city's residents. Sadly, we citizens of the city will likely pick up the tab for it.

---Jensen

gee #13, neither did the richest man in the world -- unlike most of the baristas who serve up your lattes every day.

what an elitist post. no wonder liberals have a hard time getting elected.

Amen Josh. I grew up during the two Cianci eras in Providence. Little City-Huge Mayor. Good, bad or federally indictable, his impact shows and will show for decades to come. He made the city bigger in every way, and he did it by standing in front of City Hall with his policies and inviting (daring) everyone to duke it out with him. He never fought fair, and his policies were often not the best for the city, but he gave the city a point of reference and his presence practically forced civic engagement. You were either with the mayor or against the mayor and either way you had to have an opinion and be ready to back it up against the arguments of your neighbor, newspaper columnist or city councilman. Everyone knew that the stakes were nothing less than their place in the city's future.

Seattle has the potential to become much, much bigger than our civic low self-esteem will allow us to imagine, but this cannot happen until our politicians begin acting like big city politicians. We're not a big city yet, but despite our ambivalence we are growing into one. Our politicians will shape that growth. If we don't produce our own Cianci or Daly or Washington or even a Robert Moses then our city, like its current muddle-headed leadership, is going to stumble from initiative to election to city council workaround, past monorails, tunnels and utopic green visions into an awkward, sprawling, expensive mess of a future. Mayor Nickels wants to be That Mayor, and that's exactly why he will never become one. That kind of leader inspires the kind strong emotional investment--nothing short of love or hate--that makes popular civic engagement sustainable. We need a mayor we can hate now and respect and maybe even learn to love later, and Mayor Nickels wants too much to be liked now and forever. He is just not tough enough to be the mayor we need.

"Unfortunately for Nickels he’s just not the kind of mayor who can deliver on this project..."

But very fortunately for the rest of us.

You know, I was trying to get my mind around this project. I was thinking about it from a different way, because I'm so unhappy with ALL of the possible solutions, and I really want something good to come out of it all. I was imagining what I would want if I just said "hang the cost, make something great that will be a jewel for the city". I was thinking about what the "hybrid tunnel" could be like, and I was sort of getting there. If they did it right, particularly the connections at the north and south ends of it, it could be a wonderful thing. Too expensive, sure; but in thirty years no one's going to give a shit how much it cost; they're going to care whether it enriches their lives and their city's life. It is possible to imagine a tunnel that does that.

But I finally decided that there's no way. The tunnel is not going to be a jewel; there isn't any genius behind it, pushing a beautiful if somewhat impractical design, like the Sydney Opera House, for instance; the best Seattle can hope for is the pushing part, but the design part I think we've proven over and over we just don't know how to do. We can create garbage on our own, or we can bring in expensive foreign help to do it (see: EMP). But realistically, the most we can hope for is mundane workability. And I mean the MOST.

But with this tunnel idea, we're not even going to get that much. This isn't a plan; it's a promise of a plan later. And the guy selling it isn't the brilliant artist; it's Greg Freakin' Nickels, and he can't even bring himself to tell us publicly what's so great about it. There's just no way it's going to happen.

So we're going to get a new viaduct, because that's what the state is going to decide to do -- HAS ALREADY DECIDED to do -- regardless of any stupid meaningless votes. And that viaduct is going to surprise the hell out of all of the new-viaduct supporters, because it's going to be twice as wide and twice as high as the one we've got now, which is going to mean the removal of a lot of Seattle's more historic buildings, and there's not going to be any roadway views like they thought they were voting for, and there's not going to be any ramps downtown because highway safety code won't allow the curves. That's what we're going to get.

At some point, you just have to wonder. It's not even about which plan is best. It's about how you go about making the plan you select as good as you can. But instead we're going to get the worst, not the best. It makes me despair.

it's hard to build a cake with sawdust, Fnarf.

Hey Fnarf:

DOT has said repeatedly that there will be an on ramp at Columbia and an off ramp at Seneca, just like the present Viaduct has.

So tell us what inside knowledge you have to the contrary.

Don't worry, FNARF, they won't do the Rebuild. Too much hassle.

The big elephant in the room which many people do not want to acknowledge is that the current Viaduct can be Repaired.

The concerns about the "emergency" of the Viaduct are only excuses to tear it down. Consider, 6 years later and they still haven't reduced speed limits on it. Think about it. There is NO emergency. (Or certainly none of the authorities are acting as if there is one.)

The Viaduct may certainly need repair -- what doesn't? -- but the idea that it must be destroyed is a "useful exaggeration" for people who have other agendas...the PWC, the Mayor, the Stranger, WSDOT etc

FNARF,

The rebuild proposal will be a couple of feet higher and about 50% wider than the existing AWV. Bigger, but not that much bigger.

Most of the "bigger" is the extra width for the lanes (required for the tunnel too) and the wider shoulders (ditto). It's all part of current code, not a suggestion but a requirement. Reduces accidents and lets giant SUVs pass giant trucks.

Does Seattle really need a Mega-Luxury Viaduct to met a few hours of peak traffic flow through that corridor? The Seattle Dept of Transportation map only shows 60,000 vehicles/day using the 4 lane Battery Street Tunnel. And the Viaduct around Spokane Street only shows a 60,000/day figure. The other 50,000 get on and off at local exits. Tim Ceis says the flow through N and S traffic is about 70,000.

So the 110,000 used to justify the Viaduct rebuild includes a lot of local traffic flow that could be handled locally.

But the real question is, when is this traffic capacity needed. Obviously Saturday and Sunday traffic is a lot less, but dependent on game days.

The real measure should be traffic flow per hour by time of day. Maybe peak traffic is for morning and eve rush hour equal to 4 hours a day for 5 days for 20 hours. The rest of the time this capacity isn't needed.

One way to reduce peak traffic needs would be to build park and rides on North and South 99 and use shuttle busses into Seattle. This shuttle bus idea is just like the special game buses now. Seems like you could build a lot of park and rides and buses for a billion or two.

Maybe we should test just who would really pay to use the Viaduct by starting to charge tolls now. We might find a more lowernneed for traffic capacity. Car pools could pass free or at a reduced rate. Tolls collected now could go toward tear down costs of the Viaduct.

You could also meter access to the Viaduct to control traffic flow.

Personally I think we should just tear it down and put $2 to $3 billion in increasing public transit through the corridor. Building capacity to encourage more cars may get the highway builders to love you but its not going to reduce air pollution, noise, toxic runoff, global warming, or increase the attractiveness of the waterfront. Should we think last century or next century?

DAVID SUCHER Wrote:
"The big elephant in the room which many people do not want to acknowledge is that the current Viaduct can be Repaired."

BINGO!
And the state's default position come March, regardless of the vote, will be to focus its attention and any Viaduct revenue to the 520 bridge project. The 520 bridge is in critical need of replacement....more so than the Viaduct The state can easily justify putting it front of the Viaduct while setting aside funds for the Viaduct's repair and maintenance. It will satisfy the needs of two major groups of constituents and muzzle Nickels and the city council.
---Jensen

OK, Ivan, if the all-powerful DOT is going to have an offramp, explain where it's going to go. Feel free to mark your illustration in color with the ten buildings, including many historical ones, that will have to be removed. There are codes for these sorts of things, and none of the current ramps come anywhere near meeting them. The current ramps are, in fact, extremely dangerous. I watched a big, dumb ol' pickup truck come very close to pitching off the northbound onramp at 1st Avenue South and King on an icy day last winter; he was all over the place. Ten more feet and he would have made a forty foot drop at least. Scary. Not allowed in 2007 construction.

The Seneca and Columbia ramps will require the removal of most of a city block, each. What about the three ramps at Western? They are nowhere near code. Go look at the new ramps they built for I-90 to see what I mean; those ramps don't look like that because the engineers are mean; they HAVE to be that way.

50% wider also means the removal of dozens of buildings, none of which the city owns and quite a few of which are historic and valuable far beyond their real estate numbers. Unless they're planning to overhang Alaskan Way by a hundred feet. A new viaduct is going to wipe out the Western Avenue neighborhood and part of Pioneer Square.

Either way, that's not what people mean when they say "new viaduct". They want "same viaduct" and they're not getting it. A new viaduct could conceivably be made in such a way as to enrich the city, but there is no chance of that; it's too expensive and requires creativity not in evidence.

We haven't even touched on what happens when they uncover their first Indian remains, which should happen on...the first day?

Rebuild's not going to happen either. Too many fancy people have a finger in the pie. What we're going to get is a boondoggle like we've never seen in this state before. I'm going with $20 billion for now. I don't think the current crew could erect a flagpole for much less.

Remember WPPSS? This one's right in the middle of downtown.

I also think they ought to move the money to 520, except that the 520 project is about six years behind the viaduct in the design and planning. Even this hybrid tunnel thingie is way closer to being reality. 520 is a decade away from happening.

You know, Jensen, I think I might agree with you on one point.

Why the hell aren't we at least considering a cable-stay bridge? If we're going to spend this much cash as a city, why not at least get something beautiful out of it? Something that can be built with far less disruption to business in the city? The most toll-able option (asking people to pay for what they use.)

Yeah, yeah, the port whined about flight paths to the nearly useless Boeing field. Guess they still have pipe dreams of Southwest jets flying in there.

Leave it to Seattle politicians to leave us with the worst possible options.

Fnarf may be right about this. Maybe the best option would be to structurally repair and reinforce the viaduct we have for now. That would save quite a bit of money. Plus maybe we wouldn't have to encroach on portions of Pioneer Square and other neighborhoods to make way for a 2007 code-meeting structure. Then maybe later when someone is in office who is actually capable of pulling off a cool project like a tunnel, we can redo it.

It's been my understanding that the problem with the current viaduct is the foundation far more than the structure itself.

While retrofits of the structure could probably make it strong enough to be safe, the intact structure would still be susceptible to rotating into the sea due to the poor soils and grossly insufficient anchors.

There is no well-established technique to shore up an existing foundation like the viaduct currently has. A few years ago, there was talk about concrete injections and the such, but these techniques are experimental at best and most likely futile.

Fnarf, the Governor has already threatened to shift Viaduct intended funds to the 520 project. Her consituents in Bellevue would be grateful and happy to see it done.

---Jensen

If Nickels/Ceis were smart, they'd have shifted the conversation 180 degrees by proposing an elevated/surface hybid:

Step 1: Build lid over Alaskan Way

Step 2: Widen the surface road underneath to 8 lanes with one stoplight for downtown access

Step 3: Streetcar & Bike Path go on top of lid, extend to West Seattle, Ballard

Step 4: Is, of course, profit.

Boeing Field isn't useless if you are expecting to get packages from FedEx, UPS, USPS, DHL, et al.

Golob, we aren't considering a cable stayed bridge because:

1) It is technology WSDOT is not familiar with and has little experience. WSDOT builds roads. This would require bringing in off-shore expertise.

2) The Seattle city council and mayor's office lack the intellectual curiousity and determination to to learn about the technology. Jan
Drago, head of the transportation committee for the city council certainly doesn't appear to me to well versed in current engineering technologies or has demonstrated an interest in the field. The other council members appear just as challenged as Ms. Drago, and they too lack a studious interest or a technological background.

3) The Mayor has put his entire political capital and efforts in a tunnel proposal...now Tunnel Part Two.

4) Lack of public knowledge, understanding and resulting and support.

5) WSDOT has studied, supported and has an invested interest in the tunnel or viaduct rebuild. They do not want to put the cost and effort into studying competing proposals. Hence their flight path criticisms, etc. you cite above.

As Fnarf stated in his post @ 19, this has nothing to do with which plan is best. It is about making a costly and imprudent plan look good, and that is why the cable stayed brigde will likely not be further considered.

---Jensen

"While retrofits of the structure could probably make it strong enough to be safe, the intact structure would still be susceptible to rotating into the sea due to the poor soils and grossly insufficient anchors."

Uh...and where did you hear that? The same people who want to do a Tunnel? Maybe? Why do you think it is impossible to build a new foundation?

Seawall, David. The seawall needs to be rebuilt. It's probably more urgent than the viaduct itself. It's holding more than the viaduct up; it's holding the whole downtown in place.

FNARF Wrote:
"Seawall, David. The seawall needs to be rebuilt.""

This is the city of Seattle's responsibility and there has been nothing stopping the city from accomplishing this task outside of its desire to attempt to piggy back it and its costs (along with utility upgrade and rerouting) into a tunnel.

---Jensen

Nothing except the missing billion dollars. Trying to piggyback it onto something else is sound policy.

FNARF Wrote:
"Boeing Field isn't useless if you are expecting to get packages from FedEx, UPS, USPS, DHL, et al."

Agreed. I differ with WSDOT in that I don't see the Boeing Field glide path being an issue. WSDOT has not been able to prove that it is, and it is their job to do so. Saying that the world is flat doesn't make it so, but WSDOT has it own political agenda.

---Jensen

Fnarf,

A bridge wouldn't completely block Boeing field (which is also used for delivery of the narrow-body Boeing jets, a non-trivial bit of the local economy).

It would just block *some* flight paths. With the current usage, it wouldn't have any real impact.

As far as the foundation vs structure, there was a very detailed report done by a structural engineering firm that I plowed through on the retrofit.

Compare I-5 to the viaduct. Both are similar in the above-ground structure (particularly the express lanes by Mercer St). It is below the ground that there are major differences. I-5 has a much better, much more solid foundation and is built into bedrock, and thus could just have the above-ground structures retrofitted.

The viaduct (at least significant stretches) is built on loose landfill that is indeed held into place by the seawall. No matter how strong you make the above ground structure, it would still be susceptible to tip-over. Think leaning tower of Pisa. That's why when WSDOT releases the annual report on it, they report the angle of lean.

There really is no good technology to replace the foundation while leaving the existing above-ground structure. One can try jamming in long steel piles and injected concrete, but I don't believe that has been tried on a structure as large or as seismically exposed as the AWV.

This is why I've always liked a bridge or the surface+ transit choices. Much easier to engineer properly for the seismic and soil challenges of the site.

(FWIW, my sister is a civil engineer, and we've had many boring conversations about these things... ;p)

FNARF Wrote:
"Nothing except the missing billion dollars. Trying to piggyback it onto something else is sound policy."

The Billion dollars isn't missing. It is sitting in the pockets of and will be paid by the citizens of the city. It will have to be completed at some point and isn't dependent on a tunnel, a rebuild, etc., and I can almost guarantee the state will take no interest financially supporting it. I won't comment if piggy-backing it is sound policy for re-building the seawall. I haven't seen the numbers or the plans.

---Jensen

Fnarf @ 27 asks:

"OK, Ivan, if the all-powerful DOT is going to have an offramp, explain where it's going to go. Feel free to mark your illustration in color with the ten buildings, including many historical ones, that will have to be removed. There are codes for these sorts of things, and none of the current ramps come anywhere near meeting them. The current ramps are, in fact, extremely dangerous. I watched a big, dumb ol' pickup truck come very close to pitching off the northbound onramp at 1st Avenue South and King on an icy day last winter; he was all over the place. Ten more feet and he would have made a forty foot drop at least. Scary. Not allowed in 2007 construction."

Not allowed, except when it is. The answer to your question is the same answer Tim Ceis gave us when we asked about the lack of shoulders in the four-lane tunnel, as in "how can a lane be a lane and a shoulder at the same time?"

Tim said something to the effect that "there are waivers all the time." And so it will be with the viaduct. Every DOT plan and model I have seen has the Columbia on ramp and the Seneca off ramp.

So codes mean dick. But nice try.

GOLUB Wrote:
"A bridge wouldn't completely block Boeing field (which is also used for delivery of the narrow-body Boeing jets, a non-trivial bit of the local economy).It would just block *some* flight paths. With the current usage, it wouldn't have any real impact."

Golub, there is new deck framing currently in use made of composite material which would significantly reduce seismic loading and the overall structure would likely be a lower profile and design. I doubt it would have any impact on Boeing Field traffic. I am sure WSDOT isn't aware of it.

Ask your sister about it. She can likely fill in more of the blanks than I have the energy to to do here.

---Jensen

In general, Nickels-Ceis are trying to lead Seattle in the correct directions. Nickels is a good politician and personalable and smart enough. Ceis is quite good, though he rubs some the wrong way. This fall, Ceis was very well spoken on the SR-520 issues. Even Feit is charmed.

Nickels-Ceis often need help on the tactics used to achieve their objectives. the Council improved the Northgate initiative and the downtown height and density zoning changes. SLU is going to become an urban center, but the Vulcan SLU streetcar is only a distraction. detached ADU should be legalized....

I hope they stop a replacement elevated viaduct. it would be the big ugly and a monument to global warming. this is the option that provides the ramps to Seneca and Columbia streets. The tunnel options do not.

I have advocated consideration of the four lane tunnel option since the DEIS days. I suggested amending it to include the ramps to Western and Elliott avenues AND dynamic tolling to reduce demand to the point that could be handled by four lanes. the key users are the through trips. trips oriented to downtown may more easily shifted to transit.

Montreal has its downtown highway is a covered trench. Paris has a expressway in a concrete box on the right bank. Mercer Island got a nice box for I-90.

Nickels seems willing to impose tolls. Gregoire is cautious. They should be system wide and dynamic. their main purpose should not be to raise revenue for the capital cost of the mega projects, but to manage demand, raise revenue for additonal transit service and long-term maintenance.

Seattle probably waited too long to ask for the four-lane tunnel to be evaluated. I hope there is time for it to be validated before the advisory vote.

Steinbrueck noted that advisory votes are often meaningless. we do not have good choices.

It may be best to delay the AWV closure a few years any way. this would give SDOT time to plan, fund, and build the South Lander Street overcrossing to help transit serving the Duwamish Pennisula across the BNSFRR mainline reliably. It would also give WSDOT and a new regional body time to implement dynamic tolling. It could also give Sound Transit time to extend Link LRT to NE 45th Street and actually increase, rather than decrease, the transit capacity of downtown Seattle. so, the prayer AWV option is needed: hope it stays up!

there is not enough funding to build all the mega projects. RTID looks dead; it is trying to fund the wrong projects with the wrong revenues. the Senators that dreamed it up are out of office (e.g., McDonald, Finkbiner, and Horn).

FNARF and Ivan,

With regard to "required" lane and shoulder widths, consider that the West Seattle Bridge had those 12' lanes, but the City narrowed them considerably to make room for the eastbound bus-only lane (which isn't used nearly enough to justify it, in my view, but maybe the Transit Now buses will make it worthwhile).

I agree the City can and will get exemptions for either project as it suits them after the campaign is over and their promises/statements/threats are voided (and now that I think of it, I guess there will be no "required" shoulder in Greg Nickels' and Jan Drago's during rush hour when they're converted to travel lanes).

Also, the DEIS should have a section listing the number and location of potential property acquisitions that would be required under each of the options. I don't recall the details, but I was focused more on other parts of the document the last time I went through it (and there is a LOT to review). My understanding is that there aren't a lot of buildings at risk, but it's not an issue I've followed closely enough. There was a story saying that the Catholic Seaman's Club (!!!) would likely be removed under most options because planner say they need it for renovation work on the Battery Street Tunnel or the like.

The results are in: the winner: Josh Feit (a rarity!)

The loser: FNARF (a rarity!)

Josh is referred to the Clash Song Complete Control (aka Tim Ceis), and condemned to a Tim Ceis harangue about how Greg is doing all the right things, and is really the Best Man for the Job...or 10 minutes with Greg explaining how L. Ron is right if he really wants to put out.

FNARF is referred to the Public Enemy Song Don’t Believe the Hype (aka the 10,000 foot wide rebuild) and is condemned to a Frank Chopp lecture about how narrow and beautiful a rebuild could be….or one phone call to a random number in Oly, if he really wants to put out.

Gas Face Honorable Mention: Cressona, for—yet again—bashing the Mayor, City officials, etc. with zero zilch nada in the way of facts; he/she/it is condemned to recite ad infinitum I’m Too Sexy For My Car, Too Sexy for My City By Far...or the Tears for Fears song Everybody Wants to Rule the World if he/she/it really wants to put out.

Josh,
That Ceis thing is getting a little weird.

Get a room.

The Mayor might have some shortcomings - but it is the tag team of Licata and Chopp who are screwing the city on this.