About the viaduct story... I have to say a four-lane tunnel is a much better thing than a six-lane tunnel. For one thing, it's cheaper, although I'd like to see some scrutiny of this $1.2 billion figure the city comes up with for the savings. For all I know, they just pulled that number out of a hat.

The other advantage of the four-lane is that it doesn't expand capacity. The Washington State "Department of Highways" has always been dead-set on limiting the parameters of the viaduct debate to absolutely require an expansion of capacity. Of course, when you're in the highway business, this is what you do, and none of the elected officials at the state level have had the courage to stand up to them on that assumption.

And then Doug MacDonald of WSDOH has the nerve to say, "This deals with political issues, not engineering issues." Oh, like Doug is just the innocent, little engineering guy focused on the facts. Well, insisting on expanding the width of the infrastructure by 50% was always a planning and political assertion, not an engineering one.

Anyway, about the four-lane concept, I just wish Nickels had had the brains and balls to be backing that proposal from the outset, rather than as a kind of desperation Plan B. And if the goal is to keep a massive, new elevated highway from marring the downtown waterfront, I just don't know what the City Council should do at this point. I can see two options:

• Put the four-lane tunnel on the ballot.
• Give up on a tunnel, don't put anything on the ballot, and dig the trenches around the surface concept. City vs. state in a long, bloody war of attrition.

Deadly Games: Hold your Wee for a Wii station axes 10 employees after contestant's death

Ten employees of The End (KDND, 107.9 FM) were fired Tuesday and the "Morning Rave" morning radio show has been canceled in wake of a water-drinking contest Friday that left a Rancho Cordova woman ill hours before she died, apparently of water intoxication.

Ice is not a moral agent and cannot bear responsibility for anything. If we must always blame someone for everything, blame the stupid kids whose weight the ice also could not bear.

#3: God says that the ice is at fault. We must have justice served on the ice! We will attack the ice with flaming torches!! Burn ice burn!!! And may God have mercy on the soul of the ice!

Hmmm, maybe a "tunnel lite" could be dedicated to mass transit and commercial traffic, while the surface street accommodates regular traffic.

#4: God has a snowball's chance in hell of burning that dastardly ice.

#2: That was such a sad story, especially since the woman was doing the contest for her kids.

What, no Watada update? Also, what ever happened with DJ DV and his felony assault charge and counter allegations of police brutality?

@2

Darwin at work on oh so many levels...

How about a viaduct lite - 4 lanes all on one level no reflective sound - single pier construction? At the very least that's what this latest desperate attempt to "save the middle waterfront" should be compared to for cost and all.

Four lane tunnel - worst of all worlds - expensive, reduced capacity, least green (except for six lane), 10 year construction with job, business, and tax revenue losses, ...

Bush lied - Nickels lies

How about a real vote on the real choices we can afford that don't reduce capacity - the Elevated Viaduct rebuild and the Surface Plus Transit option?

How is a four-lane tunnel less green than a new viaduct? How many lanes would a new viaduct have? Six? Eight?

Will,

Please explain to me how Surface Plus (nonexistant) Transit doesn't reduce capacity compared to the existing 6+ lane limited access roadway.

"How is a four-lane tunnel less green than a new viaduct? How many lanes would a new viaduct have? Six? Eight?"

The current plan is for 6 lanes. Viaduct Lite could have 4 lanes.

Read the DEIS energy section you'll find that the building carbon footprint is twice for the tunnel than the viaduct. 6 lanes each.

Then you have 100 years of operation - with any tunnel that's 24/7 lighting, air and water pumps.

Your mayor claims the capacity will be the same for the 4 lane tunnel as the 6 lane - don't believe it but that's what he says. Of course we can make the same argument for a viaduct - 4 lanes will carry the same number of vehicles as a 6 lane.

Of course, using the shoulder for rush hour traffic would be more risky in a tunnel - fire in the hole and no way to get to the accident.