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Saturday, February 24, 2007

But Where Are the Cars?

posted by on February 24 at 16:29 PM

I’m off snowboarding this week with my kid. Winter break, and like that. So I’m not Slogging much. I’m on vacation, and vacating means no Slogging—or that’s what my boyfriend keeps telling me anyway. Still, I wanted to toss this letter up. It takes us to task for this week’s cover, which was my call.

viaductcover-big.jpg

I fully support the No/No vote. Building a new elevated structure is criminal. But how could The Stranger place an image of a brand new modern clean and EMPTY viaduct with blue skies on the cover??? Considering transportation mobility is the #1 issue by the masses, this free advertisement of a dreamy congestion-free viaduct was a shortsighted blunder.

Motoki Nagasooki

Mr. Nagasooki is correct. We should have shown what a new viaduct would look like a week after it opened—not ten minutes after it opened. The new viaduct, which would only maintain current capacity, would be as congested as our current viaduct. Think wall-to-wall traffic, not the lovely drive in the country shown on this week’s cover. And even if the proposed new viaduct increased capacity, it would be still be congested. That’s the way new road construction works. New roads, ostensibly built to relieve congestion, immediately fill up. New roads encourage more people to drive, which only makes gridlock worse—to say nothing of the environmental damage cars do.

But, hey, the parking lot is full.

Now please read Erica C. Barnett’s excellent piece urging a no/no vote on the viaduct replacement. No tunnel, no new viaduct.

RSS icon Comments

1

It's the same as the fake pics of the Tunnel with no cars on the surface and the Surface Plus Transit with people walking across a two-lane street with trees.

They are all lies. They also all fail to show the upgraded double-tracked streetcars that will exist, and the 1 percent for art that is included in all the designs.

Bygones. I already voted No on 1 (Mini Underwater Tunnel) and Yes on 2 (Rebuilt Viaduct).

Posted by Will in Seattle | February 24, 2007 4:36 PM
2

What's the deal with the guy standing on the viaduct right below the red truck? I noticed it the first time I saw the cover, but wasn't sure until I got a closer look on the print edition. Totally a dude standing right in the middle of the viaduct. WTF?

Posted by John | February 24, 2007 4:59 PM
3

It looks "dreamy" all right. As in nightmarish. And this is no doubt the best an artist can do.

I have been following the viaduct warfare on Slog and finally can't resist weighing in.

Approving and building that atrocity would be the biggest civic failure in this region since the failure of RT in Forward Thrust in 1968 and 1970. It would make the Kingdome, the Convention Center and expansion thereof, the failure of the Commons (maybe shouldn't have mentioned that one!), and Westlake Mall look brilliant by comparison. It would be the equivalent of a failure to Save the Market, had that happened in 1971. Or the equivalent of the RH Thompson Expressway had that not been stopped. Or the faiilure to clean up Lake Washingon in the 60s. All for what? A marginal delay (over the surface option) in the inevitable gridlock for a handful of years?

But why am I posting this? Has there ever been such a divided Sloggership, each position so certain and intransigent?

Posted by fixo | February 24, 2007 5:02 PM
4

So, you're against driving cars in the city but are totally fine with driving cars up the side of a mountain so you can snowboard there?

Posted by Fnarf | February 24, 2007 5:32 PM
5

@2 - that's the Smoking Man.

Posted by Will in Seattle | February 24, 2007 5:34 PM
6

The lone pedestrian is no doubt included to represent the trend toward more homeless people dashing accross our freeways. The where and whence of this particular dashing derelict is a bit hard to fathom, but maybe he's got a hammock strung up along the viaduct and is crossing over to the ramp to search out some beer (since malt liquor is no longer available down that way).
Also there is nothing inconsistent about not wanting to see more care commuters and taking an occasional trip by car somewhere.
I guess there are some who feel that cars are just plain bad, wrong, whatever, but more moderate positions abound too. There will always be trips that pretty much require the use of a car, but the point is that when they are not required, we shouldnt have a transportation policy that encourages them by subsidizing them.
I'm guessing that DS and others like him would gladly take some form of public transit to the slopes, were it available. It's not.
Finally I'd guess that a trip to the slopes and back has about as much emissions impact as the habit so many carsons have of spending their weekends shuttling from home to mall, to mall, to mall, to home, to mall, etc.

Posted by kinaidos | February 24, 2007 6:10 PM
7

You can have a car-tolerant, even car-friendly, overall transportation policy without resolving all major public decisions solely on the basis of what's good for cars. Is there any other basis upon which the elevated option might be the best option?

Posted by fixo | February 24, 2007 6:27 PM
8

Is there an available analysis of emissions re surface traffic vs. viaduct traffic?

Posted by rodrigo | February 24, 2007 6:58 PM
9

Yeah, "wall-to-wall traffic".

Posted by Lloyd Clydesdale | February 24, 2007 7:18 PM
10

Yes, I am. Because you should be able to get around the city on foot, by bike, and on public transit. Which we do, my family. We drive when we have to. If there monorails up to the mountains, I'd ride 'em.

Posted by Dan Savage | February 24, 2007 7:38 PM
11

I rode a subway car up the side of a mountain in Japan.

But then, Japan is different. I'm fairly convinced that you can take a train from Tokyo station through the Prime Minister's colon. You just have to find the right transfer.

Posted by A Nony Mouse | February 24, 2007 7:54 PM
12

And you can ride public transit in Germany right up to the mountains and into the country side...

Posted by Dan Savage | February 24, 2007 7:56 PM
13

Oh yeah: vote yes on the tunnel -- we don't have subway cars on the sides of mountains. We need to have roads until the day that we do.

Posted by A Nony Mouse | February 24, 2007 7:56 PM
14

Aren't you supposed to be vacationing, Dan?

Posted by A Nony Mouse | February 24, 2007 7:57 PM
15

Why not show a congested picture next week?

The first week it'll be empty when no one wants to pay tolls. Then it'll clog up the next week.

(There are tolls, right?)

Posted by dafs | February 24, 2007 8:05 PM
16

In Salt Lake city you can ride cheap public transit to some of the best skiing in the world.

Posted by david Sucher | February 24, 2007 8:56 PM
17
Posted by chris osburn | February 24, 2007 9:45 PM
18
Posted by chris osburn | February 24, 2007 9:45 PM
19

I voted fuck no to both too.

Posted by imaginary dana | February 24, 2007 11:01 PM
20

I'd like to point out that the viaduct is hardly nightmarish traffic all the time. Does it look anything like that carless drawing? No. But it's not a parking lot, by any stretch of the imagination. That's I5 you're thinking about, the one people are avoiding when they take the viaduct instead. I usually find myself inadvertantly speeding, in fact. I voted no and hell no, by the way, because neither feels like a finished thought to me (unlike the monorail, which I still mourn).

Posted by jessiesk | February 24, 2007 11:22 PM
21

My boyfriend is voting no-no, and I'm voting yes-yes to cancel us out. However, both of us feel the same way. There needs to be something that connects to the Battery Street Tunnel and goes through. Doesn't matter if it's a road, tunnel or viaduct. With no infrastructure for the public transit that will be required for at least 20-30 years, keep the two ways through the city.

Earth to Nickels, Sims & Gregoire: Think of Seattle like Chicago. Why are you and the other politicians building a METRA line and planning for more of that (known here as Sound Transit) before building the equivalent of CTA lines in the inner city? If Seattle is like other cities as some suggest why don't we have the equivalent of the Chicago Loop in our plans? Or the Sydney loop? Or the Melbourne Loop? Or the Circle Line? How many people own cars in Manhattan? Or Central London? Get people off the roads like Savage and myself that mainly have inner city trips and you'll make life easier on everyone. Ron: Buses don't count for that. Just ask around a bit.

You want quick lines up to Northgate at much lesser expense? Run them right up the express lanes. Pisses off people from Lynnwood, but hey you can have it done in probably a couple of years with relevant stops and get things moving. Run a train off the ramp at UW, at Ravenna and at 75th. And have them branch both ways east and west. The right of way is there, and make the Ravenna train into a loop that comes back onto the UW onramp. You could even take out a lane from I-5 (the not too much used HOV lanes) and make the train run to Everett. Beats the three stop wonder of the Sounder with its teeny ridership because of the TONS of people that live between the tracks and the Pacific Ocean north of town. Think I'm insane?

Work out the funding problems with Gregoire and get Murray to fix it in DC. Have Murray put on the tennis shoes. Is she numero quatro in the Senate or was that a mouse in her pocket? Ron, Greg and Chris do you really want to be lumped in the same effectiveness realm as Gary Locke? That's where you're headed.

Nobody is talking about the massive movement of people within the boundaries of the City of Seattle. Not even the Stranger. And coming from Chicago Dan, I'm disappointed. Until we have that conversation, we can't have density like Nickels and others say is coming. You go to other major cities and people don't want to be stuck on buses in the major cities. They want to ride the train/subway. There's a reason for that. It's called convenience. Somehow they seem to get their money together. I know Nickels is no Richard Daley, but sheesh.

Are we just catering to the few people that will want to haul luggage out to International Boulevard in Seatac to catch a train that doesn't take them directly to their hotel downtown while everyone else lumps it on a bus stuck in traffic? I admit that's closer than stopping at Tukwila Station, but give me a break.

Posted by Dave Coffman | February 25, 2007 3:45 AM
22

Dan, you screwed up. The "2 Stupid Ideas and 1 Smart One" series of images inside on page 24 conveys MUCH MUCH MUCH more clearly the ramifications of the rebuild and surface boulevard. The aerial view that you put on the cover (sadly) looks attractive to some people. There's a cropped image of your cover flying around in emails saying, "Do It." What the hell were you thinking? About snowboarding?

Posted by Reign | February 25, 2007 11:18 AM
23

Dan, you screwed up. The "2 Stupid Ideas and 1 Smart One" series of images inside on page 24 conveys MUCH MUCH MUCH more clearly the ramifications of the rebuild and surface boulevard. The aerial view that you put on the cover (sadly) looks attractive to some people. There's a cropped image of your cover flying around in emails saying, "Do It." What the hell were you thinking? About snowboarding?

Posted by Reign | February 25, 2007 11:18 AM
24

Dan, you screwed up. The "2 Stupid Ideas and 1 Smart One" series of images inside on page 24 conveys MUCH MUCH MUCH more clearly the ramifications of the rebuild and surface boulevard. The aerial view that you put on the cover (sadly) looks attractive to some people. There's a cropped image of your cover flying around in emails saying, "Do It." What the hell were you thinking? About snowboarding?

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25

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