Oh for God's sake. The Keystone Kops are doing the planning in Seattle.

The problem here isn't process per-se. It's more a lack of creativity, and inappropriate focus on highway-building.

All I've heard from official sources is non-highway solutions like transit and surface streets cannot be vetted in time. "There is no surface and transit plan" has been yelped at me from every angle. Yet, power-players are falling over themselves to offer speculative highway plans, every bit as fanciful as my drawing a dream light rail system on a napkin.

Both sides keep going back to patch wholes in the rebuild AND tunnel options because both choices are fundamentally and momentously stupid.

No urban planner in his or her right mind would propose a major new urban freeway like either of these for a city like Seattle. We live on an isthmus folks. A long narrow strip of land bordered on two sides by water. You know, like Manhattan. The only ONLY transportation infrastructure that can successfully move around the number of people emigrating here is grade-separated rail. Anyone with half a brain has known this since the 19th century. All the neighborhoods people love wouldn't have existed without the intra-urban rail that Seattle used to have. The new viaduct could be 24 lanes wide, take up all of downtown and have a 12 lane tunnel built beneath it, and it would STILL be gridlock at rush hour.

And you know what, all those smug assholes who bitched about the monorail are the biggest fools of all right now. You might not admit it now, but it is the truth. By the time it's obvious to even the thickest-headed fools, I'll hopefully be long gone and back on the East coast.

I'm so disgusted right now, I wish the big one hits tonight and crumbles the whole damn thing into the ocean.

The AWV, as it currently exists, is rarely gridlocked unless there is an event at one of the stadia or there is an accident (though the Western offramp can be pretty ugly at peak hours).

Yes, as it currently exists it is a decrepit structure prone to sudden closure as it lists from side to side, that will inevitably close in a few years for a decade or more. Who in their right mind would buy a house in South Park, Des Moines, etc planning on using it for their commute.

Now, build a new fancy WIDER AWV, and people will move to those places. Far more than the new road could handle at peak times until it hits utter gridlock.

Building road capacity builds traffic at an exponential rate. That is empirical reality. Want an specific example? The entire LA metro area. It is reality. As an added bonus, urban highways tend to hurt the economy and livability of the city, with any benefit going to the 'burbs and sprawl.

No Fucking Thanks.

I wonder how long before the mayor proposes Tunnel nano. Tunnel nano features one lane in each direction and half a shoulder. By cutting out another lane, it is able to cut another $200 million off the price tag. What a bargain!

I'm with golob at #2. If it's a process problem, it's with the process of trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. Right now, the idea seems to be to shave the square peg down enough so it will fit. Brilliant!

Um there's no shoulders on it now at any time.

Vote NO/NO on the initiatives. In addition to being the "right" thing to do, it will make for a MUCH more entertaining aftermath to the election...

"urban highways tend to hurt the economy and livability of the city, with any benefit going to the 'burbs and sprawl."

I'd say that the thriving economies of LA, Houston, and Phoenix point out that this normative statement is basically total BS.

Rather interesting how McDonald and WSDOT have so quickly forgotten how cozy it was snuggling in bed with the city FOR SEVERAL YEARS while both were spending millions on the study of the fiscally irresponsible Tunnel One, while in the meantime, the surface-transit and cable stayed Bay Bridge proposals couldn't and can't even get the light of day from either entity? And now we are going to have to endure the endless platitudes of Viaduct Lite?

I think I need a margarita...perhaps several.

----Jensen

I challenge you to go to the *urban core* of any of those places, but especially LA and Houston, and point out to me the "thriving economy". I'll raise your examples with Detroit, a metro area with probably the best designed (and completely toll free) highway system in the country. Really did it well. Chicago, that foolishly invested in mass transit has done so much worse, huh?

Transit lets the region as a whole benefit from economic growth. Roadways make getting around an urban core eventually impossible, killing the central community that started it all. As I pay taxes in Seattle, let me be amongst those who say: move, prepare to pay tolls, support transit or shut up.

Re #10: Detroit is not a good example. The problems Detroit has have nothing to do with a lack of transit, and everything to do with white flight in the 1960s and the decline of the American manufacturing sector.

LA is actually undergoing a ton of urban renewal in the core of the City.

Golob, please, by all means, move back East. You won't be missed.

The problem is the involvement of state and federal governments. The state is dedicated to roads uber alles, and the possibility of money from the federal government encourages people to dream of mega-projects that we can't afford.

We need a single metro-area agency in charge of both roads and transit, responsible for raising its own money. In exchange for taking over control of local highways, that agency should get the Seattle-area portion of state highway revenue.

This would amount to a huge power grab that ends the WSDOT strangehold on our region, so I'm not sure how it could get done. Legislators are unlikely to vote for something that diminishes a powerful state agency, and the initiative process is probably the wrong tool. But I really don't see how this is ever going to be fixed so long as the state's trying to force the city to build new highways, the city wants a multi-billion dollar waterfront paid for by revenue pixies, and no one has the power to make a final decision.

Respectfully Orv, the destruction of Detroit's transit system, and the building of freeways was integral to the white flight. It made commuting from 'burbs to the city for work possible in a way that didn't exist in Chicago, a city with similar tensions and ethnic mixes.

Economic decline also hit both cities. I think I can make a solid argument that Chicago was able to transition better to the new economy because of things like Metra and the El.

Detroit and Seattle have more in common that most poeple are prepared to recognize. Both are/were boomtowns of their era. Both hosted some of the largest corporations in the world and entire novel industries. Both have astonishing degrees of segregation along economic and racial lines.

This is all purely tangential. Still, if anyone is going to sing me a tune of economic miricles from highway building after ripping out urban rail systems, I'm going to cite Detroit as the penultimate example of where that gets you. Don't like a Detroit metaphor? Compare LA or Houston to NYC. Where would you rather live? Which as a more vibrant and sustainable economy?

Seattle is never going to be New York. The geography is too confined and the great influx of immigrants still flows predominantly there. Seattle *is* growing, and will change in the next decade or two in order to accommodate all these new people. When picking a model of urban development to follow, I'll take NYC over LA every damn time.

I agree that Chicago's light rail system is excellent. But I don't think one like it could be built in Seattle. Too noisy. Too ugly. (Although, personally, I think it's kind of cool in a funky, industrial-looking sort of way.) People wouldn't stand for it, just like they can't stand the Viaduct.

I mean, given the idea of a rail transit system, what did Seattle residents do? They ignored normal, proven light-rail designs in favor of a weird monorail concept, then eventually abandoned that too when it became obvious how expensive it would be.

Hey westsider, if you're going to be nasty, at least try to be creatively nasty. Nothing clever about repeating exactly what I said.

I'll be sure to slam the door on my way out. You'll turn the lights out, just like the last time Seattlites buried their heads in the sand. Enjoy your LA norte with a four hour commute.

But, hey, I'm being cruel and condescending. I'll try to play nice. What's your bright idea westsider? Where do you plan to stuff the tens of thousands of people moving here each year? How do you want them to get to work? What's your bright idea? Or is it just "can't you call go away?"

Orv: I totally agree about the El being an anachronism.

Light rail, with it's own rights of way, tunnels and elevated areas, could work and is the modern version of the El. Or something like Vancouver's sky train.

The really nifty thing that Chicago has is Metra.
They re-used all the rail lines going into the city to create a fantastic suburbs to urban rail system. When people with jobs in the city have kids, they can move out to cute little towns like Glenn Elyn or Naperville, and still commute into the city in 20 -30 minutes (right at rush hour). Imagine what that would do for livability in the Seattle metro area. The young and elderly could have the walkable urban environment that makes life pleasant and easy and people with kids can have a yard and safe streets to play in.

Things like the ferry system kinda do that for us, with commuters from Vashon or Bainbridge, so it wouldn't be off the wall to extend that idea down into the south valley.

Allright, now we're seeing where people's values are. Mr. X thinks L.A., Houston and Phoenix are fine places to live, evidently. Nuff said. A week or so ago on one of these debates he said something like it was contradictory for a frankly anti-car lifestyle, pro-transit guy like myself to have driven a cab once. This shows how shallow thinking about these issues can be by those who chime in the loudest. The (very occasional)cab ride is the glue between transit and walking that lets a car-free, urban life work. I'm sure he'll say something like, oh, only the rich take cabs or other such nonsense displaying his fuzzy sense of just how much his all-driving lifestyle costs him and the rest of us to boot. Jesus. And Westsider should at least know the redevelopment of Downtown L.A. is totally (if ultimately with limited success) oriented around the subway and what will one day be walkable neighborhoods. Of course Angelenos live in them like Belltowners, driving in and out of their massive garages up the (wider) windswept streets.

I didn't say anything of the sort - I just pointed out that it's specious reasoning to say that urban highways in and of themselves hurt economic viability. I wouldn't live in Phoenix or Houston on a bet, but there certainly is a shitload of money floating around those cities despite their lack of transit.

I actually think Golob's post #16 makes a lot of sense - but just watch someone try and implement that kind of system here and you'll hear all of the New Urbanist types screaming to high heaven about how you're encouraging sprawl (which, in fact, the regional transit systems that serve NYC sort of do).

Re #16: Your points about the Metra are well taken, and in fact we have the beginnings of our own version of it in the Sounder. The amazing thing about the Metra is just how large an area it covers -- there's a Metra station in Gary, IN, for crying out loud.

An interesting point about systems like this is they require an essentially unidirectional commute -- where everyone goes into the city center in the morning and out in the evening. Decentralized areas like Detroit which have a lot of crosswise, suburb-to-suburb commutes don't have enough people going in the same direction to support such a system.

"Tunnel supporters and viaduct opponents have long been convinced that WSDOT will do anything it can to promote the elevated"

You're joking, right? For 5 years, WSDOT worked in lockstep with the Mayor, rubber-stamping his every desire. Looks at the EIS from last year, it's just like the ballot measure: best case tunnel, worst case ugly rebuild.

So WSDOT hasn't taken orders from the Mayor for the last two months? Boo fucking hoo.

Golob, please leave for the East Coast ASAP! Seriously, get the fuck out of here. Morons like you have done as much to turn Seattle from a friendly, non-pretentious middle class city that it was until the early 1980's into the current soulless, yupscale, "world-class" hellhole it is today as any of the downtown developers who own and operate Greg Nickels' fat ass.

First off let's talk about the AWV. You hate the AWV, this means that chances are you live downtown (are they still calling it "The West Edge") or on Capitol Hill and have some easy, no-load job with regular hours that allows you to use a nice and easy bus commute. Bully for you, nice work if you can get it. So of course you want the AWV torn down so we can have the new, viaduct free waterfront. And what is that viaduct free waterfront going to look like? Well I'll tell you, it's not going to look like anything that PWC is pushing. What we'll end up with is a bunch of tacky, expensive "world-class" tourist traps along the waterfront that no one local will go to, six to eight lanes of truck traffic (dude, newsflash, there's a lot of trucks on the AWV, once it's gone they're going to be on city streets) and then, on all of the property directly east of the viaduct, you'll have 40 story tall condominiums which will be completely unaffordable by anyone with an income of under $150,000 a year. Basically you're going to have Belltown on the water. Anyone who believes that demolishing the AWV is going to usher in an age of new urbanism where people stop taking their cars and where the Seattle waterfront becomes some sort of heaven on earth is as brain-damaged and delusional as the morons who think that if we preach abstinence, get rid of sex-ed and burn down abortion clinics and Planned Parenthood offices that teenagers will stop screwing.

You write:

"Yes, as it currently exists it is a decrepit structure prone to sudden closure as it lists from side to side, that will inevitably close in a few years for a decade or more. Who in their right mind would buy a house in South Park, Des Moines, etc planning on using it for their commute."

"Now, build a new fancy WIDER AWV, and people will move to those places. Far more than the new road could handle at peak times until it hits utter gridlock."

Yeah, fuck all of those people who want to own their own homes and live somewhere with decent schools and functional local government and while we're at it fuck all of those goddamned brown people who live down in White Center and who take buses into and out of Seattle every day where they work at low paying jobs cleaning the offices of the urban elites (such as yourself) who support the PWC and the demolition of the viaduct. Who cares if Manuel or Graciela have to add an extra hour or two to their commutes? I'm sure that they'll be really grateful for the improved view of the water as they clean the offices and condos in those new 40 story buildings that spring up east of the viaduct.

Fact is that the AWV, which I commute on every day (in an SUV, by myself, to my house in the burbs, are there any other lifestyle changes that I could make to piss you off? It's off topic but I'll mention that I own guns and eat a lot of red meat) is very rarely gridlocked. It's also the route into the city for most of the buses that go to and from West Seattle, Burien and White Center (given White Center's demographics they ought to change the area's name and use the name White center for some other area in Seattle, such as Capitol Hill). Want gridlock, tear down the AWV and you're going to get it. Those cars aren't going to magically go away, why? Well, because compared to driving public transit sucks shit from a dead dog's ass (which is one of those facts that advocates of the "new urbanism" conviently forget or ignore, just like the way that advocates of abstinence/abolishing sex-ed/burning down abortion clinics forget that fucking is much more fun than remaining a virgin). Of course if you tear down the AWV you also fuck over all of the bus commuters in West Seattle, Burien, Des Moines, White Center, et al, but oh wait, you could care less about those people anyways.

"Building road capacity builds traffic at an exponential rate. That is empirical reality. Want an specific example? The entire LA metro area. It is reality. As an added bonus, urban highways tend to hurt the economy and livability of the city, with any benefit going to the 'burbs and sprawl."

What utter shit. Yeah, the billions spent on mass transit in the SF/Bay Area since the 1970s on the BART system and VTA haven't done one fucking thing to keep that area from sprawling.

The fact is that the "new urbanism" crowd pushing to get rid of the viaduct have their heads as far up their asses as Robert Moses ever did. If you know anything about urban planning you know about Robert Moses, he's the guy who basically got the highway construction kick going and who had an unreasoning bias against mass transit, so much so that he deliberately engineered road projects to make mass transit difficult if not impossible. Now we've come full circle with urban planners and devotees of the "new urbanism" who hate cars as much as Moses loved them and whose visions of the future, as evidenced by the pretty pictures that the PWC has on its website, are as completely dishonest and full of shit as the General Motors Futurama exhibit at the 1939 World's Fair (As a telling irony it's amusing to note that PWC lists Sound Transit as an unsustainable mega-project that went over cost and off schedule. Of course I wonder how many of the idiots who support PWC are also Sound Transit supporters).

Tearing down the viaduct isn't going to do a damned thing for anyone but downtown property owners and assholes like you who seem to think that downtown Seattle is the be-all and end-all of the Puget Sound area. For everyone outside of these two groups it's a hard fucking, sans lube and a condom.

There is another way.

SeattleTUBE.org is a proponent of an alternative strategy to bore a tunnel under downtown Seattle bellow sixth avenue to replace the aging SR99 Alaska Way Viaduct Structure. It's worth a review if you have any doubts about the current options on the ballet.

http://www.SeattleTUBE.org