Is the lack of a submit button an intended way to represent the lack of choices the vote will have next month?

nevermind :)

EC: No, hang on a sec, we're fixing it.

Seems to work in Firefox.

Interestingly, I was just talking about the cover with the coffee shop owner next to my building, and he's also voting Yes on #2. I think you'll find online won't be the same as the final vote. We both wish they could have built some real transit like Vancouver did (his daughter is doing a semester abroad there), but we're both realists.

hmmm...the options for Prop 2 show up fine, but for Prop 1 I get the little blurb advertising the Stranger's event listings and not the vote option.

Running Firefox on a Mac.

@5: Quit Firefox and then restart the browser. That should fix it.

Yay for doing this. I'll be interested to watch a wider audience weigh in (though probably lots of people from outside Seattle will sympathize with the No/No crowd)

We ended up 48% Yes/51% No on Measure 1 and 19% Yes/ 81% No on Measure 2 in our equally unscientific effort.

This KING-TV survey from January is the only other measurement I've see online. Are there others?

I read Erica's big piece and disagree with about 75% of it. Erica still has it backwards- lets have the transit in place and then rip out the roads. Once voters understand that the surface option doesn't connect to Aurora they'll understand that something has to go through. That's not fear or bullshit as ECB puts it. That's reality.

Something else to consider- I think this is one big editorial on her part. Fair enough, but lets call it what it is. There is a difference between a journalistic piece that ties stuff together and an opinion by a columnist. This is most certainly the latter.

And if you want to vote in a poll that allows you to better represent your preferences, I'm running a ranked voting poll:

http://andrewhitchcock.org/viaduct/

Too bad we can't use ranked voting for the real vote.

Just send me a dollar for every No vote on #1 and a $2 bill for every No vote on #2 - I'll tally the votes and report back on the total.

Mmmm. Pizza.

Why does the freeway have to go right through the middle of seattle? why not route it around the city with just a few exit ramps into town and beef up transit like Erica says? Wouldn't the construction be less invasive and easier since you wouldn't be having to construct anything in the city?

Wait?!? Aurora doesn't hook up with the surface transit option? That no make sense to me, please explain. Erica? Someone?

Isn't asking this question of the die-hard few who read slog polling to the converted?

ECB Wrote in NO AND HELL NO:

"Parsons Brinckerhoff, is the same firm that said Boston's Big Dig could be built for $2.6 billion—and that project is currently at $14.6 billion and climbing....."

Just out of curiousity, did Parsons
Brinckerhoff collect profits on only the $2.6 billion or did their profits escalate with the $14.6 billion figure? Wasn't/isn't Parsons Brinckerhoff involved with Sound Transit? I believe some SLOG posters
(P.Sherwin?) may have indicated this company is now currently involved
with the Viaduct project too?

Am I the only one that suddenly has developed a cold sweat?

Of course the surface option would connect to Aurora. The boulevard would elevated at Virginia up to the Battery St Tunnel. The boulevard would go elevated again south of King Street. That is per the WSDOT surface plan.

Which is actually a pretty good plan, designed to fail the traffic analysis by having 12 stoplights...

Love the cover, reminds me of racing my friends in high school. Ford versus Chevy to see who could get to Queen Anne the fastest from West Seattle. Goodtimes. Actually, we already have a nascar track right here on our waterfront. I'll miss it when it is gone.

Cities are made for density, not the forest. Freeways are supposed to be built in cities.

Keep our highways and build more alternatives.
Connect our neighborhoods and suburbs with downtown through a system of mass transit that actually moves people fast. Our natural resources and health demand it.

Cars, and the pressure to utilize them, are not going away. In 50 years our cars will not be the pollution pukers they are now.

I guess I just want my grandchildren to be able to race their cars on the viaduct, and catch wild fish they can eat from our rivers.

I can't wait to see the Stranger's histrionic reaction to the actual vote.

LO RYDER Wrote:
"Actually, we already have a nascar track right here on our waterfront. I'll miss it when it is gone"

One of my favorite tracks was Interlaken-Arboretum-Madison-Leschi to Seward Park. It was an impressive road course at speed, and I used to love the bark of the exhaust of my beloved, ancient, 5-speed Alfa as I took it through the curves and turns that manifest this course. I once attempted to count the gear changes and lost count after several hundered. The course is all but gone, made redundant by road closures, speed bumps and
development, however the memory of copper colored fall leaves crazily
drifting in the rear view mirror will never disappear.

---Jensen

I say boycott the whole damned affair. It is a meaningless plebiscite that resolves absolutely nothing. Chuck this pointless, hollow exercise into your recycling bin with the rest of the junk mail.

"Once voters understand that the surface option doesn't connect to Aurora they'll understand that something has to go through."

That's a plus for me. If you need to drive over/around Seattle every day, um, then you should move. There is no cure for irrationality other than to make the irrational choices so costly that you will eventually be forece to do what any non-doubly 21st chromosomed individual would have done long ago.

The real problem here is that the viaduct is two things. It's a major aterial for bringing traffic into that city, and it's in the city's interest to replace that. It's also a major route for traffic from south of the city heading north out of the city. Seattle has little reason to care about that, though the state does.

In the long run transit commuting makes for better people. Bus riders are the salt of the earth. SUV pilots are it's organic matter, useful only after their decay. Of course when you salt the ground nothing grows, but organic matter , once decayed promotes growth. So a dead SUV driver is better than a living commuter, but a living commuter makes your food tast better and your, your pickles last, and your blood pressure go up. I'm lost. I hate metaphors.

Jensen,

I used to brag to newcomers that I could get from any point in the city limits to any other point in 20 minutes or less. Renton to Lake City entirely along the shores of Lake Washington, or White Center to the long lost Dicks in Lake City, all easy and fast provided no traffic.

The old rush I would get from driving fast thru the city has been replaced, by biking thru town at rush hour.

Mass transit isn't magical. Go to cities with great mass transit, say NYC or London, and you'll find the streets are *still* clogged with cars (granted, without the mass transit the traffic would be at a standstill). People like to drive even when it's painful and expensive.

THIS POLL IS FIXED!

I voted YES and got the message that I had already voted, so presumably my vote was not counted. No wonder the NOs are ahead by such a wide margin. Erica must be using Diebold technology to count votes. I really hoped to see a fair poll, but looks like The Stranger is as crooked as any REPUBLICAN web site out there! Too bad you guys can't be honest about this topic. I wonder what else you're lying to us about?

Who is supposed to be served by all the supposed waterfront transit that people blather about? The worst part of bus riding (not that fake bus riders would know) is having to wait for or just miss a transfer. Are the fabulous bus lines on Alaskan Way going to have west-east transfer connects with the central business district? I doubt it. Who cares if riders not you have to hike up or down the hill to reach major destinations?

What's the plan, car-driving champions of running West Seattle and Ballard buses on Alaskan Way surface streets?

Laurence Ballard @19:
Don't boycott. This count is going to be close. If you don't want the elevated, vote NO, because the lower the support the less authority Gregoire feels to force it on us.

Alvin,

The "big city" response to your question would be to just deal with it. The price of living here is having to work with what we have and stop dreaming that our political leadership will solve anything.

Our city, county and regional transit options are for shit and nothing they do will get you anywhere faster.

Personally, they should leave the viaduct alone for 15 years, there really is no hurry, unless it falls down. Keep our freeways and build more alternatives.

RE: Parsons Brinckerhoff - Yes they did the pre vote underestimating for ST both commuter and light rail, they are the head consultants for the viaduct project and in fact, WSDOT works out of their offices in Seattle - to me they are the domestic Halliburton. They managed the Big Dig which was a DBB contract which means they didn't give a fixed price for the whole project the way the monorail did so change orders add costs etc. - they were partnered on the BD with Bechtel - I think they were paid a management fee based on the total cost - as the costs went up they made more money.

The best story on this can be found at
http://charlotte.creativeloafing.com/gyrobase/Content?imageIndex=2&oid=oid%3A2443

this reporter really did some research and put together a great article.

I wouldn't mind the rebuild if it just looked better. How about getting Calatrava to design a new viaduct?

I vote COMMENT SUBMISSION ERROR for Prop 2, and damn proud of it! (even though I voted no on it.)

@8 re: Dave Coffman:

"I read Erica's big piece and disagree with about 75% of it. Erica still has it backwards- lets have the transit in place and then rip out the roads."

Haven't had a chance to read ECB's piece yet, so I'm taking this out of context here, but I immediate raise a red flag to the above comment.

Dave, what do you think is going to happen if the rebuild happens?

The roads will be ripped out for years

In the meantime, people will learn to adapt, just like they did with the underground bus tunnel closure. Except people will realize they footed the bill for something they feel they won't need anymore; whereas the surface option will take far less time to rebuild, and will be cheaper.

Traffic in that part of Seattle is going to suck for at least half a decade anyway whether we
a) choose to rebuild the viaduct or build a tunnel
b) do a surface option
c) do nothing and let an earthquake destroy the current viaduct naturally, killing some people in the process

B is safest and not as batshit expensive.

"In the meantime, people will learn to adapt, just like they did with the underground bus tunnel closure. Except people will realize they footed the bill for something they feel they won't need anymore; whereas the surface option will take far less time to rebuild, and will be cheaper."

Do you talk to people who used to use the bus tunnel? Yes, they "adapted," but largely by complaining about how their commute takes a lot longer now.

People who use the viaduct might adapt in the short run but they'll be happy when the replacement reopens. Unless you know people who don't mind spending an extra hour a day sitting in traffic, people won't feel like the replacement isn't needed.

You can argue that we should be willing to sacrifice for environmental reasons, but there's no case to be made that traffic will flow nearly as well without the viaduct.

Your posts are not normally so idiotic, Kinaidos, but "If you need to drive over/around Seattle every day, um, then you should move" is so vacuous and insular that I am moved to say this: BLOW IT OUT YOUR ASS. This is my city too. In fact, it's MORE my city than you Capitol Hill hipster fuckheads; I've lived here longer, have more invested here, and pay more taxes than you do. So if you want to have a rational discussion, go ahead -- there hasn't been much of one so far -- but if you just want everyone who disagrees with you, everyone who drives a car (which is 90% of the city), everyone who has a job or a life, to just LEAVE, then maybe you should FUCK OFF. Maybe you should move. Your absence would impact the city not at all; no one would even notice if you weren't here except a few baristas at a few stupid fucking coffeeshops whose tips would go down a few dollars a month. If everyone who needs a car left, there wouldn't BE any fucking coffeeshops. Asshole.

@31, I have several friends who were jarred by the bus tunnel closure for about, oh, two weeks, then took above-level buses as makeshifts, and since, they've mentioned it took roughly the same amount of time anyway... slightly longer, but a trivial amount.

As for the seeming minority that want a rebuilt viaduct... well, kudos to whoever at Slog posted the quote after the Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989. Seattle is going to have a large earthquake in the future. This can't be avoided. Even Kobe had pancaking effects after its large earthquake, and scientists there were "sure" they did everything they needed to do to make sure the viaduct wouldn't collapse.

There's about a 99% chance that a viaduct is a public hazard waiting to happen in case there's even a moderately strong earthquake, which *is* going to happen in the future. Sure, a lot of things become hazards in a strong earthquake, but building a viaduct is like a building a Jenga puzzle. It will most likely come tumbling down into rubble.

I don't get it. We can trade a couple hundred lives at most for a free federal replacement when the viaduct fails. Sounds like a good bargain to me.

All of this current viaduct debate is just bullshit posturing so absolve political leaders from blame when the thing finally goes down.

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Yeah, I'll just sit here and wait around to vote on the second item. *ANNOYING*

PS, BTW: I'm framing this weeks cover so that 15 years from now when they are JUST getting ready to finish the Christine Gregoire Memorial New Viaduct (over budget) I can point to it and say "I told you so".

Yes, in a big enough quake, the viaduct is certain to collapse, but the same quake could take down everything else in Seattle that's built over fill dirt, even the structures that are claimed to be quake proof.

I don't buy the chicken little warnings that many lives will necessarily be lost strictly on the viaduct. The viaduct survived the 1965 quake that took down a number of buildings, and it survived the 2001 quake that caused major damage (most notably the Starbucks building) in Pioneer Square and SoDo, plus it survived a never-mentioned 70s tanker truck explosion that was intense enough to melt infrastructure power lines, yet didn't pancake the structure as happened with the quake resistant World Trade Center on 911.

I agree with the Repair and Prepare option, not the tunnel, the elevated replacement, or the surface-transit schemes. At least not as they are currently proposed.

And now it says I've already voted on Prop 2.

REALLY ANNOYING!

What is this? Florida?

Fnarf @ 32:

Come on. I read Kinaidos' post as meaning that if you have to drive "over/around Seattle every day" as targeting people who live in Everett but work in Tacoma or some other such arrangement. It is kind of stupid to drive around an urban core every day. But, it's also hard to just pick up and move your household every time your job changes.

I live on Capitol Hill and my offices are in Wallingford. It takes me 15 minutes to drive to work -- even with heavy traffic. I could bus, but that would take 45 minutes. I'm not going to add an hour on to my commute -- not to mention that I have to use my car to meet with clients throughout the day. I don't think Kinaidos was targeting me.

I also know the feeling of anger at "Capitol Hill hipster fuckheads" who think they're so smart and urban. I'm pretty smart and urban, and I know what it's like to pay a SHITLOAD more in taxes than they do.

I hope the real vote mirrors this somewhat. If both lose, but the elevated loses big--Seattle wins. I am sure the Stranger's skewed readership is not much of a bellweather. I do find it interesting that about 100 more folks have voted on the tunnel question. To me the key to the election is the elevated question.

Fnarf @ 32--you hit the nail on the head. Although there are many good people who support a surface option, it is really their smug anti-car attitude that pisses me off. Cars suck and we need to stop paving the world for them. But many of us need to use them at times. Even The Stranger doesn't deliver its papers by bike.

Kinaidos IS targeting you, JAK; you're driving over the city every day. You think the removal of highway 99 through Seattle won't affect your drive over Montlake or Eastlake? Guess again. No, Kinaidos wants you to move. Not like all the young folks in their apartments who've lived here for five years and will be living in some other city in another five.

So Cameron Crowe's movie Singles was a harbinger of transit: Build a Supertrain! Brilliant. Too bad the dumb, pedantic ones are in charge of this city.

It’s a knee jerk reaction that people should move closer to where they work... most likely coming from a single, or at most, a double income, no children, adult (a DINK). A holier-than-thou angle... a look at me, I walk to work (or could, but a 10-15 min drive is better, because I have such an awesome level of a job), shop at only locally owned stores, eat only free-range meat and organic produce, use less then 10 gallons of gas a month, think young children should never eat in a public restaurant... and will, when confronted, be all like "I am not BETTER then anyone. Everyone else is just living a harmful to me and how I choose to live, way of life".

Once that kid, or kids, come along, a person is pretty much put until after a high school graduation. What parent would WILLINGLY uproot their child to move, in affect disturbing the child’s social and academic development, when it is a small sacrifice for the parent to drive an extra 30 or 60 minutes a day to get to work?

a couple corrections to the vitriol on display here:

1. the viaduct closes if ONE MORE of its support columns subsides ONE MORE INCH. it's subsiding at an average rate of .5"/year. then we're S.O.L. for 5 years anyway. the Seattle AIA recommends it be shut now so we can learn to deal with the inevitable closure sooner.

2. the WSDOT surface alternate connects to the Battery St. tunnel. the People's Waterfront Coalition's does not.

3. anyone who thinks the Port of Seattle sends a significant amount of traffic North on the Viaduct denies reality. where are those trucks going, Green Lake?

4. anyone who thinks Santiago Calatrava could design a 'more attractive' viaduct doesn't understand WSDOT or america. Calatrava would run screaming from that job. same for the retarded Elliot Bay suspension bridge. that idea makes the monorail look like the sensible solution that it actually was.

Fnarf, this is not anywhere near more your city than mine. I was born and raised in this city, and I've never owned a car. It would have been nice to have one at times when I didn't live in the city center, but I survived. I live and work in the city, because I took things like commute into consideration when I chose where I live. If you don't live in this city (which I assume you do Fnarf, but many others in this debate don't), and want me to build a highway downtown so you can drive through it, I say blow it out your own ass.
My responsibility to my city is to make it into a better place to live. The viaduct makes the waterfront a worse place to live and visit. The city doesn't belong to cars, it belongs to people.

Max,

Not true on point #1 - WSDOT has said it will have to spend a few million dollars when that occurs, but there is no threat of a substantial closure that I have seen reported (and as a frequent AWV user who has been following this project since it was a public/private tunnel gleam in WSDOT's eye in 1994 I've been paying pretty close attention).

I drove down lower AWB along the waterfront last night, and ugly is in the eye of the beholder - I think the wall of buildings/parking garages/etc east of AWB from Broad Street to where the AWV jogs west from the Battery Street Tunnel is every bit as "ugly" as an elevated highway - the difference is that plebes like me with moderate incomes get to enjoy the view (and utility) of the highway.

I just noticed something on this weeks cover and I'm not sure if this was a Stranger thing or what but...

Why is there some dude standing in the middle of the highway with no crosswalks or sidewalks in sight?

Monkey, I was wondering the same thing. I think it's for scale. Pretty funny image, though.

I'm looking forward to the 5th vote.

Enigma, what I was reacting to was not discussion of the merits of the viaduct but the suggestion that I, or anyone who uses a car, should move away from the city.

The viaduct is in fact a state highway, as is the ferry terminal, and as such is in no way the property of the few people who live near it who whine that it's too ugly for their fantasy vision.

Mr X is correct: you haven't seen ugly until you see what the removal of the viaduct is going to reveal. And your pastoral surface waterfront is going to resemble Bellevue Way more than it is any watercolors that are being passed around by liars.

Sweet. Tunnel's pulling a third of the vote. Not bad given the tonguelashing its taken on this site.

And, Stranger readers, please, say it with me now... we---need----somehwere ----for ----trucks--- to ----go----

Please consider that with no grade separated traffic through downtown, something has to give - either BINMIC industry or downtown livability.

Fnarf--What do you base your claims on. I "haven't seen ugly" until I've seen the removal of the viaduct?? Are you privy to some information that the rest of us aren't? Perhaps you're asking your Magic 8 Ball?

Diebold is right. Wouldn't let me vote on the second proposal. And what and where the hell is that propaganda drawing from? Picasso was closer to reality than THAT.

Repair and prepare is the only way to go and let's start working to get solid thinking people in office and vote these idiots out. Too bad we can't vote out some reporters as well.

btw heres a rap for the surface alternative:

BITCHIN NIMBY
(sung to “Ridin Dirty” by Chamillionaire and Krayzie Bone)

Chorus:
You hear me bitchin
‘bout traffic
Rollin by my newest condo blockin my view

Think I m just a bitchin nimby
Cant you see im a bitchin nimby
Think im just too rich and nimby
Look at me im a bitchin nimby

See me bitchin
Bout traffic
Rolling by my newest condo blockin my view

Think I m just a bitchin nimby
Cant you see im a bitchin nimby
Think im just too rich and nimby
Look at me im a bitchin nimby

Verse:
We-got- us- some- glossy- pictures-
An- Oz- of- a- grand- boulevahd- dahling-
Where- traffic- gridlock- and- homeless- don’t- exist-
And- see- the- polo- field- goes- right- over- there-
With- the- new- yacht- club- in- the- distance-
don’t-the- peons- know-as-they-grind- their-way-to-work-that-there’s-lots-of options-
There’s-lots-of-empty-arterials-
Go-forth-you-drones-and-find-em-don’t-bring-your-damned-
Commuting-ass-round- here- disruptin- our- big- buck- views-
Let-them-eat-cake-our-real-estate-escalates-
Tell-those-worker-bees-they-exist-to-grease-
The-economic-wheels-but-take-the-bus-(tho-I- never -will)-
Did-we-at –PWC- say- we’d- raise- OUR- taxes,- silly- me-
Having-no-highway-on-the waterfront-will-empty-traffic-onto-unclogged-city- streets- says- our- website- so- must- be- true-
Tolls?- No- problem- add- em- to- I-5-
PWC- proposes- I-5- lose- its- reversible-
Express- lanes- we- don’t- need- em- nor- do- you-
Propaganda- abounds- we’ll- tell- ya-
Sugar-coated- nimby- lies- of –coiffed-greens
Did- we- say- transportation- serves- communities?- oops-
We ‘re interested-in-serving-our-own-mile-long-community-,hell-with-y’all-

Chorus:

You hear me bitchin
‘bout traffic
Rollin by my newest condo blockin my view

Think I m just a bitchin nimby
Cant you see im a bitchin nimby
Think im just too rich and nimby
Look at me im a bitchin nimby

See me bitchin
Bout traffic
Rolling by my newest condo blockin my view

Think I m just a bitchin nimby
Cant you see im a bitchin nimby
Think im just too rich and nimby
Look at me im a bitchin nimby

Fnarf, you're still misinterpreting. He was talking about people who bypass seattle going north to south or vice versa - people who need to go "around" or "over" the city - and not just anyone who owns a car. If you're doing that, every day, maybe you should move or get a different job so you live closer to where you work. It seems you're being willfully obtuse here.

Yes, I am being willfully obtuse, because I refuse to accept that someone who lives north of the downtown core is committing some kind of moral crime by driving a car to some place south of it. You people are worse than Christians.

Rehab, go walk the viaduct. Start at the Battery Street tunnel. Take a close look at what you'll be uncovering. Does the "surface option" include constructing dozens of new buildings? From the pretty watercolors, you'd sure think it does.

Look man, I'm not arguing one way or the other, I'm just saying you're misrepresenting his argument. You're saying that he said no one in Seattle should ever drive a car. Well, that's what you were saying. Now you're saying he said that no one who lives north of Seattle should ever drive South of Seattle. Neither of those are what he said. He said "If you need to drive over/around Seattle every day, um, then you should move."

I wouldn't have put it that way, but I don't think it's too controversial to at least suggest that people consider moving if their daily commute takes them over or around the city of Seattle.

Fnarf - You needn't bother with being willfully obtuse, because you're naturally obtuse.

Mr. X -

WSDOT's barricades will not resemble the current ones - you'll see over them only in an SUV, fellow moderate-income plebe.

So, because the buildings are ugly you propose a mask them with a 2 billion dollar highway? wouldn't it be better to put prettier buildings there?

I never said the highway was my property, but the city streets below it are. And the govenor wants to cover those streets with another highway that will ruin Seattle. Yes, some of the buildings along the AWV are ugly, because they've been covered for decades. When the highway is knocked down and there are views to be taken advantaged of, I'm pretty sure private business owners are gonna want to improve the land they own and make it worth more. I don't expect it to look like a pretty water color- I'm not an idiot, but it'll look a million times better than a highway.
And I was reacting to your vilification of we 'Capitol Hill Hipsters'. I have every right to express my views and have then taken seriously- even more so maybe because I'm trying to make decisions that don't produce carbon dioxide every trip I take and make Seattle a better place to live. All you seem to be able to do is complain about we who live in the core.
And before you portray me as a trust-fund baby with loads of cash- I grew up in the Yesler Terrace projects, and now make less than 30,000 a year. You don't have to be rich to live near where you work.

Not true @ 57, Max - Federal requirements are for a conventional jersey barrier that is actually lower than the current one (though, granted, it won't be in three narrow horizontal sections).

I can see over/through the mammoth pedestrian barrier they installed on the Aurora Bridge just fine in my compact car, and what is proposed for the AWV will be considerably smaller than that.

You really ought to stop getting your talking points from Tim Ceis...

...and on new buildings - the best predictor of the future is the past, and the buildings that I refer to that have been built along the water are ugly as sin. What on earth makes you think new ones would look any better? You can't really be that naive, can you?

Naivite, thy name is Seattle.

Oh wow, Mr. X is offended by ugliness of the buildings on the waterfront, but a massive elevated freeway is just fine. It's a good thing very few people have your sense of aesthetics.

Mr. X.
Could you be a bit more specific? which buildings you think are as "ugly as sin."

The big parking garages ((at least that's what they looked like last night as I drove down the stretch) north of Waterfront Landings and south of Broad Street just east of the BNSF tracks - they must stretch 1/2 mile or more (part of the mixed-use stuff the Port has been doing down there, perhaps?).

The Waterfront Landings are OK in their way, but even then it's just sort of a sprawling Laguna Beach-looking luxury hive.

As I said in the other post, an "ugly" elevated highway serves me and a great many people like me better than a bunch of new condos for the uber rich.

I'm sure it does serve you better, Mr. X -- but beyond yourself, who gives a rat's ass about you?

I appreciate the Stranger's stand on this, and ultimately I mostly agree, but I do not think it's terribly realistic.

Casually but noting that we're brushing aside the horrendous embarassment that was the Stranger's monorail endorsement/retraction (which granted, wasn't the Stranger's FAULT), trying to push people on what they SHOULD vote for at this point is a little heavy handed. Just present the facts and let people make their own opinion. "Hell no"? Why would you even tell people what to do? If you had a credible argument you wouldn't have to actually dictate their decision.

That said, the surface option for the viaduct is incredibly precarious. Have you driven on the viaduct? It's CROWDED. There is a lot of traffic on that thing. And it's not people travelling from one end of it to the other, it's people going much further than that. If you had a magical teleportation device that jumped people from the bridge all the way down to Georgetown there would still be thousands of people/cars/trucks that needed to get to some other place. Ain't no carpool gonna take care of that.

The pastoral illustrations in the paper show a beautiful flowered lane with very little traffic on it for a surface option. Truth is it would be much more crowded, much dirtier, and much louder. I'm surprised the Stranger would stoop to such obvious hyperbole to try and get their point rallied around. (and my god, did you mention traffic lights?? On the downtown section???)

I used to live in Boston, so I do think a tunnel is a bad (though aesthetically pleasing) idea. And it's obvious a rebuild is pretty dodgy. The "chute" idea floated around is also pretty scary. To be honest, the bridge option sounds like the best one at the moment. That, or repair the specifically damaged part and just do repairs on the current one.

The surface solution would be great if you had been correct about the monorail to begin with. Without a real transit solution in place, simply removing the viaduct and hoping some clever two-way streets and a "they'll just find some OTHER road to use" attitude seems absurdly short-sighted. All the surface options mention the clever routing options but I haven't heard any details about it. It seems pretty suspicious it could alleviate the traffic in a forward thinking way.

Rehab,

This ain't just about me, it's about the 100,000+ Seattle residents who live west of SR99 who actually really need to be able to get from point A to point B, and for whom waterfront condos (or generic upscale retail) add ZERO value to their day-to-day lives.

67% of Seattle residents drive to work, 18% take transit, 7% walk, 5% work at home, and 3% ride bikes.

But I'm the one on the fringe. Righto, sport.

Mr. X.
You know we agree almost entirely on the big picture but I am so puzzled about your vitriolic dislike for the very few buildings by the waterfront. The new stuff which the Port built on the other side -- including its rehab of the American Can pier for its own HQ -- is pretty good. And so what if "uber rich" live down there? (Which btw is not true.)

The American Can pier site (the Port headquarters and Victoria Clipper dock) is not "pretty good"; it's a hideous suburban campus transported into the city. It's also nowhere near the viaduct. And it's built with public money stolen from the taxpayers by the Port. It's basically a monument to tax graft; a citadel for the worst-run governmental body in the United States.

Yeah, let's have some more of that, please.

There are a lot of outstanding and crucially important historical buildings at the Pioneer Square end of the viaduct that will be torn down with a rebuild. This is as offensive to the fabric of the city as the original planned (and carried out, in the case of the Seattle Hotel, now the "sinking ship" garage atrocity) destruction of Pioneer Square that started the preservation movement here.

But north of Pioneer Square, all the way to the Battery tunnel, it's a parade of awfulness unmatched elsewhere in the central core. Parking garages and windowless storage facilities, mostly. So when you uncover it all, you're going to have to look at it, or tear it down and rebuild it. With whose money, exactly? I predict it will be yours and mine, and we'll end up with hideous new publicly-financed welfare flats for the superrich, a solid wall of them forty stories high along your precious surface route. That would be terrific if this was 1889 and this was Central Park West, but it's not and it's not.

Fnarf, with developers salivating over that real estate, we're not going to have to pay for renovation or new construction of buildings along the viaduct. In fact, if we set up a public improvement district, those developers will pay taxes so that this makes money for the city and taxpayers, defraying the costs of transit and public amenities on the waterfront.

Cascadian,

Given that the City intends to do a public benefits proposal that has no nexus to the project at hand, it is more likely that a sizeable amount of the money paid into such a fund will wind up paying for amenities in South Lake Union (though monies raised in the U-District and Northgate may wind up on the waterfront, who knows?)

And FNARF made my point much better than I did (surprise, surprise)

DPD and the design review board will order trompe l'oeil beige vinyl nail-on windows painted all over those walls, along with scenes of the mayor frolicking naked with decorative plastic pigs in bosky groves.

I am sure the Stranger's skewed readership is not much of a bellweather.

That's bellwether, meaning the lead sheep.

#71 Mr. X -

As you probably know, the Mayor and council have already committed Seattle taxpayers to pay for half a billion in subsidies for South Lake Union, separate from or in addition to the viaduct cost proposals.
The local tax subsidies for South Lake Union seem like peanuts when compared to the costs of viaduct proposals, but the media ought to be reporting SLU as much as the central waterfront debate. I'd like a true idea of how much of the SR-99 viaduct replacement costs would be dedicated to unrelated street improvements for the non-waterfront portion of SR-99 on the South Lake Union side of the Battery St. tunnel.

Calm down, FNARF.
You happen to be conflating the manner in which the Port operates with the rehab of the CanCo, pier, which on the inside is fabulous. Why you characterize it as "suburban" I don't get. It's a fucking pier. How is it "suburban?"

I offered it as an example because I couldn't figure out what Mr. X waws talking about; the warehouses along the waterfront are a holdover nfrom when it was a WAREHOUSE DISTRICT.

Anyway, where we'll end up is with "Repair & sorta Prepare" so go think anything you like about the buildings. It doesn't matter.

Well, I voted two days ago, by mail. No on 1 and Yes on 2. When is the revote?

DAVID SUCHER Wrote:
"Calm down, FNARF.
You happen to be conflating the manner in which the Port operates with the rehab of the CanCo, pier, which on the inside is fabulous. Why you characterize it as "suburban" I don't get."

David, I must agree with FNARF (something I do far too often) here.
The Port headquarters project was a citizen rip off and their offices
could have been as effectively and
as well housed in a damn strip mall.
The American Can pier was completely rebuilt from the piling up to accomodate a massive, boxy concrete
structure which in no way resembles
(Thank God) the old tin warehouse
and salmon canning/processing facility, however it does look like it would be more in place somewhere along the Bothell-Everett Highway.

---Jensen