Give them good ideas, and they can become reality.

The City Council appropriated $500,000 to study the S+T option at such time as the tunnel proves infeasible. Well, that time has come!

And the first thing the City needs to do, when beginning that study, is set aside the assumption that current highway capacity must be accommodated in place, in kind.

It's time for some thinking outside the box. For a change. Please.

BTW, I'll be voting yes to immediately begin raining missiles on Tehran, but hey, wouldn't peace be totally awesome too?

This is not currently legal, because the 18th Amendment to the Washington State Constitution requires that gas tax revenues be dedicated to road projects. There are ways this could happen, and they involve state legislators doing a lot more than saying they’d like something to be studied. To wit:

1) Amend the 18th Amendment to allow gas tax revenues to be used for transit. This requires a statewide vote. The sympathetic state legislators could propose a joint resolution to amend the state constitution in a vote in say, November, which would allow adequate time for studying it.

2) revise the enabling legislation for the regional ballot measure (RTID) to allow some of the money (a billion or so?) to pay for the transit portion of surface/transit, and use the already allocated gas tax money to backfill other road projects. This is complicated, and would absolutely require state legislative action.

Unfortunately, Nickels & Co. have made this 2nd option a lot more difficult by having the RTID Board move $800 million from the Viaduct to other projects. They could’ve moved the money to “transit” for the surface/transit option. $800 million for transit down the toilet! Thanks guys.

These are the things state legislators can do for a surface/transit option. Anything short of this is unlikely to amount to much beyond moral support, which is useless. Only they can take the action that provides for realistic funding scenarios.

In Jacobsen, we finally have a politician courageous enough to support BOTH canine beer rights and the surface transit option.

I can't wait until a pooch with too much happy-hour Pabst ralphs all over me when taking the bus, I mean "transit system" home from work.

"We urge that they slow down" hey I thought this was an emergency - danger WMDs I mean the viaduct is falling - so slow down? - could that be repair and prepare in other words? I think so.