Comments on USA Today Looks West, Notices Seattle

He'll opt? I don't think so.

This really is not news...he has been saying this for months.

The Feb 22 Issue of the economist had a blurb about this mess. I'll post the whole text since a subscription is required to view on their site:

Tunnel vision
Feb 22nd 2007 | SEATTLE
From The Economist print edition

Mayor and governor are mud-wrestling over Seattle's waterfront

AP

There's a great view here somewhereIT SHOULD be among the most beautiful cityscapes on the west coast: a mural of distant mountains, piers jutting into sun-flecked Elliott Bay and giant orange cranes plucking containers from freighters. Overlooking Seattle's waterfront, however, is a noisy 1950s elevated highway in hideous grey concrete.

The elevated highway—known in Seattle simply as “the viaduct”—is also a hazard. It was damaged by an earthquake in 2001, and engineers believe that another quake would destroy it. It needs to be replaced. But with what, and how?

Seattle's mayor, Greg Nickels, a Democrat, wants to replace the viaduct with a tunnel. He argues that this would make the waterfront more attractive while accommodating the 110,000 vehicles now using the viaduct each day. Business leaders, labour groups and many others agree, but the problem is cost. The first plan carried a luxury tab of $4.6 billion. Then, earlier this year, Mr Nickels came up with a surface/tunnel hybrid, or “tunnel lite”, a narrower, less complex tunnel that would cost $3.4 billion.

On the other side of the debate are members of the state legislature and Washington state's governor, Christine Gregoire, who is also a Democrat. They want to replace the viaduct with a bigger, sturdier elevated highway. They have leverage: state money would provide $2.4 billion towards a tunnel or most of the cost of a replacement viaduct (estimated to be $2.8 billion). Believing that Mr Nickels has ignored the tunnel's high price, Ms Gregoire has threatened to withdraw funding for any waterfront roadway if city leaders do not come to their financial senses.

Mr Nickels, who adamantly opposes a new viaduct, has countered Ms Gregoire with his last-minute suggestion for a downsized tunnel. He has arranged an “advisory” city vote, due on March 13th, in which city residents will say whether they support a tunnel or a new viaduct (or, amazingly, both). And he has all but said that if he doesn't get a tunnel Ms Gregoire and her $2.4 billion can take a hike.

The spectacle of the bulky, dark-haired Mr Nickels mud-wrestling with the diminutive, honey-haired Ms Gregoire has not been edifying. “These people are going to go down as some of the worst urban leaders in America,” comments Bryan Jones, an expert on public policy at the University of Washington. At present Ms Gregoire is coming off worse. Now in her third year in office after an election so tight that it had to be decided in court, she had gained respect as an effective legislative manager. But her ambitious education and health-care plans have disappeared in the viaduct's shadow. And the bitterness of the fight is expected to sour debate over future projects in and around Seattle, including the need to replace a vital floating bridge that carries traffic to the city's eastern suburbs.

A report on February 13th from the state's Department of Transportation stated bluntly that Mr Nickels's slimmed-down tunnel would not work as a safe, effective roadway. A spokesman in the mayor's office promptly dismissed the report as “political” and revealed the mayor as immovable. Seattle's tunnel has become a trip to political hell. All aboard.

I'm guessing the "opt to reconfigure city streets" option entails a hydroelectric lift to propel cars onto the unused monorail tracks.

His delusion that coverage outside Seattle will help him in any way is part of the problem.

Most Seattleites want this over with - and they want the City and County and State to double local transit - everything ... bus, streetcar, monorail, light rail, the whole works - because they are fed up with waiting and listening to empty promises.

Fortunately we are building the spine of a truly regional light rail system. We can take it where it needs to go with your help.

Support ST2 in November - a real mass transit solution.

Actually, vote no on RTID and ST2. A regional spine which enables Everett and Tacoma residents to get to downtown in 40 minutes while a West Seattleite spends 40 to 60 minutes getting to the same destination is not equity in any form. As I've said before, when the Viaduct option includes a rapid, grade separated, link to West Seattle, then I'll support any and all transit for the rest of the region. Until then it's NO, NO, and NO again.

chas: there's a chance the two will be separated by Nov., and we'll get to support transit only. MMW -

Vote No on RTID and Yes on ST2. Why subsidize roads?

That’s called “provincialism,” chas. Your rant is, how should I put this . . . ah, yes . . . petty and small-minded.

When you grow up you’ll understand that people other than you need services too.

The good news is that the Viaduct merely has to be Repaired, so if we can't make a decision, which we can't, that's what we will end up doing.

(The claim that the Viaduct "must be replaced" is not accurate, even though it has been accepted by gullible and/or venal media.)

Hi Jim. You letter i received. Thanks! Photos is GREAT!!!!