So pronounced Peter Hahn, the director of the Seattle Department of Transportation, yesterday by phone. Hahn was one of a handful of city officials who traveled to Vancouver in late March to hear Dr. Keith Hwang speak about removing an elevated freeway that cut through downtown Seoul, a city of 10 million.

In 2005, the freeway, which hosted 160,000 trips a day, was reduced from 14 lanes to a two-lane boulevard and stream-filled park. "Clearly, some trips were absorbed by bus transit, but some trips simply went away," Hahn says. "A city of that size was able to see that reduction of lanes and it doesn’t look like the world ended." In fact, the success of the project has sparked similar freeway dismantling projects within the city and country at large. It's become an international example for how reducing car capacity can reduce demand.

Other city and transportation planners I've spoken with have called the Seoul project legendary, renowned, and "a triumph."

As Hahn explained, "there are a large number of these examples across the world, where elevated highways have been removed, reduced, and somehow those large cities were able to still meet their mobility needs." He couldn't think of any instances, off the top of his head, where such a project failed miserably.

That said, Hahn neatly sidestepped commenting directly on Seattle's viaduct and it's controversial replacement project, the deep-bore tunnel. While SDOT doesn't have ultimate authority over tunnel planning and execution, the department will be responsible for viaduct-related projects, such as replacing the central waterfront seawall.

But after expressing his admiration for Dr. Hwang's work, he would say this: "We need to be open to all sorts of mobility options that are not necessarily conventional and don’t rely on capacity replacement and the assumption that we’re going to be driving and have car traffic exactly how we have in the past."

No, Seattle isn't Seoul. As commenters have faithfully pointed out, Seattle also isn't San Francisco—which replaced the Embarcadero freeway with a walking boulevard and its Central freeway with a smaller driving boulevard, Seattle isn't Portland—which successfully replaced Harbor Drive with a walking boulevard and park, and Seattle isn't Milwaukee, which removed its Park East freeway.

Seattle has it's own unique transportation challenges. But, as smart transportation and urban planners have realized, razing freeways doesn't result in the gridlocked nightmare that opponents predictably froth about, when those cities drop their car-centric focus and embrace a multimodal approach to transportation. Smart planners could address Seattle's challenges, just as smart planners in other cities have successfully done.

"The city needs to have an open mind," Hahn added. "I certainly I intend to have an open mind as we move forward with this [tunnel] project."