Governor Inslee and former Governor Gregoire about to break the bottle over a nascent Bertha in 2013.
  • Washington State Department of Transportation
  • Governor Inslee and former governor Gregoire back in 2013, when Bertha was about to start digging.

It's not new news that a lot of people are mad about Bertha, the machine that bored its way into Seattle and then got stuck. But according to a recent interview conducted by Grist's David Roberts (enthusiastic user of the term "fustercluck"), Governor Inslee is the maddest person of them all. He is Washington State's number one Angry Bird.

"No one is more frustrated by this project than I am," Inslee told Roberts.

The Inslee interview is enlightening for another reason, too. Critics of the car tunnel have long suggested that a surface-transit Plan B could be an appealing alternative should the viaduct be torn down. (It also would have been cheaper originally and, according to the Washington State Department of Transportation's own research, would have mitigated traffic just as much as the tunnel.)

So now that the state is staring down the possibility of a long, nasty legal battle with a litigious contractor, is Inslee thinking about what else we could do to replace the viaduct?

"I don’t think [surface-transit is] a viable option or solution to this problem," Inslee told Roberts.

The interview shows that Inslee is still primarily concerned with sticking the contractor with delays or cost overruns. But state legislators are getting concerned about those cost overruns, too, and yesterday Senate Majority Leader Mark Schoesler (R-Ritzville) reminded us that certain powerful legislators—aka him—think that if the contractor doesn't take the hit, the state shouldn't take the hit, either. He claims Seattle mayor Ed Murray and House Speaker Frank Chopp were "instrumental" in crafting contract language that protects the state, and he has a big, fat clue about who should be on the hook for overruns. (It's Seattle. The clue is Seattle.)

Read the rest of the interview here.