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February 25, 2007

Just Say No. Twice.

I voted today, checking the boxes and mailing off my ballot to show "the government" (read: Mayor Nickels, WSDOT, and Gov. Christine Gregoire) that I'd like them to please, pretty please, pretty pretty please quit screwing around and simply tear down the damn Viaduct .

Part of me thinks I should have saved the $0.39 stamp.

See, today's vote is part of a special election here in Seattle regarding the future of the Alaskan Way Viaduct. We're being asked two questions regarding how best to replace the hulking concrete monstrosity that menaces our shoreline. Specifically:

• Do you want a tunnel?
• Do you want an elevated rebuild (read: another Viaduct)?

Now, this vote is nonbinding (your vote doesn't actually require that anyone with any power actually do anything) as well as contradictory (you could, conceivably, vote for both the tunnel and the rebuild, which makes about as much sense as covering a minivan in chocolate sauce). So the city fathers and mothers will be getting a stream of ballots that will need to be held into the light, squinted at, and, ultimately, "interpreted."

Not that the interpretation is actually going to mean anything - the State can ignore it, as can the city.

Lovely.

I've been on record for nearly a year ("Tear It Down, Leave It Down") that replacing the Viaduct is a terrible idea. It's not only expensive -- it's unnecessary:

But interestingly, it turns out that, in order to build the tunnel, you have to close the Viaduct for four years. Read that again: four years. Those poor folks in West Seattle? That economically-necessary through traffic? Well, they're going to lose their transit methods for more than a thousand days.

You know what? Over a thousand days, a "new normal" appears. People find accommodations with their environment. They get to work differently. They move to new houses. Businesses relocate. Things sort out.

In other words, if you're going to close it for four years anyway, why reopen it at all? Hell, it'll be a new freeway at that point, right? People will have to re-learn to take the shiny new tunnel, because they'll be so used to working around its absence.

In the subsequent 11 months since I wrote that piece, we've come to find out that mayor's tunnel is dead (no funding) and that the State is proposing we replace the current big, hulking Viaduct with a big, hulking Viaduct that's even bigger and hulk-ier.

Yikes.

Naturally, the cats over at The Stranger are all over this, urging everyone to vote "No and Hell No" on the ballot. The "surface" option finally seems to be getting traction -- King County Executive Ron Sims is now behind it, and I imagine Greg Nickels will be a believer as soon as it looks like the state is serious about building a new-and-expanded concrete freeway in the sky through his downtown.

So I voted ("No and Hell No"), and it's all political theater, and I'm a little disgusted by it. However, I'm still optimistic that we'll tear it down and leave it down ... if only because the idea of putting a new Viaduct in place is so ridiculously stupid.

I do love this town, but sometimes, I tell ya...

Posted by Gavin Shearer at February 25, 2007 8:33 PM. Posted to Politics | Transit.

Comments

Posted by: Richard Barrett at March 14, 2007 10:36 AM

Posted by: Gavin Shearer at March 15, 2007 9:53 PM

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