When I wrote this morning about a House amendment that sticks Seattle taxpayers with potential cost overruns from the risky Big Bore tunnel, I suggested that “now is the time for Mayor Nickels and other local political leaders to send a clear message to Olympia” that if they change the deal, the deal is off.
Well, I didn’t hear what I wanted from Mayor Nickels, but we did get a quick response from challenger Mike McGinn, who in a press release today promised exactly that:
Michael McGinn today announced his opposition to the Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement plan emerging in the Legislature.
“This deal keeps getting worse”, said McGinn. “As Mayor, I will not authorize the use of city tax dollars for the tunnel or associated cost overruns.”
In highlighting the riskiness of this project, McGinn points out that a bored tunnel of this size, 54 feet in diameter, has never been built anywhere in the world. And that’s a financial risk that Seattle’s taxpayers, who voted overwhelmingly against a tunnel, should not be expected to bear on their own.
That wouldn’t be fair.
What would be fair is to get federal tax dollars so some 90 year old retiree living in florida can sleep peacefully knowing that thanks to the federal government, she was forced to pay income tax on her social security checks so people in seattle wouldn’t actually have to pay for their own roads/streets.
After all, old folks on social security have been paying taxes on the big dig for decades.
The democrats pulled it off once with the big dig, can they do it again.
Here’s his YouTube statement on the tunnel:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....annel_page
Soft-ground tunneling is risky. I’ll leave it at that.
Let’s review those election results (roughly):
45% wanted a rebuild.
25% wanted a tunnel.
20% voted “no” on both options.
Re: the third item; this has the least amount of support, but is being peddled as a popular position, on the basis that the 55% that didn’t vote on a tunnel was split almost evenly on two different options. This has been the basis for “Surface” advocates to claim that the majority actually support their position. Not only is it wrong, it is intellectually dishonest, not to mention bad math. “No/No” has been creatively interpreted when in fact it does not represent an affirmative position on anything.
Almost equally, the Nickels camp is also supporting a position that is also a minority. But, at least it is a position that is precise: a tunnel. And at least it is a more honest assessment then the aforementioned.
But in all reality, the largest support went to a new viaduct. That’s the inescapable fact.
That election was designed to be a failure, to ensure that the people didn’t assert the “wrong” choice, and to keep the matter from being finally settled, while interest groups on all sides vie for their vision of the project.
The Mayor’s lack of leadership on this issue is stunning. The tunnel was a bad deal to begin with and it keeps getting worse. For Seattle to assume responsibility for all cost overruns sets a bad legal prescient and is terrible public policy.
Seattlites shouldn’t be expected to buy the Mayor a legacy by funding cost overruns on this illconceived project. We’ll be paying this off for years.
I’m voting for McGinn
Thank god for the internet.
15.43 meter is 50.6 feet, just under your “never been done” 54 feet, and they did two tunnels in soft soils – under a river.
And did you know…
Mt Baker Ridge – world’s largest diameter soil tunnel
Under a river bed and under a residential neighbor hood is different than under a downtown. There is news to come.
We should get two tunnels for having to put up with narrowing I-5 to two lanes all these years (downtown Seattle). Developed by democrats of course. That has to be the most retarded section of highway in the world. Tunnel, tunnel, tunnel.
Seattle is one of the most geographically blessed large cities in the world, yet our waterfront stinks. Bremerton’s mayor gets it, but Seattle’s mayor doesn’t. The tunnel is a nobrainer. Every damned dime we pour into that tunnel will be repaid many times over. Frankly, right now, cost be damned. Start it and the money will come. It will get finished, and there has been enough process to last a lifetime about this issue. I really don’t get opposition from Seattleites, other than the few who go to teabagger parties, to the tunnel. Does Seattle want to be a world class city or not?
This statement and followup video has the look and feel of a political hack stunt that comes too little and too late.
It is meaningless. Won’t serve any purpose but maybe get a little attention for a candidate who isn’t getting much traction. It looks like he’s on the side of more impass and no action.
Do we really need more debate about this topic. Sure, the amendment might look a little lousy. But the fact is that there’s next to no risk for any taxpayer in Seattle.
Mark @ 8
How do you know that I-5 through downtown Seattle was designed by DEMOCRATS? I am not sure when it was built, but most of the time back then (prior to me moving to this state in 1987), there was either a Republican state governor or Republican president, or both. Maybe Seattle had Democratic mayors, but the state and federal governments (or at least one of them), who are responsible for interstate construction, were in Republican hands.
Frankly, while the I-5 design through downtown Seattle was shortsighted as hell, I don’t see how it is fair to blame EITHER of the political parties for the its rather assinine design.
Mike McGinn certainly has a very sensible position on the viaduct replacement. This should serve McGinn very well with the environmentalist base support that he enjoys. It should also appeal reasonably well with the old-fashioned conservatives in Seattle, and promote McGinn as a fiscally sensible alternative to Greg Nickels. Republicans may only be 20% or less of the vote in Seattle, but they still vote. And McGinn would do well to take a few principled positions that will attract support from these folks. Maybe Stefan will end up recommending a vote for McGinn, at least in the November run-off election?
@7:
Whoops! Looks like you got smacked upside the head by facts! Time to trot out some other bullshit factor!
@9:
Why is it important for Seattle to be a world-class city? If you’re that insecure about where you live, either go into therapy or move to someplace you consider world-class. Both would be excellent low-cost alternatives to a tunnel.
That having been said, I’m actually in favor of the house bill. If the world-class crowd wants to get rid of the viaduct, let ’em pay the difference.
Of course, that would threaten their world-class cred if they can’t stick other people with the bill while they walk away with the profits. Life so truly does suck for them, no?
11 I-5 through Seattle was designed in the 1950’s. One of the principal engineers had a son who I knew from grammar school through high school. They lived on Magnolia, at a time when there weren’t many Democrats there.
There was a rumor that this particular fellow got in pretty hot water when it was built and everyone saw what a disaster the Mercer Street interchange was with its center-lane entrance and exit ramps.
Any community that self-consciously “wants” to be a “world-class city” probably isn’t ready to be one.
How about a citizen’s initiative requiring Seattle voter approval for any city expenditures on cost overruns for state highway projects.
Keep it simple. And word it more or less just like that. It’s populist, so the Times could never object to it.
MS ROTCODDAM, why not suggest a Seattle income tax to cover those cost overruns? That’s populist too!!!!
Mike McGinn can ride his bike all over the city and whine about whatever pops into his mind, but at the end of the day, like it or not he’ll get steamrolled by Nickels. Two simple facts that will keep Mike McGinn from getting elected. He’s demonstrated no capacity to raise money, so come election day most voters won’t know who the hell he is. And lastly, no one gets elected being negative about everything. People want to feel good about the future, and Mike McGinn makes them feel bad.
Richard Pope, you can visit the WADOT web site and see pictures of I-5 being developed in the 1960s.
We must remember June 5 as the date people marched to place a park lid over I-5.
On January 31, 1967, the Everett to Tacoma section of Interstate 5 was completed. It was the last piece of the I-5 lane structure.
Richard, Gordon S. Clinton and James d’Orma Braman were mayors during this time! What party did they belong to? Puddy doesn’t know but you can look them up!!!!
Smile.
@6: The tunnels have not yet been opened to traffic in Shanghai, there are apparently some leaks and they cost 250 million just to dig….
and the Mt. Baker tunnel is way above ground, in different soil and not in a tideflat where the proposed tunnel would be built.
so what is your point?
I think the point still stands that this could be a engineering and fiscal fiasco using unproven technology and that Seattle would have to foot the bill – even though Seattle voters voted against the tunnel.
@13.
World-class Cynic,
There is news coming down the pike about soft-ground tunneling. Stay tuned.
@21:
Uh huh.
Seattle tax payers are going to get a “World Class A$$ Pounding” Before – During – and After we get a tunnel. Thanks Mayor McFattass ! You will never get my vote. Ever.
Chopp was very smart putting in the Cost over-run to Seattle taxpayers proviso.
If Seattle wants more than just a road, they ought to pay for it…especially a risky tunnel venture like this.
Can’t wait to see this debacle unfold.
proud leftist spews:
A world-class city…meaning massive tax increases and a flailing economy run by a bunch of incompetent LEFTIST PINHEADED KLOWNS?
pl…you need to fire all the assholes running the insane asylum first.
Then get some hardcore fiscal conservatives (true conservatives) to right the ship.
PINHEADED Neo-Progressives will lead Seattle into the pit of Hell.
@20
unproven technology
@24
especially a risky tunnel venture like this.
Are you saying that no one has ever tunneled before? Is this the best you can come up with?
I give you links…you give me a pain.
“On January 31, 1967, the Everett to Tacoma section of Interstate 5 was completed.”
Ahhh, yes. The final elimination of the much-detested “Everett bottleneck”. That just about cut the drive time to Anacortes and the ferry to the San Juans in half, and paved the way (literally!) for such 21st-century delights as the Tulalip casino/resort/outlet mall and people commuting to work in Seattle from their little pieces of heaven on Camano Island.
It is amazing that the views of a crackpot rightwing organization are given more credence in WA than the actual voters.
I’ll never go in that tunnel. I don’t trust the judgement of the people who endorsed it. If they find a petrified Jesus cradling a baby dinosaur, they’ll have to stop boring until the Indians can have a gander at the remains.
That’s the law!!
re 25: “Then get some hardcore fiscal conservatives (true conservatives) to right the ship.”
You guys had 30 years to elect some, “…fiscal conservatives (true conservatives)….” But it never happened.
The only thing I can conclude is that there are none, or you guys are too stupid to recognize them.
What a decision stupid!
Replace 3 lanes each way with 2 lanes each way.
That’ll really help the traffic flow!!!
The project, as proposed, could create a real mess down the road. Voters would have to agree to a property tax increase that exceeded 1 percent annually. If the shortfall required such a vote, but voters refused to go along, where does that leave things.
And if this is a real risk, viz., that Seattle citizens would have to agree to fund shortfalls beyond a certain amount, how solid is this proposal, legally and fiscally?
I wonder how well this has actually been thought through.
jon spews:
Jon, remember Nickels Parks and Recreation recommended banning beach fires in 2004?
Nickels implemented a 20 cent green tax on paper and plastic shopping bags as well as a ban on foam containers January 1, 2009.
Nickels is loading Seattle with so much bureaucracy with his “green initiatives”.
Nickels has swallowed the ICLEI vision.
Remember Nickels plan to have builders fund city parks?
How about Nickels property tax levy proposal (roughly $200 on a $450,000 home)?
How about his 10% commercial parking tax throughout the city?
Jon, did you know Forbes Magazine ranked Seattle the “Most Overpriced City” in 2004 and 2005.
Jon, Forbes called Seattle “America’s Most Increasingly Unaffordable City” for 2008. Forbes mentioned the Seattle inflation rate at 5.8%, the highest in the U.S.
Yep, he’s a “winner”.
But many HA weasel leaders love their mayor.
Smile!
@32
Jon, Forbes called Seattle “America’s Most Increasingly Unaffordable City” for 2008. Forbes mentioned the Seattle inflation rate at 5.8%, the highest in the U.S.
————–
And this was BEFORE we voted to increase our property taxes (ka-ching!) and our sales tax zoomed from 9% to 9.5% for RTA. (ka-ching!, ka-ching!) Now, depending on the size of any overrun and legal hurdles, the city’s good but increasingly destitute citizens could be looking at a big tax hike down the road for a tunnel (a) most will never benefit from, (b) they said they never wanted, (c) in a vote they paid for. It doesn’t get any better than this!
That’s gonna’ be one sweet tunnel! (ka-ching!, ka-ching! ka-ching!)