The headline in the Seattle Times says it all: “Gregoire opposes Seattle officials’ request to rethink 520 bridge.”
Of course she does. As does Judy Clibborn (D-41) and Mary Margaret Haugen (D-10), the respective chairs of the House and Senate transportation committees.
And what do all three elected officials have in common? None of them are from Seattle.
Meanwhile, a bill is meandering through the Legislature that would severely limit cities’ local control over large projects in their district, like, you know, the Alaskan Way Viaduct Tunnel, and the 520 bridge.
Of course my gut reaction is to rail against the rest of the state for their “Fuck Seattle” attitude, and the way elected officials outside the city explicitly and implicitly exploit it to their own political advantage. But really, we only have ourselves to blame.
We’re the ones so caught up in the Seattle Way that we can’t ever seem to make a firm decision for fear of pissing off one constituency or another, and we’re the ones who consistently elect perhaps the most anemic political class of any major city in America. Theoretically, the Seattle delegation represents the largest and most powerful political block in the Legislature, and yet they’re either incapable of working together that way, or unwilling to do so out of fear of reinforcing the stereotype that Seattle dominates the state.
Well I’ve got news for you: Seattle should dominate the state! This is where the largest chunk of voters live, and this is where an even larger chunk of the wealth (i.e. tax base) resides. Unlike the goddamn U.S. Senate, we elect all our legislators by the person, not the square mile, and so it’s only fair that our population-dense city gets a disproportionate share of state spending and power.
And yet at a time when two major transportation projects threaten to reshape the city for the next half century or more, we can’t even manage to put one of the transportation committees in the hands of a Seattle legislator. We’re pathetic.
It’s not just a Seattle problem. The 520 bridge is a regional issue, involving not only Seattle residents but those on the Eastside as far north-esat as Monroe. Seattle isn’t the only one footing the bill, a lot of county and state money is going to be involved.
Besides, we’ve got to get moving at some point, and freeze the design so we can raise the money and start building. The scenario over the past several decades is to argue for two or three years over the design, at which point the money isn’t available and we have to wait five or more years for more money, and then start the re-design process all over again.
And forgive me, but a new bridge with no carpool lanes isn’t going to get the political backing it needs to be funded. The car pool lanes will provide a route for emergency vehicles to bypass stalled traffic to reach stalled cars/accidents which need to be removed.
Sure, I’d be all in favor of adding a light rail to the new 520 brige also, but that’s not in the cards this time around – we have enough on our hands trying to get light rail over I-90. Change the design for a future add-on for light rail if you have to, but go ahead with the basic plan.
This weekend I met a Columbia City activist and we had a tiff over parking for lightrail.
This fellow insists “Seattle is Chicago” and people can take cabs or walk. He also gave me a lot of NIMBY.
Where I live, the Cap Hill station looks to be a kludge. It is located on Broadway and it is likely many folk will use it to go to the airport ..if they can park. The idea that folks will walk blocks or take buses to get to Seatac is inane.
The there is the claim that the Bway station will be used to go to the downtown business are to work and shop! I think the “planners” we drinking the good stuff when they dreamed this up. The Lightrail route to downtown is curcuitous .. via the stadia and the tunnel. Given that even I can walk from Bway to downtown in 20 minutes the idea that LR will bea convenience is dumb.
Beyond that why would you want to do this? Shopping? Is there ANY American city where the major retail is downtown? Jobs? The biggest thrust around here seem to be in msofties who live here and use the MS Connector shuttle to go to Redmond.
OK .. lets make it worse. Broadway is itself a business district. It should grow with new folks moving into apartments and condoes. BUT, does anyone think this can happen without parking for destination stores? The Bway without parking idea is a bad tradeoff for business on Bway that need traffic.
It seems to me that we ought to stop calling “it” the Seattle Way, this is just NIMBYism.
rhp6033 @1,
I’m not arguing for any particular plan or option. I’m just pointing out the dismissive attitude in response to the Seattle request. We simply don’t have the influence or respect in Olympia that we should have.
By the way, there is potential money available from the federal government to fund the new 520 bridge if we can get to the point of issuing contracts within the next six months or so.
After that? Not likely – the federal deficit will become a campaign issue, and federal funding might be stuck at zero for another decade or two while we pay off the Bush tax cuts, the Iraq war, the Wall Street bailout, and the bailout of the economy after the Bush administration’s inept oversight.
I’ve lived through this cycle several times now, and I know that like any business cycle, there are times when you have to strike fast or lose the opportunity. This is one of them. We don’t have time for another re-design.
Let’s float an initiative to move the state capital to Seattle. That’ll teach ’em!
Goldy @ 3: I’ll agree that Seattle needs to have a seat at the table, and a very influential one at that. My complaint isn’t so much against one design or another (although I clearly have some favorites). My complaint is that the entire process takes entirely too long. I would suggest that this is the reason why Seattle isn’t taken more seriously in this debate – the perception among exasperated state planners is that if left up to Seattle voters and politicians, NOTHING would ever be done, as it is caught up in a viscious cycle of re-design, debate, funding problems, then repeat ad nauseum.
this is not leadership:
“They’re going to have to decide what they’re going to do. Brown will be here shortly and they’ll hold the [power] on whether or not we have people in place to make the country work,” said Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.).
b/c republican senators have all the power, right?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....45242.html
Roachgate Morphs To Buttgate
We can always count on Pam Roach (perhaps the most aptly-named politician in world history) for ghoulish laughs. But today we learn:
a) She was kicked off the Dave Ross show for abusing his staff; and
b) Minority Leader Mike Hewitt got so fed up with her in a caucus meeting that he mooned her.
Think I’m making this shit up? Nahh, these are Republicans we’re dealing with, you don’t have to make anything up because they’re far more creative than anything my imagination could ever come up with. If you still don’t believe me, read it for yourself:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.c.....s_now.html
@7 Welcome to the tyranny of the minority, brought to you by the tyrants of the minority party.
@1
You said “Sure, I’d be all in favor of adding a light rail to the new 520 brige also, but that’s not in the cards this time around – we have enough on our hands trying to get light rail over I-90. Change the design for a future add-on for light rail if you have to, but go ahead with the basic plan.”
You see, that’s the problem. The basic plan does not allow for a future add on, as you call it. The plan is being rammed down Seattle’s throats without our input. WADOT’s plan just doesn’t make sense.
First of all, on Seattle’s side of the 520, we cannot take any bridge that is more than 6 lanes. In order to do more than 6 lanes (ie an add on at a later date), you would have to knock down homes and do significant damage to the Arboretum, which is one of our state’s treasures.
As it is now, this plan does enough damage to the Arboretum.
This bridge will be with us for the next 50 – 70 years. It needs to be done right. It needs to be built for the needs of our region 50 years from now, not the needs of our region 10 years from now.
And those needs, rather you like it or not, include a regional light rail system. We need to start planning for it now. If we wait, it will just get more and more expensive.
rhp
I think the problem is more than regional, it is the lack of discipline in the dem party. Maybe the tent is just too big but the WADems seems leaderless.
House Speaker Frank Chopp and Senator Ed Murray, allegedly two of the big dogs in Olympia apparently have no bite. They oppose what the Legislature is doing but can’t stop it.
@6
Yes the last mayor was not involved in this process, but the new mayor is. So shouldn’t our elected officials be involved in this process, which will effect our region for the next 50 – 70 years?
The current design is such a horrible idea. No lanes for mass transit/ bus rapid transit. It’s 30 feet tall. And it has ramps through the Arboretum.
Of course e have stopped bad freeways before. The RH Thomson Expressway and I-605 come to mind.
Of course the state is trying to do away with our ability to do that, in the form of SB 6366.
http://www.publicola.net/2010/.....s-forward/
Sounds like you’re almost ready to admit that this isn’t just about Seattle. This is a huge power grab by the state and should be opposed.
Any plan that does not include a rail component, or at least space to convert to rail at a later date, is a waste of money and should be opposed. I get just as frustrated with “Seattle process” as the next guy, but if it ends up stopping this boondoggle I say process away. The current plan was designed with little input from Seattle and is fatally flawed. Kill it.
Fuck Seattle.
@17 Fuck you too.
@16
It needs a rail component period.
Things like the “Seattle Process” help open up the rest of the state for power grabs like SB 6366.
Does anyone know exactly what the 3rd lane on the 520 Bridge will “look” like?
HOV?
Bus Only?
Light Rail?
Bicycle?
Look at a map of unemployment by census district over the last four years by time lapse. You’ll see that Seattle has the jobs that pay for the rest of the state.
If they want to dis us – put it up for a public vote and we’ll shoot it down DEAD. Because we did that before and we’ll do it again.
I was with you up to here, Goldy:
This displays a basic lack of civics. Bear with me, OK?
Number of Legislative Districts in WA = 49.
Number of Legislative Districts that include parts of Seattle = 6.
Number of Legislative Districts that lie entirely inside Seattle = 3.
Population of Washington = 5,894,121.
Population of Seattle = 582,174.
Percentage of WA state residents who live in Seattle = 9.88 percent.
Percentage of WA residents who don’t live in Seattle = 90.12 percent.
The 10 percent should dominate the 90 percent? I don’t think so. If we divide the population of Washington by those 49 Legislative Districts, we get about 120,288. That means the guy who represents Washtucna, the guy who represents Washougal, the guy who represents Bellingham, and the guy who represents Bingen, represent as many people as the guy who represents you.
That’s one person, one vote, Goldy, and the notion that your representation should be worth any more than anyone else’s is not only undemocratic, it’s flat-out elitist.
As for you, @10, you’re flat full of shit. The basic design does in fact allow for a light-rail add-on later, with more pontoons to support the bridge if that becomes necessary.
Build the damn thing now and add light rail later. Enough dithering. Enough “Seattle process.” The rest of the state is losing patience very quickly with this “new urbanist” cult in Seattle, and if this kind of crap continues, will ram all these road projects right up all their asses out of pure malevolent spite.
That means you especially, Will @ 21. You got lucky with one vote. Past that, basically you got nothing.
Nice post ivan, but it falls on blind eyes/deaf ears. Being a Seattle progressive is the only thing that counts on this blog. You haven’t learned this yet? Any non-progressive thought is always up for ridicule.
@ 23:
What? Like I back down to anybody when it comes to ridicule?
@23
quite a few of us on here aren’t from Seattle and get heard just fine.
Seattle’s issues in regards to the state ledge are that it doesn’t have a unified voice within it’s community & that it elects crappy people to send to Olympia.
@22
What Goldy’s missing is that Seattle does dominate the state. Seattle’s failures are its own fault and do to lack of leadership.
Michael @ 26, 27:
What’s “leadership” to you? Someone who will strongarm other legislators to enact *your* agenda?
I’ll give you credit for one thing you got right. There *isn’t* a unified voice that speaks for “Seattle.” If all anyone read was Publicola, they would think Seattle was populated solely by “new urbanist” green hipster car-hating bicycle weenies, who think they speak for “Seattle” and who think their values are shared by everyone in the city.
All they do is complain about their state legislators, and wonder why their state legislators don’t vote as a bloc.
In fact, though, the state legislators who are elected from Seattle Districts reflect their constituents far more than blog posters and commenters, who represent a very small sliver of the electorate, do.
Goldy bitches about Sharon Tomiko Santos, and entertains fantasies of challenging her. Sharon Tomiko Santos is far more representative of her District than Goldy is. I have tried to explain it to him, with little success.
@28
Hardly. I’d start with the ability to work with people to create a unified voice to speak with.
@28
Doubt it, that’s your creation. They might, however, decide that Publicola isn’t very good and doesn’t have much of a readership.
That’s not really the issue here. What’s at issue is building healthy, cohesive, functional, communities. That doesn’t seem to be coming from the folks who represent Seattle in Oly. I’m not from Seattle, so maybe I’m wrong on this, but that’s what I see.
To prove your thesis on this you’d need to look at the records of Seattle’s other elected’s and see how they stack up against the ones they send to Olympia. I don’t have a clue as to what that would look like.
I don’t think this is a left-right issue.
People need to be held accountable for their actions. All of us do; it’s part of being human. The way you hold elected officials accountable is by having elections (Ask Greg Nickles about that). Goldy’s somebody ‘oughtta run against so and so rants are toothless threats, not calls for accountability. There’s never been a credible name, or even a process to come up with a a credible candidate attached to his rants. It’s not accountability if there’s no one to run. Goldy could help with Seattle’s leadership vacuum by, say, letting potential candidates write guest posts on here.
@ 29:
Hahaha, that’s what Susan Hutchison ran on.
@31
Suzy ran on hot air.
@28
You might want to brush up on what New Urbanism is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Urbanism
Let’s hope the stupid hipsters stay in Seattle.
A plan that trashes the Arboretum and the surrounding neighborhood, is a plan that trashes a wonderful historic legacy of the whole state.
The legislature should be spending extra money to preserve resources and settings like this instead of trying to remake everything in S.CA’s image. Their sense of values is totally skewed.
I know this and I don’t live anywhere near the 520 bridge.
Ivan @i’ve an addition to make to your earlier statistical offerings that may add further credence to Goldy’s spiel that you apparently cherrypicked to suit your fancy.
Population of Seattle Metro Area = 3,344,813.
Percentage of WA residents who live in Seattle Metro = 56.74%
When you omit that very large statistic, Goldy sounds every bit like the autocratic idealogue that you so allude to, that is not the case however. Cherrypicking doesn’t make you right. It simply makes you appear more so while you’re waving your dick around.
Which begs to ask, did it occur to you that omitting all of the important Seattle suburbs (Hello? Bellevue? Redmond?) would not paint you in any elitist light?
I mean, they are affected just as immediately by and share the same on the local transportation infrastructure as Seattle. To a FAR greater extent than do Olympia, or Kennewick, or Spokane.
In summation: Yes! Seattle and it’s neigboring communities do need to have a greater say regarding the fate of the local transportaion infrastructure. It cannot be accepted any other way.
That was to have said:
they are affected just as immediately by and share a reliance to the same local transportation infrastructure as Seattle.
there are serious issues with the current plan. first, WSDOT is struggling to find enough money. second, the loss of the Montlake freeways stops due to the width of the six-lane freeway will limit transit access to several key market pairs, including riders accessing Overlake and Bellevue services from the south. no one has enough service subsidy to mitigate the loss of the freeway stops.
the continued use of the terms general-purpose and HOV lanes is misleading. the SR-520 (and all our other limited access highways will be tolled, hopefully in a dynamic manner, so that they are nearly free flow. all modes will benefit through improved speed and reliability and throughput. if the highway flows freely, the need for HOV lanes to provide reliable passage for transit is diminished.
with both the SR-99 and SR-520 mega projects, the governor and legislature have passed legislation that insisted on six-lane profile. but they do not have enough wallet to pay for their highway dreams. with the SR-99 project, they have had to back away from six-lane plans.
the six-lane decision took the key decision off the table before the alternatives analysis and west side planning begun. how can an environmental process be relevant if the legislature has already made the key decision?
what may help is flexibility by both camps. how about six lanes east and west of Montlake, but only four lanes in the Montlake interchange to allow the freeway stops to be retained? there could be a transit lane interchange at Montlake Boulevard NE. HOV vehicles not stopping at the transit stops would have to weave out of the lane with buses stopping in lane; they could do so due to tolling and the significant traffic oriented to and from the U District.
toll baby toll! yes, even I-90 Chair Clibburn.
Chad K. @ 35:
I’m interested to know how you can tell that I am “waving my dick around” while your head is so far up your ass.
If we accept your argument that the entire Seattle area should be considered one statistical entity, then how do you explain the diversity of approach here?
Eastside and South King County legislators are almost unanimous in their support for Plan A. I doubt very much that they, or their constituents, consider themselves “Seattle,” or that they align with the “new urbanist” hipster cult.
Yet that is who Goldy — and apparently you — think should be “dominating” state transportation policy.
“It cannot be accepted any other way?” Sure, pal. Stall all progress while calling yourselves “progressives.” These fuckers could talk e. Coli to death. Time to STFU and build!
Goldy is wrong about this.
Most of Seattle wants to get the bridge done. A small minority of Seattle legislators, city elected leaders and residents are pumping up a “do nothing” proposal and making the silly claim that they are the “transit” gang and the “green” gang.
Nice try. The first clue is the yacht clubs and their PR guy in high spin. The second clue is that no leading transit interest in backing the stunt (the Sierra Club is, which opposed light rail to Tacoma,) The third clue is that major environmental interests are missing. The fourth clue is that the only residents of the City backing this stunt are the same people who have been delaying things for years (a few activists in and around Montlake) who are the biggest beneficiaries of the bridge now and will be in the future. There are other clues: like the fact that only 3 of Seattle’s legislators are backing the smokescreen.
The truth will get out.
Anyone who wants more progressive environmental policies and better transit BEWARE. Don’t be seduced by this Montlake stunt. These people will never be satisfied. We need to keep a strong democrat majority in Olympia and win new and better transit and real climate change policies in 2011.
This silly 520 diversion is mindless. The past ten years have proven that the people backing this stunt will never be pleased because they will never agree to fix a sinking bridge.
Where are the reporters? Would someone with a brain please lift the curtain on this stunt? You might start by looking at the role of the PR guy representing the yacht clubs.
Finally, something the two of us can agree on.
@ 40:
Then what’s the problem. Eastside Democrats get pissed off at Seattle “green” obstructionists because light rail expansion is BUILT INTO Option A for the new 520.
Of course I want to see light rail on 520 — eventually. I’m just not in favor of delaying the project for another two years for WATBs and their “Seattle process,” who would rather make the perfect the enemy of the good than get laid.
Let’s see, we don’t have the money to pay for the current 520 design.
Seattle offers changes that will decrease the cost and size of the overall structure: lower the the height from 30 to 20 feet, restrict 3rd lanes to transit so extra merge space not needed and we can keep existing bus stops, include rails now so you don’t have to redesign/rebuild the bridge later.
Olympia says NO.
But they still don’t have the money.