Search Results for: viaduct

What Danny said, and more…

A rap on Mayor Greg Nickels was that he was a strongman. He supposedly made decisions without taking the full advice of the public or City Council. Many citizens felt, therefore, that he was arrogant.

We say we want leadership… we like to whine about not getting it from our elected officials… but the truth is, we hate leadership, for as soon as a politician attempts to actually use political power and exert it, we attack him or her for being arrogant.

Take the Viaduct for example, perhaps the classic textbook illustration of the political cluster fuck we quaintly refer to as “the Seattle Way.” It’s been eight years since the Viaduct was nearly dismantled by the relatively mild Nisqually quake… eight years of watching it topple over, slow motion, onto the waterfront as its western supports gradually sink into the muck at a steady rate of a fraction of an inch a year. Eight years of knowing that we are one inevitable shake away from, depending on the time of day, perhaps the greatest man-made disaster in our region’s history.

And we could be on the verge of electing a mayor with workable plan to stop the plan to replace the Viaduct, but with no real plan to build political consensus for an acceptable alternative. I oppose the Big Bore too, and hell, I might even vote for Mike McGinn myself. But you gotta admit, on this issue at least, our city/region/state is more than a little fucked up. The Viaduct is a triple-digit fatality waiting to happen (or worse), and no elected official with an ounce of common sense or humanity could choose to allow it to stand any longer than absolutely necessary.

And the truth is, given our current financial, environmental, geographic and political constraints, there is no good alternative to the current structure—at least not one that could likely satisfy a majority of voters. The proposed tunnel is hugely expensive and technically uncertain, the current deal placing untenable risks on Seattle taxpayers, all in the service of an outmoded transportation philosophy that ignores the energy and environmental reality of the twenty-first century. Despite the claims of its proponents, the surface/transit option would likely exacerbate congestion, at least in the short term, and by dumping tens of thousands of vehicles a day onto surface streets, could prove the least pedestrian and bike friendly of the three major alternatives. And while a rebuild might seem like the perfect compromise in both price and function, no city planner in his or her right mind would propose building a double-decker freeway today across such a vital and beautiful waterfront, if one already didn’t exist, and it would be crime to burden future generations with such a stunning lack of civic pride and vision.

In their favor, by diverting traffic underground, the tunnel would do the most to open up, revitalize and beautify our waterfront into a civic treasure future generations would come to cherish. The surface/transit option is by far the least expensive and most forward thinking of any of the plans. And the rebuild… well… current generations of Seattleites grew up with the Viaduct, and if it was good enough for us, it’s good enough for future generations as well. (You know, stop trying to change Seattle into New York or San Francisco and all that.) But even if you believe there is a best alternative, good luck convincing a majority of elected officials, let alone a majority of the voting public.

Though, of course, that’s half of what Mayor Nickels somehow managed to do. He always favored a tunnel, and voters be damned, he ultimately got the governor and the legislature, who originally pushed for the less expensive rebuild, to agree to a tunnel deal, albeit an awfully bad deal for Seattle taxpayers. Call that arrogance if you want. But it’s also leadership.

And as we saw in Tuesday’s election results, we hate leadership.

In helping to end Mayor Nickels career, Mike McGinn has made blocking the tunnel one of the centerpieces of his campaign, and like him, I favor the surface/transit option, if not always for the same reasons. And if elected, I’ve little doubt that McGinn will succeed in fulfilling this campaign promise. For in Seattle, saying “no” is what we do best.

But whether a Mayor McGinn could succeed in building political consensus for his own favored alternative to the Viaduct before nature succeeds in knocking the current one down, well, that’s another question. And if he does show the leadership necessary to force his own plan into implementation, how could he possibly survive the dire political consequences of his success?

Oops…

A second tunnel-boring machine for the Brightwater sewage-treatment plant has broken down, causing the layoff of 67 workers, King County officials said Tuesday.

King County wastewater officials said the westbound machine, nicknamed Rainier, has a problem with a part known as the cutterhead rim.

It’s not as badly damaged as the eastbound boring machine, known as Helene, which broke down last month and caused the layoff of 60 people. Nonetheless, repairs to Rainier, also known as BT-3, are expected to take months, according to Brightwater Project Manager Gunars Sreibers.

But don’t you worry about Seattle taxpayers being forced to pick up cost overruns on the Viaduct replacement, because thanks to “new technological advances” such mishaps could never happen when the state attempts to dig the largest diameter deep bore tunnel ever. I know that is so because the Discovery Institute says it is so, and there is no greater or more reliable source on issues of science and technology than those progressive folks at Discovery.

In writing last week about why a campaign based on process and personality won’t be enough to defeat Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels in November (“Will Voters Tune In to Seattle City Government’s Family Feud?“), I raised a question that’s surely on the mind of his challengers and their self-soothing consultants:

Now some might counter, if Nickels is so strong, why are his polling numbers so weak? But that’s a question for another post…

Well, with retiring City Council member Jan Drago officially announcing her candidacy today, it’s time for that post, and I don’t think it’s one the field of challengers will find any more encouraging or flattering than the last.

Let’s begin with the facts. Every survey out there—the mayor’s, his opponents’, and those from third parties—shows Nickels’ approval rating consistently polling somewhere in the mid-thirties, and anybody who knows anything about electoral politics will tell you that for a two-term incumbent, that’s an awfully bad place to be.  Just falling below 50% is conventionally considered a sign of vulnerability, but 35%…? It’s time to start sending out your resume.

So it’s understandable why Drago and the other challengers might feel buoyed. Up until Drago’s entrance it was a crap-shoot as to who might win the second spot on the November ballot (my sense is that Nickels and Drago are now the clear favorites to make it through the primary), and going up against such an unpopular incumbent, it would be the challenger’s race to lose.

Or so dictates conventional wisdom.

But the the thing about conventional wisdom is that it’s so damn conventional, and as such, tends to obscure the vagaries that surround all candidates and influence all political campaigns.  And as I wrote last week, anybody counting on 35% in April to automatically translate into defeat in November has another think coming, especially since, quite frankly, Mayor Nickels never seems to poll all that well.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen the mayor poll above fifty percent,” one long time Nickels aide told me.  You know, except on election day… the only day that really counts. As to why the mayor polls so poorly, well, that’s hard to say, but I’m guessing it has something to do with his penchant for attempting to do stuff.

Are you an ardent opponent of light rail? Then you probably hate the mayor… likewise for those of you for whom the monorail was the stuff of wet dreams. Prefer the rebuild or surface/transit options for replacing the Viaduct? Well then, screw Mayor Nickels and his gold-plated, faith-based tunnel.

Angry at losing the Sonics?  Convinced the grocery bag tax is nanny-statism gone awry? Think Nickels is anti-business and/or in the pocket of developers? Affordable housing vs. plummeting home prices… transit-oriented development vs. preserving our neighborhoods… service cuts vs. tax increases… whatever side of whatever issue, you name it and you can probably find reason enough to blame the mayor.

Of course, the only alternative to doing stuff is to do nothing, but that’s just not in Nickels’ character, and besides, whatever reputation the mayor has for a willingness to spend political capital (sometimes frivolously), it can’t help but appear exaggerated compared to the how-low-can you-go profile of the city council.

I mean, here’s a thought experiment for you: pull out your stopwatch and see how long it takes you to come up with nine things you don’t like about the mayor and his policies. Pretty easy, huh? Now time how long it takes you to name all nine city council members.

See what I mean?

Yeah sure, there’s something about Nickels’ style that particularly pisses off those establishment types steeped in a lazy political culture that puts every contentious issue up for public vote, and too often confuses leadership for arrogance (all the while whining about the lack of the former), but he’s not the only executive to head into an election year with less than stellar approval ratings. Gov. Chris Gregoire had only just inched up to 45% by April of 2008, yet still managed to win by over six points come November.  And perhaps more relevantly, former King County Executive Ron Sims’ approval rating was likewise mired in the mid thirties in April of 2005, yet he still ran away to a 16-point win in his landslide bid for a third term.

So while no doubt the mayor’s people would prefer to see his approval ratings climb, they won’t start shitting bricks unless and until the coming barrage of campaign advertising fails to budge his numbers.

So now that we’ve settled that—35% approval rating bad, but not fatal—let’s talk about what the challengers can do to exploit Nickels’ obvious vulnerability.  And the answer is… um… not much. For despite the litany of mayoral gripes I’ve outlined above, and the many, many more I’ve neglected, there really aren’t any big, consensus building issues with which to attack the mayor.

Drago and the others can focus all they want on Frozen Watergate, but in a city that experiences major snowstorms every decade or so, snow removal is hardly a top priority, while efforts to spin the icy streets as emblematic will be hard pressed in the absence of evidence of a broader culture of mismanagement. The city failed to clear the streets for a week, and…? They better come up with an “and” or two if they truly want to use this issue to their advantage.

We had the snow as bad as anywhere down in my neck of the woods, but that’s one week out of the 385 or so Nickels has been mayor.  Over that same tenure our crime is down, our streets have been paved, our libraries renovated, and our playfields re-turfed. We’re not too happy about the direction our schools are going or the level of Metro bus service, but somebody should remind Mike and Jan that these two services don’t fall under the mayor’s purview. Meanwhile, we’ve got a shiny new train running through the Rainier Valley that’s driving much needed redevelopment, and is about to make us the envy of the region.

And I live in South Seattle, one of the most neglected areas of the city.

I’m not saying there aren’t failures in the mayor’s administration, there just haven’t been any major failures, and certainly nothing endemic. A couple weeks ago I chatted with a staffer for self-financed candidate Joe Mallahan, who after failing to goad me on snow removal and Key Arena (“Aren’t you angry about the Sonics leaving… or don’t you like sports?” she asked me, I think implying something lacking in my manhood should I affirm the latter), raised the specter of Seattle’s budget deficit as evidence of Nickels’ unfitness to manage city affairs.

The budget? Really?

Seattle’s projected $29.5 million revenue shortfall is nothing compared to that of the state or even King County, and the mayor’s proposed budget adjustments have proven proportionately less painful and controversial, mostly consisting of a mandatory one-week furlough for library employees, the elimination of 59 positions (half of which were already open) and a $5 million transfer from the city’s rainy day fund (leaving another $25 million in reserve, compared to the mere $2 million he inherited in 2001).

All in all, I’d say the city has recently managed its finances quite well, and I don’t get the sense that many voters are convinced otherwise.

Likewise, despite the many opportunities Nickels has had to piss off one constituency or another through positions he’s taken and the policies he’s advocated, it hardly adds up to a throw the bum out consensus, especially considering the utter lack of differentiation his opponents have enunciated on these very same issues. How exactly does Mike McGinn expect to court the environmental vote away from one of the most outspoken environmental mayors in the nation? Does Drago really believe she’ll be embraced as a credible alternative when she’s been the mayor’s most reliable ally on the council?

Yes, opinion polls show the mayor remains unpopular, but it’s not due to any major scandal—personal, ethical, performance or otherwise—and its not due to the stances he’s taken on major issues, which have largely been in step with the vast majority of Seattle voters. The fact is, Mayor Nickels is neither corrupt nor incompetent nor out of sync with our values. Folks just don’t like him.

The dilemma for the challengers is this: how do you defeat a competent, scandal-free mayor whose values you share, and whose policy agenda you largely support?  You beat him by being a better politician.

And that’s why I’m convinced that none of the challengers in this race, not even Drago, can beat Mayor Nickels, for as vulnerable as he is, and as grating as his style obviously can be, none of his opponents possess the force of personality necessary to get voters excited about change. I don’t write this as Nickels booster; I’ve got nothing against the mayor, though I’ve got nothing particularly for him either, and there have been plenty of issues on which we’ve disagreed.

But issues don’t win races, candidates do. Thus the solution to beating a scandal-free incumbent, even one with a pathetic 35% approval rating, is to simply be a better politician. And sadly for them, none of the challengers are that.

“He’s definitely destroyed his working relationship with the council,” Seattle City Council member Jan Drago insisted to Publicola’s Josh Feit when asked about her apparently imminent plans to challenge Mayor Greg Nickels.

“One of my motivations,” she said, “is that he [Mayor Nickels] has destroyed every relationship—with citizens and neighborhoods, with regional leaders, with state leaders … I’m the one who was sent down to lobby in Olympia [for the tunnel]. They’re [Team Nickels] toxic down there.”

It’s a theme I’ve heard repeatedly from politicos, politicians and pundits over the past year or so.  Nickels is arrogant and autocratic, a political tyrant who forces his will on the Council, fires popular agency heads, and who seems intent on creating a political vacuum that sucks the air out of all voices outside the gravitational pull of his immediate orbit. Deserved or not, he has earned a reputation, at least in the eyes of many fellow elected officials and their aides, for not working and playing well with others. And whatever Machiavellian instincts the Mayor lacks are more than made up for by the amoral political machinations of Deputy Mayor Tim Ceis and the rest of his ruthless henchmen.

Or so I’m told.

Quite frankly, there are a lot of political insiders who just can’t stand the Mayor’s style, and more than a few who don’t like the man himself.  Okay, I get it.  But the question remains: is process and personality really an effective platform for mounting a challenge to a scandal-free, two-term incumbent?

Perhaps Mayor Nickels’ style truly is as destructive and divisive as his critics allege, I dunno, but the rub for Drago and the other challengers is that the biggest insider issue in the mayoral race isn’t really an issue at all, at least not from a practical, electoral prospective.  The typical voter neither knows nor cares whether Nickels is buddy-buddy with Nick Licata as long as he’s getting the job done; and as for being “toxic” in Olympia, well, after the recent legislative session I’d be tempted to wear that scorn as a badge of honor.

Does he share our values? Where does he stand on the issues? Has he delivered bread and butter services? What is his political agenda, and can we trust him to successfully implement it? Those are the kind of questions voters ask of incumbent executives.

And the answer?

“You can’t win a race against this mayor based on delivery,” Drago said. “It’s hard for me to conceive of running a campaign based on process and personality if you have a good record. I think that’s the dilemma.”

That was the dead-on political analysis of Drago herself, back on March 2. Huh. Before deciding to challenge the mayor, perhaps she should hire herself as a consultant?

The truth is, Seattle city government has long been at least a tad dysfunctional, and never the idyllic setting for a Norman Rockwell painting. Nor should it be. Democracy is by its very nature a messy endeavor in which conflict is a necessary if painful part of the political dialectic. Does Nickels’ aggressive style piss off council members and other stakeholders? No doubt. But if anything, the problem is not that the Mayor is too mean, but rather that the Council is too nice!

How may times have we heard council members whine about the Mayor’s unilateral style… then vote to approve his proposals by 7 to 2 or better margin? Seattle government isn’t a “strong mayor” system by charter, it’s just appeared that way during the Nickels regime, partially due to his forceful style, and partially due to the endemic weakness of the council members themselves. You want a more effective and politically inclusive city government, and a more responsive mayor, Jan? Then why haven’t you stood up to Nickels while you’ve had a chance?

In the absence of forceful leadership on the Council it has been the Mayor who has largely set the agenda over the past seven years, and for the most part, achieved it. Nickels embraced light rail; we got light rail. He turned his back on the monorail; the monorail died. He fought hard for a Viaduct tunnel, while a new, taxpayer-funded Sonics arena, not so much… and we all know how those two battles turned out. On issue after issue, and levy after levy, the Mayor tends to get his own way. Disagree with him if you want—and I often do—but if you deny him credit for his political acumen you have to acknowledge the incredible weakness of the opposition.

In truth, it’s a combination of the two. Mayor Nickels’ style can seem relatively autocratic and abrasive, but only by the passive-aggressive standards of our frustratingly sclerotic “Seattle Way.” Plunk Nickels down in the midst of a real political machine, like that in Chicago or Philadelphia, and I wonder if he’d survive past sundown before being eaten alive by the Morlocks?

Now some might counter, if Nickels is so strong, why are his polling numbers so weak? But that’s a question for another post… and another opportunity to lambast the mayoral challengers for failing to enunciate a winning message.

But for the moment, anybody expecting a 35% approval rating in April to automatically translate into defeat at the polls in November should heed Drago’s circa March 2nd warning. With few notable exceptions, Mayor Nickels does have a track record of delivering services, and of clearly enunciating and enacting a policy agenda. And like him or not, voters will choose competence over process, if that’s their only choice.

State lawmakers have put a lot of faith in deep-bore technology and the latest advances that, we’re told, will make the Viaduct tunnel possible. But apparently, not too much faith.  That’s why as a condition of providing a couple billion dollars of funding in the recently passed transportation budget, legislators threw in a provision that requires Seattle taxpayers to pull out their checkbooks for any cost overruns.

But you know… what are the chances of that?  Transportation mega-projects always come in on time and on budget, and those giant tunnel boring machines?  They’re as infallible as the Pope.

On Beacon Hill, Christine Miller-Panganiban said she was doing a little gardening in her front yard a couple of Sundays ago, when she noticed a mysterious hole. She stuck her shovel  down. It didn’t feel the bottom.

Her husband got a piece of tubing seven feet long. Still they couldn’t feel the bottom. Only when she looked down it with a flashlight did she find that it went down 21 feet. “Oh my God,” she thought, and more when she realized that suddenly there was a deep void that now only went down and down, but extended under her house.

The hole was apparently created when Sound Transit was boring the tunnel for the new light rail line. On Monday, Sound Transit spokesman Bruce Gray acknowledged the agency has found seven underground voids caused by its boring machine within a couple of blocks east of the future Beacon Hill station, though the one in Miller-Panganiban’s front yard was the only one visible from the surface. Aside from causing concern in the neighborhood, he said testing for them and filling them would cost the agency up to $1 million.Oops. Apparently, the boring machine hit a layer of sand, which flowed into the tunnel leaving a gap in its place.

What kind of gap? “An empty gap,” Sound Transit’s Bruce Gray explains to us laymen.

But let’s not worry about all those boring details. The scientifically minded folks at the Discovery Institute assure us that recent technological advances make it possible to dig the world’s largest diameter deep bore tunnel, straight under downtown Seattle, cheaper, faster and more reliably than ever before possible. So unforeseen and costly technical hurdles — like, you know… sand — couldn’t possibly happen here.

Oh wait… it just did.

“Why does Frank Chopp hate Seattle?” That’s the question Josh asks at Publicola after State Rep. Reuven Carlyle (D-36) showed him an amendment to the Viaduct Bill that pins potential cost overruns on the backs of Seattle taxpayers.

The amendment, sponsored by House transportation committee chair Rep. Judy Clibborn (D-41, Bellevue, Factoria, Newcastle), says any cost overruns on the Viaduct tunnel project have to be paid by Seattle-area businesses—a standard for a state-funded project that Carlyle argued had never been applied to locals before. (Without any local accountability measures, for example, Rep. Carlyle pointed out, the state has spent $1.56 billion on 405.)

[…] Carlyle wasn’t simply standing up for his turf, though. He believed the amendment, if passed, would set a “dangerous precedent” that locals across the state could now be held accountable for cost overruns “on any bridge, ferry, roads, or building project.”

The “Big Bore” is the brain child of the oh so credible Discovery Institute, which, based on its profound respect for the sciences, promises that new and barely tested deep bore technology can dig the tunnel cheaper and faster than ever before possible.

Um… maybe.  But maybe not.  The deep bore tunnel is without a doubt the least studied Viaduct alternative from an engineering and a geological perspective, and yet it was quickly embraced by the powers that be after local voters and politicians appeared to be reaching a consensus on the much less sexy surface/transit option.

Surface/transit was also the least expensive option, for both the state and the city, and no doubt the easiest to accurately estimate costs, as we have a helluva lot more experience laying down asphalt than we do sending giant boring machines through downtown Seattle’s relatively unexplored substrata.  Discovery’s assurance’s aside, the Big Bore is by far the riskiest option in terms of potential cost overruns.  I’m loathe to bring up Boston’s infamous Big Dig, as I don’t subscribe to the notion that Americans have somehow lost the ability to engineer tunnels, but… well… shit happens.

And if shit happens, it should be the responsibility of the state to clean it up.  After all, it’s the Governor and the Legislature who put up the most resistance to the surface/transit option, and who eagerly sought out the Big Bore as a magically delicious alternative.  So why the hell should local taxpayers, who were already prepared to settle on a less expensive, less risky (and yes, less elegant) solution, pick up the tab should Discovery’s faith-based transportation plans turn out to be not all that intelligently designed?

We shouldn’t, and now is the time for Mayor Nickels and other local political leaders to send a clear message to Olympia that, if they change the terms of the deal on us, forcing us to pick up the costs of their potential blunders, then the deal is off.  Seattle has already agreed to pony up $1 billion toward the cost of replacing this state highway, but if this amendment sticks, placing all the risk on our backs, I say we put away our checkbook and tell our legislators to just go screw themselves.

Over on their editorial board blog, the Seattle Times’ Bruce Ramsey calls me out for calling out Susan Hutchison for her connections to the Discovery Institute and their Christianist, anti-science campaign to foist so-called Intelligent Design theory on unsuspecting school children.

Oh, come on. I don’t buy the argument from design, and once compared it to the fabulist Erich von Daniken. But Discovery does lots of things, from stuff on Russia to passenger trains. Discovery was the initial backer of the bored tunnel to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct—an idea now endorsed by Ron Sims, Greg Nickels and Christine Gregoire. Funny how our progressive pundits missed the chance to make fun of that idea by talking about Intelligent Design.

Oh Bruce… why are you always picking on me?  When have I ever said an unkind word about your publication?

But if you’re gonna pick on me, the least you could do is pick your spots a little more carefully, for I’m pretty sure I’ve never missed a chance to make fun of Discovery by talking about Intelligent Design.  Indeed back in December of 2007, when the deep bored tunnel idea was first raised, I ridiculed Discovery in a post titled “Intelligent Transportation Design,” writing:

[T]he folks at the Discovery Institute are a bunch of fanaticist nutcases “visionaries”… you know, if by “visionary” you mean promoting Intelligent Design, seeking to overthrow the scientific method and “replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions,” …

And then again a year later, in a similarly named post, I once again honed in on the cavemen riding dinosaurs meme, musing:

Yeah, but then again, these are folks who don’t believe in evolution, so forgive me for taking their claimed scientific and technical expertise with a grain of salt.

There are a lotta things you can tar me with Bruce, but being inconsistent ain’t one of ’em.

And as for your main premise:

There are two obvious questions that matter about Susan Hutchison as King County Executive. One is whether her career as a TV news anchor and in arts fundraising qualifies her to be CEO of the largest county government in Washington, which is involved in police, courts, jails, land-use control, public health and elections. The other is how Hutchison would use the power the county executive actually has. Focus on these, and give us all a rest regarding the Discovery Institute.

Well, forgive the over-the-top forced metaphor, but I’d say that arguing that Hutchison’s association with Intelligent Design has no bearing on her fitness for office is kinda like considering Mussolini to head Sound Transit, and insisting the only thing that really matters is whether he has the proven ability to make the trains run on time.

Of course Discovery is a valid issue in this campaign, as are Hutchison’s self-identification as a conservative Republican.  These are issues and labels which help inform us about Hutchison’s values, and whether she shares those of the majority of King County voters.  Given her background, Hutchison should be forced to answer whether she accepts evolution as valid science, and whether she believes Intelligent Design or other “alternative theories” should be taught in the schools.  Surely, Bruce, you’re not arguing that voters would be better served by having less information about their candidates?

As I stated yesterday, the bulk of the invitations for Hutchison to sit on boards came from her role controlling Charles Simonyi’s vast checkbook, but her position at Discovery, and the conservative Christian organization Young Life were different.  These were board positions Hutchison sought out, presumably because their agendas were consistent with her own personal beliefs.  Good for her.  People should act on their principles.

And people’s principles should be issues in political campaigns.

In case you missed this:

Considering the reality of what we are facing in these economic times, why would we want to write a check to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct with the most expensive, most risky, least studied and slowest-to-construct option?

That’s from Rep. Geoff Simpson’s recent opinion piece in the Seattle Times. It’s about the tunnel. You know, the thing that’s got all that “critical mass“?

Here’s something I bet you didn’t know:

In other parts of Washington State, the highways are built and maintained using the state’s tax dollars. But the legislature and Governor Gregoire have proposed adding extra taxes, taxes that will be paid by the residents of varying taxing districts:

Residents of King County would pay the state gas tax each time they fill up their tank and about $200 or more for car tabs each year. Then, the taxpayers in the Port of Seattle’s district — which again is everyone in King County — will be on the hook for another $300 million from property taxes. Through the shell game of tax-increment financing and other city taxes, Seattle’s citizens alone will shoulder nearly a billion dollars. And finally, if the state Senate transportation chair has her way, we’d each have to pay a toll to drive in the new tunnel.

In other parts of the state, it doesn’t work this way:

in Eastern Washington and other parts of the state, the state actually pays for state highways. What confuses me is why local taxpayers should be taxed time after time to pay for infrastructure that is vital to the entire state’s economy. State highway projects anywhere else in the state would be paid for with state funds, not local taxes.

If the state doesn’t have the money for a tunnel, where does that leave us?

We don’t need a tunnel because there is another option that is faster, cheaper and less risky. Replacing the viaduct with the surface/transit proposal is the best available option because it is financially responsible, better for the environment and leaves our options open for the future. It removes the dangerous viaduct earlier and we could still build a tunnel or another elevated roadway. And it will carry enough traffic to get by for several years.

If it takes an op-ed from a Kent firefighter to shake up the stale conventional wisdom that surrounds the viaduct debate in Olympia, then that’s what it takes. What I want to know is, where are my Seattle legislators? I want to know why they’re ready to sign on to a project that’s 1% designed, a project that could cost as much as 12 billion dollars. Why are Seattle legislators so willing to lock us in to a terribly unfair scheme of local taxes for a state highway?

Damned with faint praise:

“Everybody’s really glad they reached a decision,” said Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen, D-Camano Island, chairwoman of the Senate Transportation Committee. She said the intention is to approve the design during the current legislative session.

“The tunnel,” said Sen. Dan Swecker, R-Rochester, the Senate committee’s ranking GOP member, “seems to be something that’s got critical mass.”

That, my friends, is what politicians say when they are invited to polish a turd.

But this one is my favorite:

On Friday, Chopp said there are questions about how to pay for possible tunnel cost overruns. “Additional questions are being raised around transportation capacity, for example going from six lanes down to four,” he said, but for the moment he’s focused on the state budget and relief for families and businesses.

Doesn’t Chopp’s own Viaduct vision also reduce waterfront capacity from six lanes to four?

Okay, not to rain on the tunnel parade but Seattle isn’t the only metropolitan area in the Pacific Northwest with a pressing mega-project in waiting.

Combine river, wind, eco-friendliness and smooth sailing across the Columbia River and what do you have? A new Interstate 5 bridge with wind turbines generating electricity.

You read that right: The latest bridge design features vertically spinning turbines that would generate an unknown amount of juice while proclaiming loudly that the Portland-Vancouver area is the sustainability center of the world.

Personally, since I don’t live in Seattle, I’ve refrained from commenting much on the whole tunnel versus surface thing. You folks who live there should get the major say.

But since you can’t put wind turbines in your tunnel, you lose the coolness war. Sorry.

Now fork over some more money for down here too. Whaaaa? Money is tight to non-existent?

Oh. Could we have a rowboat or something?

How things change…

1/17/2007:

Last month, Gregoire issued her findings on the viaduct options, saying the state could afford the $2.8 billion elevated highway but said the finance plan for the $4.6 billion, six-lane tunnel didn’t pencil out.

1/13/2009:

The overall project is estimated at $4.25 billion, with $2.8 billion coming from state gas taxes and federal bridge funds. That is supposed to cover the tunnel construction, as well as most of an interchange and elevated segment in Sodo.

How can “not having the money” be grounds to spike a tunnel in 2007, but not in 2009? What has changed, other than time?

In any case, back in 2007, State Sen. Ed Murray (D-43) seems to have nailed it:

Murray said he doesn’t believe the idea of eventually building a tunnel is dead yet.

“We’re not done,” he said.

Larry Phillips:

[T]he bored bypass tunnel, along with surface and transit improvements, must be among the options that move forward for further environmental review and design when the Gov. Christine Gregoire announces her viaduct-replacement recommendation.

I think the Alaskan Way Viaduct, and the circus surrounding it’s replacement, are proof that Seattle is one of the least corrupt cities in America. If we were a little more corrupt, the civic elite, with the city’s monied interests, would have put this issue to bed long ago, and we would never had had that ridiculous, and totally ignored, advisory vote back in 2007. After all, asking for the people’s input is really only useful if you plan on following their suggestions.

Scanning the old RSS reader and the impressive amount of speculation by both dirty hippie leftist bloggers and traditional media types, I vote for the sensible speculation of Joe Turner at Political Buzz, who wonders if this is all about Viaduct money and then adds:

It could be broader than that. Democratic governors are set to meet again with Obama this week about the stimulus package. Gregoire has been active in pushing for a large boost to state’s with shovel-ready projects but there is no word as to whether she will be part of any meeting

It is awfully hard to imagine Gregoire departing so soon after an election victory that ratifies the rather solid job she does as governor, although I’d imagine she’d be a fine Commerce Secretary as well.

Turner’s theory seems a lot more plausible to me. The Obama team started rolling out more information about the stimulus proposal today, so it makes sense.

I guess we’ll find out tomorrow, which is a bajillion million thousand years in blog time.

A final decision due this week on replacing the Alaskan Way Viaduct has been postponed, so that transportation officials can reconsider the option of a deep-bore tunnel.

“I think the governor would say that if we could make the numbers work, that is probably the most viable option,” Judd said. “But that option is going to mean that there has to be a real meaningful partnership with the city and county and Port [of Seattle] to make it happen.”

Meaningful partnership? In other words, Seattle taxpayers are going to be asked to pony up the extra bucks needed to pay the extra cost of a tunnel over the less expensive surface/transit option… which I suppose would be fair, if Seattle taxpayers actually preferred the tunnel… which they don’t.  Whether the money comes from the county, the city or the port, it still comes from us taxpayers, and I betcha if you put the two options on the ballot with the cost to local taxpayers clearly stated, the pricier tunnel option gets buried in a landslide.  That’s why, if chosen, you won’t see this on a ballot.

Oh, but wait… the Discovery Institute’s Bruce Agnew, the main advocate of The Big Bore, says the tunnel would actually cost less than engineers have previously estimated:

“We’ve always felt that, given the advances in deep-bore tunnels and the ability to build a deep-bore tunnel without interfering with the economy downtown and, given the experience we have in the region with deep-bore tunnel, specifically Beacon Hill, it would be a real tragedy to take it prematurely out of the running.”

Yeah, but then again, these are folks who don’t believe in evolution, so forgive me for taking their claimed scientific and technical expertise with a grain of salt.  As I wrote on this subject over a year ago:

In a city where completion of a 1.3 mile vanity trolley line is feted like some transportation miracle, the very notion that local voters might commit more than a half billion dollars a mile to an untested technology is a dramatic tribute to Discovery’s primary mission of promoting the exercise of faith over reason.

Of course, what Discovery really has faith in is the invisible hand of God—ie, the divine power of the free market to make gobs of money for themselves and their well-heeled friends—and buried along with their tunnel proposal is the notion that the extra cost will be paid for via some sort of “public-private” partnership… you know, taxpayer money heavily subsidizing a for-profit venture.  So now that we’re seriously talking about a deep-bore tunnel, get ready for the talk about privatizing it.