Search Results for: viaduct

In the several years I’ve lived in Belltown, you’ve been a good neighbor. The people who take classes with you are most nice, well-adjusted kids, and they don’t cause trouble. You’ve got a nice location, right on the waterfront. I use your parking garage often whenever I grab a Flexcar Zipcar for a few hours. All in all, it’s been a good relationship thus far. But there’s something on your campus I’ve got my eye on.

Your basketball court.

See, the City of Seattle took away a half court when they put in the dog park at 3rd and Bell. The closest public basketball court in now up at the Denny Playfield, which doesn’t get the love it should.

Belltown is home to some interesting open space. There’s the Belltown cottages, Victor Steinbrueck Park, the aforementioned dog park on 3rd and Bell, and the Olympic Sculpture Park. The latter has a sign which says, “no active sports allowed.” So while my neighborhood has a gigantic typewriter eraser sitting on a grassy burm, it doesn’t have a b-ball court.

Is there an agreement we can come to that might allow Kurt Rambis-types such as myself the chance to shoot hoops at your court, until the city finally puts up some rims under the Viaduct? I want to play some pick-up basketball without having to leave my neighborhood.

Can we make this happen?

Today’s headlines are so lame — the “breaking news” has to do with the bus tunnel reopening — that I thought it would be more interesting to project a few headlines for 2008 that you probably won’t read anywhere else. After all, murderous rampages, even when they happen, or perhaps especially when they happen, on Christmas Eve, have become so commonplace it’s impossible to find something compelling to say any more. I can only breathe a sigh of relief that the story broke today instead of yesterday, when its pairing with the P-I expose of lunatic unlicensed bicyclists riding amok on city streets would have been a thorny call for the Page 1 editor as to which got the banner head. In other transportation news, the streetcar has stalled twice (something my bike has never done, but then it didn’t cost $52 million) and wait, this just in, OMG, snow is forecast for the region!

So now for the 2008 Roundup. We’ll start with the local headlines:

Overbuilding Crisis: Can It Happen Here? As more hi-rises and condos and townhouses continue to get built while the ones already on the market sit unsold, alert local media sense “excess inventory” in the housing market. Not wishing to offend real-estate advertisers, however, they cast the meltdown in upbeat, forward-looking platitudes like “brief lull,” “fleeting aberration” and “not as bad as Florida.”

Richard Conlin to Run for Mayor. Someone who actually practices sustainability to take on someone who just preaches it.

Streetcar, Metro Bus Collide, Injuring Both Passengers.

Oklahoma City Bans Sonics. Says it desires professional basketball team.

7.7 Quake Levels Viaduct. God weighs in on surface-street option.

Transit Measure Defeated at Polls. By a ___ to ___ margin, voters have turned down a ____________-___________ plan, costing ________ billion, to be built from ___________ to ____________ by the year _____ in order to solve the region’s growing, critical, urgent, yikes-we’re-all-doomed transportation crisis.

And now for the national headlines:

In Replay of Great Depression, Stock Market Crashes and Banks Collapse. Bush remains upbeat about economy, calls mass suicides on Wall Street “misoverreaction.”

Bush to Seek Third Term. Attorney General, citing loophole in law, says president can run if he changes his legal name.

Bush Bombs Iran. President declares martial law “to protect the safety of our country.”

Suspected Terrorist Plot Disclosed. President declares martial law “to protect the safety of our country.”

Republicans Score Landslide Win After Osama Bin Laden Brought Into Custody on Nov. 1. Faced with riots by angry voters, President declares martial law “to protect the safety of our country.”

License that man!!!

Sunday’s post lambasting the Discovery Institute (and our political and media elite’s insistence on taking them seriously no matter how wacky their proposals) has generated a number of emails from folks offering more detailed information on Discovery and its operations. It’s not pretty.

They may have cleaned up their “official” budget by now, but I’ve been assured that in past years at least 40-percent of the Gates Foundation’s roughly $1 million/year grant to the Cascadia Project went directly to Discovery to cover “overhead”. This included a $60,000 line item to help pay the salary of Discovery Executive Director Steven Buri, who I’m told has absolutely no expertise nor interest in transportation planning. Of course, I expect Discovery would deny using Gates Foundation money to subsidize its Intelligent Design campaign, but if they want to refute my allegations I challenge them to release the original budget documents (not some bullshit, made up spreadsheet,) or better yet, sue me for libel, so that I might use the discovery period to shed some light on the shady accounting Bruce Chapman has used to sucker the world’s richest man.

My point is that through his foundation’s 10 year/$9.35 million grant to Cascadia, Bill Gates — who frequently bemoans the state of our nation’s science education — is directly funding the operations of an organization dedicated to undermining the scientific method, and teaching creationism in our public schools. I mean… what the fuck?

But worse than the money is the undeserved credibility Gates and others grant Discovery by perpetuating the fiction that there is actual thinking going on in its tank. A real think tank starts with a problem and then goes about creatively devising a solution; propaganda mills like Discovery start with a solution, and then go about marketing the problem. And what is Discovery’s solution to the many challenges facing our nation in the 21st century and beyond? Here are the institute’s goals as enunciated in its infamous Wedge Document:

Governing Goals

• To defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural and political legacies.
• To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God.

Five Year Goals

• To see intelligent design theory as an accepted alternative in the sciences and scientific research being done from the perspective of design theory.
• To see the beginning of the influence of design theory in spheres other than natural science.
• To see major new debates in education, life issues, legal and personal responsibility pushed to the front of the national agenda.

Twenty Year Goals

• To see intelligent design theory as the dominant perspective in science.
• To see design theory application in specific fields, including molecular biology, biochemistry, paleontology, physics and cosmology in the natural sciences, psychology, ethics, politics, theology and philosophy in the humanities; to see its influence in the fine arts.
• To see design theory permeate our religious, cultural, moral and political life.

That is what Bill Gates’ fortune is helping to fund.

Of course, the nut doesn’t fall far from the tree, and so despite its charade of scholarly objectivity, Cascadia has its own ideologically predetermined solutions. That’s why, for example, anti-light rail zealot Ted Van Dyk was so eager to give Discovery’s Bruce Agnew a rhetorical blowjob in today’s Crosscut. Van Dyk, Agnew et al have their own transportation plan, and it resolves around “governance reform” that would create a four-county, regional transportation commission, largely designed to dilute the power of Seattle’s pro-rail voters, while forcing us to fund their priorities, rather than our own. To Van Dyk’s credit, at least he’s honest about his cabal’s ultimate goal:

It would stress immediate priorities such as addressing the urgent Alaskan Way Viaduct and Evergreen Point Bridge, which are aging and structurally vulnerable. It would not stop light rail construction in place, but it would limit construction to a line running from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport to either Convention Place, Husky Stadium, or Northgate. Future funding would be focused more greatly on express bus, bus rapid transit, and normal bus service; dedicated transit lanes; HOV lanes; tolling; and selective repair and expansion of long neglected local roads and lifeline highways. Citywide trolleys definitely would not be part of the scheme.

That too is what Bill Gates’ fortune is funding.

Of course, I suppose there are those civic leaders who agree with Discovery’s “Big Bore” pro-roads/anti-rail agenda, just as I suppose there are those who support its goal of imposing a world view “consonant with Christian and theistic convictions”; I just wish they’d be honest about it. But for the rest, it is time to wake up and recognize Discovery for what it is, and stop granting credibility and money it has not earned.

In perhaps the richest area of Washington state, a new type of road material is being tested.

the state Department of Transportation (DOT) is testing materials there designed to turn down the din of traffic.

The DOT calls them “quieter pavements.”

Those who drive the highway or live nearby call it a huge improvement: “People who live along 520 are like, ‘You are a godsend,’ ” Scott said.

Some folks complained about the proposed bridge replacement for 520, because it included a Mercer Island-style lid to shield the rich folks’ neighborhoods from the noise. “Blah blah rich people, blah blah fancy freeway” was the common refrain from my left ‘o’ center friends. Now I’m starting to hear “blah blah quiet asphalt.” Maybe with this new pavement we won’t have to spend so much on mitigation in the form of concrete lids and more on this new asphalt.

As an aside, I’m always amazed that this region is able to gin up so much general animosity from things. Should people in gigantic houses be subjected to freeway noise because they’re rich? Should anyone? Of course not.

The battle over the Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement will look like an Easter egg hunt compared to what’s in store on 520. The neighborhoods on both ends of the bridge have a lot in common- they’re rich, white, and can hire an army of lawyers. But I wouldn’t want the State of Washington forcing some awful freeway design through my neighborhood. (Oh wait, they already did try once already!)

I predict that this new technology is going to let a thousand flowers bloom. At least that’s my hope.

You’ve got to give credit to the folks at the Discovery Institute; when they put their “minds” to something, they never seem to let little distractions like public opinion, science or, you know, reality get in their way.

As political momentum grows for a highway-free Seattle shoreline, some would-be visionaries want to help traffic move by digging a deep tunnel from Sodo to north of downtown. […] Costs are unknown, but would be in the billions of dollars. Even if a suitable tunnel path exists, Seattle’s loose, watery soils present a challenge in places, and there’s not much room at the surface for ramp connections at I-5.

That hasn’t stopped the Cascadia Center, a branch of the Discovery Institute think tank, from promoting a tunnel.

No, no… of course it hasn’t, because the 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 ignoring both voter sentiment (“No/Hell No” vote on the Viaduct; Prop 1’s crushing defeat) and economic reality in proposing a multi-billion dollar big dig through downtown Seattle.

I mean, Jesus H. Christ… what does it take to tarnish the Discovery Institute’s reputation? Does Bruce Chapman actually have to strip himself naked and go on a shooting rampage through the Tacoma Mall before our local media and political elite finally accept the fact that he might not be the same reasonable city councilman they remember from the 1970’s? Is there nothing he can do or say to destroy his credibility?

I once proposed building a gigantic rollercoaster along the West Seattle to downtown portion of the Monorail’s abandoned Green Line, and you didn’t see my joke of a transportation proposal picked up by the MSM, let alone labeled “visionary”. And yet the Seattle Rollercoaster Project is no less technically challenging nor politically, well, utterly fucking ridiculous than Discovery’s deep bore, crosstown tunnel. Engineering and economic feasibility aside, God himself could descend from the heavens with a blueprint in one hand and an infinite supply of cash in the other, only to be greeted by polar bear clad environmentalists and angry Eastside developers complaining that He isn’t doing enough to ease congestion on I-405. 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, it’s not merely faith in God that ultimately drives Discovery’s transportation planning, but more specifically faith in the Invisible Hand of God and the inherent efficiency of the free market. No doubt Seattle’s “Big Bore” would be pitched as a public/private partnership… you know, one of those sweetheart deals in which tax dollars are used to subsidize the privatization of a public asset. Sure, taxpayers would probably be better off financing our transportation improvements through payday loans, but then, who the hell am I to question the wisdom and motives of such an upstanding civic leader as Bruce Chapman?

…and he’s not excited about paying for a ferry in Kirkland either:

Cook is a South Park computer geek who, through her front window, has a commanding view of what ought to command the attention of King County: the South Park Bridge.

It’s a drawbridge over the Duwamish. It’s 77 years old and feels twice that. With a safety rating of 4 out of 100, it’s the most dangerous road around (the Alaskan Way Viaduct is a 9). Twenty thousand cars and trucks cross it daily.

King County owns this bridge. Engineers say they will shut it in a few years if nothing is done. Money to fix it was in the Roads and Transit plan that failed last week. Now the county has no plan for what to do.

“We aren’t going to be able to come up with the money for that by ourselves,” says Dow Constantine, the councilman who represents South Park.

So it rankles Cook that there the council was Tuesday, approving new taxes for ferries. For flood levees. For mental-health services. Worthy causes all, she said. But what could be more basic, more utilitarian than a neighborhood bridge?

“I don’t understand their priorities,” she said. “How can they just abandon a bridge?”

You know, it’s not like the county hasn’t seen this coming for years. It’s all a matter of setting funding priorities. King County should shelve the ferry to Ballard/Kirkland/Des Moines, cancel plans to remodel Seattle Center (which isn’t their’s to remodel in the first place) and focus on the South Park bridge.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out the strategy of the anti-rail/pro-roads camp. Of course, they wanted most of the proposals in the RTID package — and more — but they knew they’d get most of it without Prop 1… eventually. So while cockeyed optimists like Josh and Erica appear buoyant at the prospect of a transit-only measure appearing on the ballot sometime this decade, “Plan B” is moving quickly apace. And yes, there always was a Plan B, as outlined in an editorial Sunday in the Seattle Times:

• Highway 520 has to be redone before it falls into the lake. While redoing it, it must be expanded to accommodate traffic to job centers in Bellevue and Redmond. Pay for it in part with tolls.
• Replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct, either with a new structure or a sensible surface option.
• Perhaps extend light rail to Northgate. The density is already there, but this may have to wait until the first light-rail line opens.
• In Snohomish County, do key interchanges to Interstate 5, expand Highway 9 and improve Highway 2. Pick only the must-dos.
• Pierce County: Do Highway 167. Make that the priority.
• Bring on congestion pricing to change motorist behavior at peak times. In other words, get the most out of roadways we already have.

Huh. Sounds pretty much like the bulk of the major projects from RTID, with the Viaduct thrown in for good measure. As for light rail, perhaps we should extend it to Northgate… you know, if we can get beyond the fiscal reality that Sound Transit lacks sufficient taxing authority to even bond the half-billion dollar a mile project from revenues in the Seattle sub-area alone.

If I were to make a proposal like this, I’d just be talking out of my ass, but the Times editorial board has always been an official organ of the Eastside political establishment, so I’m guessing it was pretty well vetted before publication. And the very next day, surprise….

Now that Puget Sound-area voters have killed the ambitious roads and transit plan outlined in Proposition 1, the state will take back responsibility for replacing the state Route 520 Bridge, Gov. Chris Gregoire said Monday.

“I’ve already asked the Department of Transportation and the Office of (Financial Management) to come up with a new financing plan,” Gregoire said. “We will split off from the Regional Transportation Improvement District, because the 520 Bridge can no longer wait. It needs to be replaced.”

Gregoire said she wants to keep her commitment to begin construction on the 520 replacement by 2012.

If you think the timing is just some lucky coincidence, I’ve got a floating bridge to sell you.

The Kemper Freemanites’ opposition to rail wasn’t just ideological, it was politically pragmatic, for with light rail extension effectively killed for the foreseeable future, that frees up additional tax and toll revenues for other items on their asphalt wish list. They might not get everything they want — the Cross-Base Freeway and the mythical I-605 will likely never see the light of the day — but they’ll get most of what they want, including “hot lanes” and congestion pricing for those who can afford it. Meanwhile, we’ll buy a few buses, append the “Rapid Transit” suffix, and tell the common folk they’re getting a good deal for their money. Sweet.

But then, what do I know? I’m just some dumb blogger, not a savvy political strategist like those polar bear clad geniuses at the Sierra Club and their fellow travelers at The Stranger.

Dear Pro-Roads/Anti-Rail Guys,

Fuck you. No really… fuck you.

And I’m not just saying “fuck you” out of anger, though hell yeah, I’m pretty damn pissed right now. No, I want you to remember this post as a threat of things to come, rather than just a cussing out for deeds past, for mark my words, you’ve made an enemy, and I hereby promise to do whatever I can to stick Prop 1 so far up your ass you’ll be wiping shit out of your ears with a Q-tip.

You see, you think you were so clever with your $157 billion lie and your SOV-loving Seattle Times endorsement and the way you used the dupes at the Sierra Club to cover for your selfish, car-fetish agenda. But while you may very well have succeeded in killing light rail expansion for a decade or three by defeating Prop 1, I’m going to do my darnedest to turn lemons into more lemons — bitter, spiteful lemons — and vehemently oppose any and all road or bus proposals that subsequently come down the pike. And you know what, I’m guessing that there are an awful lot of Seattle voters who are with me on this.

See, we didn’t just vote to defeat I-912 and preserve the gas tax increase, we progressives fought like hell to defeat it, because raising the gas tax was the responsible, right thing to do. A year later, when Ron Sims came to us and asked for an increase in our regressive sales tax to fund expanded bus service countywide, we Seattle progressives voted for that too. And even when you insisted on tying a roads package to our light rail package, forcing us to vote for highway expansion we didn’t want, we continued to be our usual pragmatic selves, recognizing that some of these roads projects were structurally necessary, while others were politically necessary, and that in the end, the pros outweighed the cons. And then you fucked us.

We gave you your gas tax. We gave Ron his buses. But you refused to give us our light rail. And you did so believing that despite being dicked over on the one thing we really wanted, we would remain good progressives, pragmatically voting to tax ourselves for good infrastructure projects, whenever they came our way. Well fuck that.

Yes, our transportation needs are great, and in some cases desperate, and I’m sure you’re counting on that reality to incrementally achieve everything you want, piece by piece, outside of a mega-package, all the while denying us the one thing that can’t be built incrementally: rail. For example, 520 is just too important to this region, so push comes to shove, Seattle voters just wouldn’t reject funding a new bridge, right? Don’t be so sure.

See, I’m tired of being reasonable. I’m tired of being sensible. I’m tired of being pragmatic, only to have amoral fuckers like you use my pragmatism against me. As far as I’m concerned, the 520 bridge can sink into the fucking lake, I don’t drive it more than three or four times a year anyway. Traffic on I-405? That’s Kemper Freeman Jr.’s problem, not mine. The Viaduct? Screw the Port, screw DOT, screw the state… just tear the fucker down and be done with it. I live in South Seattle. I’ve got my light rail. Everybody else can fend for themselves.

Really.

You opposed Prop 1 because you figured you’d get most of the roads stuff anyway, if incrementally, but hell if I’m going to reward you for your cynicism. I-5’s Ship Canal Bridge could collapse in an earthquake, and I will fight against any tax or fee increase to replace it, unless… we get light rail expansion with it. So here’s the deal: first, you give us rail, and then we’ll give you some roads money, because we clearly can’t trust you the other way around. And if that’s not good enough for you then have fun watching your precious gasoline excise tax revenues eaten away by inflation and declining per capita consumption, because you can’t pass another increase without us.

Sure, it’s just little old me talking right now, but while most Seattleites are too polite to swear like me, and perhaps aren’t quite as spiteful either, I honestly believe you’ve underestimated the depth of opposition you’ve generated through your cynical maneuvering. In relying on the absolutist “no new roads” meme enunciated by your allies at the Sierra Club and The Stranger, you may very well have laid the seeds of your own destruction. That’s a meme I intend to seize upon without compassion or remorse, consequences be damned.

We had the opportunity to work together on a regional transportation solution, but instead you chose to fuck us. Prepare to be fucked back.

Love,
Goldy

Jean Godden’s campaign manager has an interesting hobby, as detailed by Gentry Lange (a supporter of Godden’s opponent, Joe Szwaja):

Carlo Davis, the campaign manager for Jean Godden, has spent a significant amount of time trolling the blogs distorting the facts, and posting under a list of fake names. Until recently this was simply a suspicion that I had no way to actually confirm, but recently The Paper Noose Blog traced his IP address and Carlo Davis then admitted to at least one of his blog pseudonyms.

Commenting under different fake names is nothing new in the blog world. People do it, sometimes just for fun. If you are a campaign professional, or if you value your credibility, anonymously trolling isn’t a good idea.

There’s a lot to look at, but this one is my favorites:

Posted by landsfarthereast at 8/17/07 1:08 p.m.

Wow. This is just a whose-who of Joe supporters in the comment thread. We have his campaign manager (Gentry Lange), his biggest fan (Mike G), and I’m assuming the rest are probably Gentry using different aliases.

Of course, “landsfarthereast” is Ms. Godden campaign manager…

Then there’s this:

Posted by landsfarthereast at 10/10/07 10:29 a.m.

@ LoveYourViaduct
“Actually, the happiest woman in Seattle this morning is probably the Gossip Goddess. She can point to her opponent’s colorful history again.”

That is truly one of the most despicable things I have ever read. To imply that someone is happy over a serious and tragic incident like this is beyond the pale. Shame on you.

To imply that the Jean Godden’s campaign would politicize a sensitive issue such as an alleged case of domestic violence, that’s beyond the pale…

Except that Godden’s people did just that back in June:

Goldy says:

Just to back up Geov here on his explanation of the process, the story on Szwaja was fed to me a few days ago, so it was clearly being pushed to reporters and bloggers. Though I was a bit surprised to see it appear so quickly in the P-I.

Godden’s people probably don’t mind it that McIver’s troubles have put domestic violence back in the headlines, if only to remind people of Joe’s problems 20 years ago. When campaign managers feign outrage anonymously online, I just have to laugh.

The Stranger announced its Political Genius awards today, and apparently, I’m not one. That’s okay. I don’t like cake. Besides, how could I possibly hope to compete with such tough competition? Hell, just look at one of the runners-up:

Political consultant Sandeep Kaushik, 60, displayed his first signs of genius in 2005 when he quit The Stranger, where he’d been a political reporter for three years.

King County Executive Ron Sims recognized Kaushik’s smarts and stole him away from us, hiring the dazzling Jim Beam drinker as an election strategist.

Jim Beam? Hah! Sandeep’s moved on to Makers Mark. Shows you what Josh knows.

Kaushik is poised to cap his rise as a political whiz with two major campaigns: He’s advocating for the biggest tax increase in state history, the $17.8 billion Roads and Transit initiative (hoping to expand light rail with 50 new miles of track) and, in a prime-time spot, he’s heading up spin for Darcy Burner, the Democrat who’s trying to knock off GOP Eastside incumbent Congressman Dave Reichert. Kaushik already chased Burner’s Democratic primary rival out of the race.

In 2000, little-known consultant Christian Sinderman emerged as a star by helping get Maria Cantwell elected. Sinderman is now the hottest political guru in the state. If Kaushik sends Burner to Congress, he’ll be the new Sinderman.

No doubt Sandeep’s political instincts and media connections are fast making him a political powerhouse — as Postman well knows, Josh pretty much writes whatever Sandeep tells him to write. So why did Sandeep have Josh write him a measly runner-up citation instead of the big award?

Well really, who deserves to take home the cake more than Cary Moon, the woman who somehow took the idea of a surface alternative to the Alaska Way Viaduct from lunatic fringe to political consensus?

Moon’s political genius is her ability to see the long-term picture; when others laughed at her for supporting what many called a ridiculous, long-shot option (“But where will all the cars go?”), Moon ignored them. While leaders bickered over whether to replace the viaduct with a larger viaduct or expensive tunnel, Moon quietly bided her time, consciously threading the needle between the two opposing positions. Over time, she gained the confidence of opinion leaders such as Council Member Peter Steinbrueck, an environmental advocate who saw the surface/transit option as a way to save billions and improve the climate in the bargain.

Then came last March’s vote against both waterfront freeway options. That “no/no” vote wasn’t just a defeat for the mayor’s tunnel and the governor’s bigger, uglier new viaduct. It was also a major victory for Moon and others who supported the surface/transit option, which emerged as the most affordable, environmentally sustainable option, and the officially “preferred” option of both the mayor and the city council and all the current council candidates.

Of course, there could be one more reason for Cary’s triumph over Sandeep:

When the Sierra Club sends me press releases decrying the “Roads” part of the “Roads and Transit” package, I sympathize. They see only the worst in the package. For example, they don’t see that a “yes” vote on “Roads and Transit” will build more light rail in the Seattle region than currently exists in Portland, Oregon. They don’t see the huge investment in HOV lanes that will make riding a bus in the suburbs quick and easy. They don’t see how RTID’s investment in Seattle streets will make possible the “Surface + Transit” viaduct replacement plan. And if anyone should understand that last item, it’s the Sierra Club. They, after all, were one of the first environmental groups to support the “Surface + Transit” plan.

It took years to get this package to the voters. If “Roads and Transit” goes down this November, don’t expect to see anything back on the ballot anytime soon. And what makes the Sierra Club (or Josh Feit for that matter) so confident that the next package will be any better than the current one? Count on the next measure to include far less rail and more buses. Money that would have replaced the South Park bridge or expanded the Spokane Street Viaduct will be shifted to replacing 520 and widening 405. Without roads investment, the “Surface + Transit” plan is toast. The ultimate irony would be if the Sierra Club’s campaign against the “Roads and Transit” package actually resulted in the building of another Alaskan Way Viaduct.

There is one upside for the Sierra Club concerning the viaduct. At least they’ll be able to get to their Interbay office that much quicker.

President Bush is insisting on more tax cuts in a time of war (and as we’re months away from hitting the debt limit). So expect to hear another round about how taxes are bad for the economy. And all things equal, I guess higher taxes are worse for the economy. But there are some things that are even worse for the economy than corporate taxes:

* Having a bridge fall into the Mississippi river, crippling traffic, and oh yeah, killing a dozen or so people.

* A massive structural debt owed in large part to foreign governments who are threatening to shut off the pipes.

* That power outage that hit the Eastern seaboard a few years ago.

* Sick employees.

* Their sick children.

* New Orleans drowning.

And this idea that tax cuts are the only good things for business is so silly. As if the best thing business could possibly hope for is a crumbling infrastructure, massive government debt, and exorbitant healthcare costs.

Now we can certainly talk about the bad, wasteful spending that goes on: The Iraq war, and our militarism in general. Sending non-violent criminals to prison for too long, and drug offenders there at all. The bridge to nowhere, and other pork.

But at the end of the day, our taxes are so low that bridges are collapsing. Our taxes are so low, that we refuse to help the sick unless they are elderly, very very poor, or children of the poor and working class (or in Washington State thanks to the Democratic legislature last session, children). Our taxes are so low, that an American city drown a few years ago, and we’ll only build the levies back to where they were before. Our taxes are so low that soldiers — American Soldiers, for God’s sake — are scavenging garbage dumps for armor for their vehicles. Our taxes are so low that public transit is pathetic in the Puget Sound region, and worse in the rest of the state.

Now, I don’t particularly like paying taxes, nobody does. But I also don’t like hitting potholes. I don’t like knowing that if the big one hits when I’m on the viaduct that I’ll probably die. I don’t like it when my sick friends and relatives without healthcare don’t see a doctor. I don’t like being in debt to China. I don’t like the fact that the bus system is a joke, especially outside of the city.

For Chapter One, click here.

Josh Feit, 8/15/07:

I’m not sure King County progressives owe that much to Gregoire (hello, elevated viaduct), but it’d sure be a fitting metaphor if Seattle sold out, compromised, and approved a package that includes $1.1 billion on I-405 expansion as a way to support her.

Josh Feit, 12/19/06

The surface/transit option involves investing in local transit, upgrading downtown arterials, investing in bike and pedestrian upgrades, and building a four-lane surface road to replace the viaduct and spark neighborhood and commercial development along the waterfront. (Total bill hovers around $2 billion.)

The Stranger’s News Editor, Josh Feit, is totally opposed to replacing the Alaskan Way Viaduct with another viaduct. Josh is almost entirely opposed to investing money in roads, in the Seattle area or elsewhere.

He’s in a pickle.

The Roads and Transit package headed to voters this fall funds the investments in Seattle-area arterials. These are the investments that make the Surface + Transit option possible.

From the Roads and Transit website:

Lander Street Improvements: Builds overpass above BNSF train tracks between 1st Avenue South and 4th Avenue South to increase traffic flow for trains, cars, trucks, bicycles and pedestrians; I-5/Spokane Street Viaduct: Increases capacity by widening viaduct structure, adding one lane between I-5 and 1st Avenue South, building transit-only lanes and an off-ramp at 4th Avenue South. Adds shoulders and installs a permanent median barrier. Improves safety, freight mobility and traffic flow on the major east/west connection between I-5 and SR 99, Port of Seattle and West Seattle

To make Surface + Transit happen, we have to invest in the arterials south of downtown Seattle. If we don’t invest in these roads, it’ll be pretty difficult to keep the folks in Olympia from shoving another viaduct down our throats.

Local politics don’t inspire me much these days.

My favorite city councilman, Peter Steinbrueck, is quitting. The monorail is dead. The Alaskan Way Viaduct is being retrofitted. Mayor Nickels is doing a lot of the hard work put off by previous mayors. Everything is in its place. Sure, there’s some police department stuff, but when isn’t there some of that?

The two major candidates runnig to replace Steinbrueck are Venus Velazquez and Bruce Harrell. Harrell is the business-backed candidate, while Velazquez wants to be. Both want to fix the Seattle Schools even though it isn’t in their job description.

Council candidates talk small ball, but I want to know: what do you want the city to look like in 25 years?

Meanwhile, the guy I do want on the council is quitting. So if you want a “Steinbrueck for Council” t-shirt or some stickers, let me know.

Erica C. Barnett, from an article attacking Mayor Nickels for not going far enough in reducing Seattle’s carbon footprint:

If Seattle is serious about reducing emissions, Baker continued, it needs to reassess its plans for major road projects, including SR-520 (which the mayor and council want to expand to six lanes) and the Alaskan Way Viaduct (which Nickels wanted to expand into a wider underground freeway).

What Erica fails to mention is that, while SR-520 would go from four to six lanes, the added lanes would be for High Occupancy Vehicles (or HOV). You know, for people who carpool or ride the bus. People who, according to every environmental group I’ve ever heard of, are doing the right thing by the environment.

These same environmental groups used their political moxie to prevent Eastside developers, Republicans, and the Seattle Times from getting an eight lane, or even ten lane, SR-520 bridge. Instead, we’re getting HOV lanes, bike lanes, and big fat pontoons for future light rail expansion. Pretty good for a bunch of gutless, caving sellouts.