Washblog

1. yes, no
   
2. no, yes
   
3. no, no
   
4. yes, yes
   
5. No Vote, no
   
6. No Vote, yes
   
7. no, No Vote
   
8. yes, No Vote
   
9. No Vote, No Vote

oh vey.

this vote is gonna be a freaking mess.

what is the probability that any of these options gets a majority?

ha ha ha.

I read in the P.I. that Option #1, the tunnel, is getting money from the criminal f$$$s who did the big dig ... hello P.I.

ALL senior management from the Big Dig, public and private, belong in jail.

Of course, as an internet malcontent who doesn't belong to the right clubs, who doesn't hang at the right owners suites, who doesn't live in the right neighborhoods ... who gives a shit what I think about senior level thieves?

The viaduct should be blown up tomorrow, the tunnel will end up rivaling the Big Dig in eroding and corroding and ruining public confidence in public investment,

and Ivan's observations in Particle Man's diary are pretty good.

I've been for biodegradeable organic tofu mopeds since I was 7 in 1967 ... and that, and a 1/2 a buck, will get you the newspaper.

We can't dump 150,000 cars into the streets and I-5 tomorrow.

ugh.

I'll definitely vote NO on #1. ugh.
rmm.

http://www.liemail.com/BambooGrassroots.html

The pro-tunnel arguments include "look at the money on the table; no project of this magnitude is fully funded when it starts". Counterargument to that is that in fact debate, proposals and controversy surrounding the viaduct and what to do about it was well underway well before the Nisqually quake. The fact that money is available is an artifact of the fact that saner and more disinterested minds have studied this to death and put the money on the table to proceed with what I will defer to as their best judgement of the best option.

Since regardless of the chosen option, condos are presumably going to go up on both sides, competing like weeds for the view, the best option is a viaduct with a third level on top, planted as a park and public space as was done over the freeway by the convention center: the people of Seattle own the right of way, and we have every right to compete for the view with commercial interests.

Dave Gibney Pullman

I agree with your analysis: the "choices" presented in this poll do not match the real choices we need to make here.  We are now in a situation where, in order to be able to move people and goods, we're going to have to ignore the fact that we have a critical need to rethink our transportation here -- we can't afford to just build the same old monstrosity.

But we're being rushed.  There's no time to think it through.  We're told that in order to not risk causing great pain to people who really do need to get from point A to point B -- we're going to have to move into the future with a monstrosity from the past -- a gargantuan concrete structure that will kill the city livability and enable more gas guzzling and unthinking use of roadways just when we need to innovate.

There's no time to innovate?  We can't be smart about this?  This is hard to believe.

But the twin crises of global warming & peak oil are not some speculative fantasy of the hippy-dippy, eco-freak, lunatic fringe. These are operative realities that lie immediately ahead of us. Planning in accordance with these realities seems the most "realistic" course of action to me.

It continues to surprise me how little these pragmatic considerations factor into the debate about a decision that we & our children will have to live with for most of the next century. Even among "progressives."

In the 21st century...
... gas will cost drivers a lot more, which will change people's driving habits in terms of purely self-interest;
... burning petroleum will "cost" the planet a lot more, in terms climate stress, which will change public policies & personal choices;
... cybernetic advancements will continue to change the nature of travel -- from telecommuting to online shopping to better synchronized traffic flow to smart cars that provide real-time information about least-congested routes to ...?

Any position on viaduct replacement that doesn't take into account these considerations cannot claim the mantle of "pragmatism," IMO.

The New York-based Project for Public Spaces has ranked Seattle's waterfront among the seven worst waterfronts in the world,, thanks to the elevated highway that divides the city from its waterfront. "Seattle could ... make huge gains by taking down the Viaduct along the waterfront, and investing in transit service instead," the PPS "Hall of Shame" report concludes. "The waterfront now feels disconnected from downtown, but the removal of the viaduct would open up new links between people and Puget Sound. Public destinations that are floundering today would flourish."

Also this interesting little nugget...

WASHDOT's own Expert Review Panel (ERP) said in a letter last Friday that the state should regard the viaduct corridor as "an urban arterial," and consider the possibility of reducing car capacity in the corridor. "We do not agree that a freeway and expressway standard is the only design choice available," the ERP wrote, citing "many examples nationwide" where design standards were changed to acknowledge "constrained" conditions.