Seattle Voters Say No To Two Viaduct Plans
Seattle residents roundly rejected two options to replace the city's crumbling double-decker Alaskan Way Viaduct highway. Though the vote is not binding, the politicians were listening closely to what the voters had to say.
"Seattleites cast a ballot for further political uncertainty Tuesday, as voters overwhelmingly rejected both proposals for replacing the Alaskan Way Viaduct -- trouncing the tunnel idea by a ratio of more than 2-to-1."
"The all-mail election, which was not binding, hands back to politicians the thorny debate over how to replace the earthquake-damaged, 54-year-old double-decker highway."
"The ballot asked voters separately what they thought of the state's proposal to build a $2.8 billion elevated highway, which Gov. Chris Gregoire supports, and a $3.4 billion four-lane tunnel that was being pushed by Mayor Greg Nickels."
"About 70 percent of voters rejected the tunnel proposal and about 55 percent shot down the elevated alternative among the nearly 99,000 ballots counted Tuesday night. It's unlikely that either measure can recover if officials' turnout projections are accurate."
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Why not boulevard?
Has the possibility of merging the surface part of the Alaskan Way and the Viaduct part into a - say - 4x4 or maybe a 5x5 lane surface boulevard between Edgar Martinez Drive and Union Street been studied in any detail? A European-style surface boulevard - Champs Elysée style - with a green wave of traffic lights, could probably handle the traffic quite well (at least to a certain degree), but yet provided the aesthetics of an urban waterfront.
Seattle Freeway Controversy
There has been public support for a surface-streets-and-transit alternative. Until now, the politicians have ignored this alternative, but I don't think they can continue to ignore it now.
The group working on this issue is at
http://www.peopleswaterfront.org/index.html.
I am on their email mailing list, but I don't see anything on their web site about how to get on this mailing list. You might just go to Contact Us on the website and email them to ask to be put on their list to get email alerts.
Then I expect you will get email calls to action that will tell you when support is needed for the surface-streets-and-transit alternative.
Charles Siegel
Unfocused message
The coalition's message is to unclear and unfocused in my opinion. Their website starts - for example - by stating the flaws of the other solutions instead of starting with the vision statement. And to gain attention and public support, they should make it simpler: A surface boulevard can handle high traffic volumes at urban-friendly speeds, for a fraction of the cost of a new viaduct or a tunnel and with much of the urban-vitality gains of submerging the traffic underground. Support strategies include more funding for PT and curbing free parking downtown. Case closed. ;-) ... right?
Samuel T. Petursson
Engineer, Reykjavik Iceland