New Highways A Rotten Investment?

Seattle Sierra Club member Kevin Fullerton argues against proposals to construct a new highway along the city's waterfront. The existing proposals cost too much, and are at odds with conventional wisdom about the problems of highways, according to Fullerton, who lists several successful highway reclamation projects and offers alternatives to the proposed plans.

"At this moment, Seattle's provincial, eccentric reasoning is preventing it from thinking like a great city. In pushing for one of two options to replace the failing Alaskan Way Viaduct -- with either a six-lane tunnel or rebuilt elevated structure along the shore of Elliott Bay -- Seattle's leaders are banging their foreheads not only against financial realities, but also against urban development trends…Roads are in fact a rotten investment for local government. Freeways that aren't tolled generate no local tax revenues even as they occupy prime developable land that could be contributing to the tax base."