“… a little money…”

It’s not a little money, it’s $4.2 Billion. A quick check of census.gov tells me that it works out to about $2500 per adult in Seattle, and $500 per adult in the rest of the State. That’s a fair chunk of money to be spending on something that won’t accomplish it’s stated intent and will likely be obsolete by the time it is finished (if it isn’t already).

It’s so much money, in fact, that Seattle’s share of $930 Million (plus all cost overruns, apparently) will basically eat up our taxing authority for the next ten years, meaning that all those other neat things like the Bike Master Plan, additional police, support for food banks and community centers, all of that is made impossible by the tunnel. We need to say no to the tunnel so that we can say yes to everything else.

If the only objection that is left to surface + transit is freight, we can give a dedicated freight-only lane on the Alaskan Way ROW for a hell of a lot less than billions of dollars to build a tunnel.

Chrispy, those of us who lived through the tunnel construction under 3rd Avenue would say that any major change like this is going to have impacts, and that the end result will be worth the effort. I’ll add that the “less disruption” argument appeals primarily to people who drive themselves downtown every day, and it seems crazy, for the very reasons Dan outlined so eloquently in his post, to spend scarce resources to take care of them.

A tunnel, with extensive surface street realignments through downtown for local traffic, is the best option for allowing through traffic to bypass downtown. This is especially important for trucks moving goods from the Port. Everyone seems to forget that this is what roads are used for and what keeps our economy humming and creates jobs. Sorry, but we can’t pull containers from China with our bikes or Prii.

Finally, the tunnel option is most ideal because the Viaduct stays open during its construction. This means little to no disruption to traffic patterns and flow for the years it will take to complete. I’m not sure what you all think will happen when the Viaduct is removed and there is no other traffic option. Again, not everyone is going to jump on a bike or the street car – that only makes sense for commuters. What about delivery trucks? Semis? All the vehicles that supply your precious coffee shops and independent book stores?

How much will it cost businesses when disruptions from viaduct dismantling and surface street realignment create havoc downtown? How long will that last? Time is money people. Either “we” pay for a tunnel with a staggering price tag (what infrastructure project nowadays *doesn’t* have that?), or pay more over time with lost tax revenue from business disruptions and wasted time spent sitting in nightmarish construction traffic along our ENTIRE downtown core. Again, commuters will be fine, but re-read the above paragraph for why this is frightening.

Seriously, this site used to fascinate me but now it’s just insanity. The lack of empathy is staggering.

I find it telling that the People’s Waterfront Coalition, the group synonymous with the surface+transit option, hasn’t been exactly up in arms over the city/county/state agreement to build the tunnel.

But this may just be getting back to Dan’s point. Fiscal reality is what it is, and pro-tunnel rhetoric isn’t going to pay for a tunnel.

That’s not exactly fair reporting, seeing as that was an entirely different tunnel alignment and methodology than the one proposed now. This new plan would eliminate the 7 year construction project on the waterfront and up to 3 year complete closure of 99 that was planned for the cut-and-cover version. That said, I hope the technology is to be trusted for such a large diameter tunnel.

Well, I suppose it might be ironic if it wasn’t an urban legend. I’ll let Clark at Sightline take this one:

http://daily.sightline.org/daily_score/archive/2008/01/31/wider-roads-don-t-protect-the-climate-duh

“I think it’s a form of selective reasoning: people hate traffic congestion so much that they’re willing to believe anything good about congestion relief. But, unfortunately, it’s the rare instance that widening a road brings both congestion relief AND climate relief. More typically, wider, faster roads leads to extra driving. And the climate impacts of extra driving, combined with the impacts of construction itself, absolutely dwarf the modest fuel savings from congestion relief.”

Micheal, if you have some evidence that the tunnel will reduce GHG emissions, let’s have it. Otherwise, we’ll have to assume you’re just making stuff up.