[...]The Tunnel: 8 track technology for an I-Pod world | hugeasscity[...]…

You should get away from the computer one day and watch traffic on I-5 or I-90 or the AWV. This delusional trip that somehow we are going to fix Seattle, let alone the planet, by not addressing the SR99 corridor is crazy talk.

The 8-track to i-pod analogy is lame if not cute – at least when used as a replacement roadway analogy. What would be more applicable for this carbon-crime remediation would be for us to be replacing our internal combustion engines with clean energy based power sources. If the intent is to get out of SOVs, then your analogy should be, for example, promoting live music in all venues as opposed to everyone having their own portable listening device. I’d rather not even suggest that the carbon footprint of an i-pod is far greater than an 8-track.

But all analogies fail and so let’s get back to dissecting your complaint.

You say “There are better ways to get around [than in cars]. And our policies should reinforce that.” What is that better way to get around? If you are talking about buses and local transit services, then they need to be made available, universally and ubiquitously. If you are talking about light rail and a future city built around that network, then that isn’t solving today’s smoking tape deck (as it were).

You say cars “are alienating, separating us from one another and preventing us from experiencing community”. But you fail to look at the more local issues that we need to muster political will to solve that would more effectively address this complaint. We have in this city an extant population that would most likely say the alienation and separation issues are related to proximity of quality schools and entertainment, availability of the local shopping and services needed on a daily basis, and quality open and meeting/communal spaces in our neighborhoods. These are local zoning and neighborhood planning issues – ones, I will add, that can’t be dictated from Olympia. Nor is getting rid of cars or letting our roadway network fall into disrepair going to fix that.

The myth of a regional transit system such as Light Rail as a solution to our transportation needs is also false. No one is going to ride light rail from Everett to Seattle. If we had high speed rail, that would be more likely. I hear no one advocating for that.

There are so many progressive solutions to various facets of our sustainability problems, but all we hear is this one issue of the tunnel. This only reaffirms my belief that you are not really interested in affecting broader change towards sustainability here in Seattle. Instead we hear constant salvos from the light rail and development industries that stand to profit from a TOD growth strategy. It is sold under the sustainability label. And I heard it being sold as social justice just this weekend.

And towards achieving that, you are on the way to your new party – call it the Huge Ass City Party for a start.

Know that I love cars. Especially old ones. I once was on a Comet jag. Thank God I didn’t buy one. Cars are a wonderful invention and they will likely be around for awhile. Another great way to get around is the horse and carriage: http://www.tweedyhillcarriages.com/images/coach.jpg

I am not trying to be an ass here. But the same reasons that a horse and carriage don’t work are the same reason cars will and ought to be obsolete. We don’t subsidize them (a horse and carriage are quite expensive), there is no place to park them that is convenient and we’ve moved on technologically. There are better ways to get around. And our policies should reinforce that.

Now with cars, the issue is a bit more drastic. Cars create pollution and carbon emissions that are making our planet less livable. And they are alienating, separating us from one another and preventing us from experiencing community. Other options exist. So when elected officials lash us to an expensive,outmoded technology that is no longer viable and degrades our environment and economy, it isn’t just a stupid decision it is immoral. And these analogies are intended to make us think. Why in the world would we be spending so much money for so little highway when science, economics and logic tell us we shouldn’t?

The answer is not blowing in the wind. It sits in Olympia and at City Hall in the form of elected officials. Lewis Namier, one of greatest historians of politics in the English speaking world wrote of office seekers (in this case Parliament):

“Men went there ‘to make a figure’, and no more dreamt of a seat in the House in order to benefit humanity than a child dreams of a birthday cake that others may eat it.”

We have a problem, and it is us. As long as we keep electing benign individuals because they are Democrats, or liberal on the issues, or because they are our friends, we will continue to have a political failure. I picked the 8-track because it represents something we would never consider viable and we would never go back to.

We need our own party.

A party for those of us who see more people in Seattle as a benefit, as a boon; for those of us who believe in the future of transit and land use policies to support it; for those of us that agree that schools and public safety will make our city more appealing, and draw more families here rather than Federal Way. Alex Steffen quoted Emerson when he introduced Michael McGinn at a recent fundraiser. He spoke of the party of the past and the party of the future.

Let’s see what happens on November 3. If we win (electing McGinn and O’Brien for example), then we need to win some more. We need to do what parties do which is to consolidate the resources (especially money) of like minded individuals and put them to work to win majorities in legislative bodies to consistently carry the day in policy battles. We need to win and win consistently.

If we lose, the call for a Party of the Future is even more urgent. Time is running out. It is up to us. We either go forward with a purpose, or we stand around and talk about what happened.

I am against this tunnel mostly because of the environmental implications of continuing our addiction to vehicles (because not only due they produce GHGs but they also take up a shit load of room in the environment, from highways to parking lots to everything else that is dedicated to the car) but also because I DO NOT want my tax dollars going towards such infrastructure when obviously we were not taking care of the infrastructure that we already had. The tolls on this thing should be raised as such that they will pay for at least a quarter of the cost of the project and will certainly pay for all upkeep of the tunnel. It really kills me that we continue to build all sorts of different new and interesting infrastructure when we really can’t take care of the things that we already have. That really doesn’t make any sense and would certainly be a GAME OVER in sim city.