Comments

1
Yeah who needs a tunnel, when you can go with a surface street option and push 100,000+ cars onto downtown / I-5.
2
Ummm yeah. So in summary, you have nothing. zip, zilch, notta. Nothing.

No legal teeth. No authority for the campaign or referendum. No bearing on any outcome.

Got it.

Moving on.....
3
Fucking waste of time.
4
@1: You say that like the tunnel's going to absorb all the traffic from the viaduct. ;)

Please, tell the audience how many tens of thousands of cars will pour into Downtown Seattle with the tunnel itself and the economic and physical damage that looks set to be inflicted upon Pioneer Square. :)
5
I need a lot of popcorn because the entertainment value of watching these people pound sand is really dull. Can we just get on with building the thing now?
6
About time. Only developers and their paid-for politicians want this asinine tunnel.
7
I like it! This will give handsome Paxton the opportunity to continue sharpening his "hear me, Cassandra" speech, perhaps by adding dramatic music.
8
@4

A surface option, just like the tunnel option, does not help offload cars. Just adds to the misery. The only benefit to the surface option, is cost. There is no real solution that resolves all the viaduct problem and any alternative to the deep bore tunnel carries similar safety and cost overun risks.

Oh and now isnt the time to complain about the tunnel, almost a decade in the planning. Its 4th quarter, 2 minutes left to go, game is basically over.
9
Seriously--the entire point of a vote now is to end the careers (justifiably) of council members who supported the tunnel. If even an advisory vote shows 90% against the tunnel, that very vote will be an indictment for election opponents to have a field day with. That's why the current Council will fight like hell to keep any vote off the ballot. Cowardice and self-preservation.
10
@8, Baconcat thinks if you tear the viaduct down and do nothing that the result will be so miserable that all those trips in cars will just disappear. Peek-a-boo is a fun game to play with babies, not urban transportation.
11
I'd LOVE to see the results of a referendum, where I fully expect a majority of Seattle voters would say NO to the tunnel.

That said, the issue here should not be a case of my school science project is better/prettier/cheaper than your school science project.

If the tunnel is the alternative the state has chosen, and now is the time for the City to "get on board," than let's build it right.

The simple facts are that we are currently nearly $1 billion short in funding commitments, and the Departments of Transportation have all stated for the record that the tolling and transit components are necessary for this project alternative to be successful.

Let me state that more clearly: If a set number of current Viaduct users do not decide to pay the toll to use the tunnel and/or switch to buses in the corridor, we will have spent billions of dollars to increase traffic in Downtown Seattle.

Until that happens, it is disappointing that 8 City Council members would make excuses for why they "have to" sign off on these agreements. If they won't question our partners in this process, who will do it for us?
12
@11 None of the alternatives would get a majority vote if proposed on a referendum. None of them. Simply saying "no" is no longer an option.
13
The truth is, the bored tunnel actually makes traffic downtown worse than the surface/transit option. Although both the bored tunnel and the surface/transit options respectively triple and quadruple existing traffic on Alaskan Way, the bored tunnel (unlike the surface/transit option) redirects 35,000 Interbay-bound vehicles from Lower Belltown via its north portal onto Mercer, thus making already terrible traffic on Mercer through Lake Union and through "residential" Lower Queen Anne worse. And, because the Battery Street Tunnel is closed down, the 5,000 vehicles that use it between Lake Union and Lower Belltown are displaced onto Denny Way which is likewise already miserable enough to deserve its own moniker like the Mercer Mess. The Denny Way Duh-zaster?

The truth is, Wsdot and Sdot handling of this mega-project is so incompetent, corruption cannot be ruled out. There's enough damning evidence to indict these DOT agency directors and department heads with criminal charges for intentionally rigged studies and dereliction of duty. The truth is, the bored tunnel is the worst AWV replacement option, but its supporters are either clueless sychophants, money-grubbing fools or crooks who profit from Seattle's traffic nightmare.

Please wait...

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