News

In the Hall

by Erica C. Barnett

The People's Waterfront Coalition (PWC), a ragtag band of mass-transit activists and urban-planning warriors who are pushing a radical plan to tear down the crumbling viaduct, has gained new momentum from an unlikely (and unintentional) benefactor: anti-tax crusader Tim Eyman, whose gas-tax-killing Initiative 912 would decimate funding for a $4 billion Alaskan Way tunnel, the city's preferred option to replace the endangered elevated structure.

PWC cofounder Cary Moon, who a few short months ago could scarcely get the city's transportation department to respond to her public-records requests, says the PWC's solution (based on a plan devised by the city for calming traffic during viaduct construction) would cost less than half a billion dollars—one-eighth the price tag of the extravagant (and, if 912 passes, utterly unaffordable) tunnel. And, she says, the city may finally be catching on. Earlier this month, City Council Member Richard McIver expressed his preference for a "limited-access surface street" (like the one in the PWC's plan) if the tunnel becomes unrealistic. On Monday, City Council Member Peter Steinbrueck said the PWC's plan "may become a fait accompli" if voters go through with Eyman's initiative. And even Deputy Mayor Tim Ceis—like his boss a staunch supporter of the tunnel option—says he's willing to consider the PWC's proposal if the revenue-killing measure passes. "Absent coming up with a different funding source, I don't think there's anything we can do other than take it down," Ceis says. And Ceis notes that while computer models have predicted a gridlocked "doomsday" for the city, "congestion forces people to make different transportation choices."

Steinbrueck seems poised to pick a fight with Mayor Greg Nickels that could have far-reaching implications for the future of downtown Seattle. Last month, Steinbrueck hired two consultants from Vancouver, BC to examine how that city, which is far denser than Seattle, manages to be both tall and livable. On August 8, the consultants will come back to the council with a study that could lead to changes to the mayor's sweeping downtown height and density increases. Those changes could include requiring more historic preservation, placing conditions on downtown density, and mandating public amenities to support new housing. "Land use [changes] alone [do] not lead to livability," Steinbrueck argues. "There have got to be incentives to get people to move downtown."

Earlier this month, representatives of the Seattle Monorail Project did what was once unthinkable: They called a meeting with Team Monorail (TM), the Bombardier-led consortium that dropped out of the bidding to build the monorail last August. For two hours, TM representatives lobbied the agency to allow them to resubmit a bid to build the project—something former agency director Joel Horn insisted was illegal shortly before the monorail imploded.

Besides the spectacular collapse of the agency, what changed? For starters, as TM flack Blair Butterworth points out, Seattle entered an election season. If the monorail debacle isn't resolved quickly, "There's a real possibility that the monorail could become this year's Strippergate," Butterworth says. "Campaigns don't make issues easier to solve. Usually, they tend to polarize things." Give Team Monorail another chance to bid, he argues, and they'll come through with a plan that's affordable and aesthetically pleasing: two qualities critics say the competing Cascadia Monorail Company's proposal lacks. Last week, Butterworth said the agency heads were "receptive" to his pitch. And that's a claim Team Monorail hasn't been able to make for nearly a year. n

barnett@thestranger.com