A group calling itself the the Tunnel + Transit Coalition (TTC), an association of pro-tunnel downtown business and labor unions, blasted a proposed initiative on the deep-bore tunnel today, issuing a statement saying the ballot measure would be a legally meaningless waste of money because taxpayers would pay to process the ballots. (I wrote about the initiative that will be filed tomorrow and its weak language here.)
“We don’t need symbolic gestures, we need to replace the capacity of an aging and dangerous structure, we need congestion relief, and we need to take advantage of the favorable bidding climate right now,” Ivar’s president and coalition spokesman Bob Donegan said in a statement release a few minutes ago. “More delay is irresponsible.”
But in its criticism, the group stumbles into a conflicting argument. They claim that the initiative is wasteful because it would do nothing (even proponents concede they can’t compel the state to do anything) and it would delay the tunnel (presumably because it grips the state’s process in some way). Obviously, it can’t be meaningless and alter the state’s plans simultaneously.
“I take them at their word that if the initiative builds political will and that political will is to delay the project, then that would be irresponsible,” says TTC member Don Stark when reached by phone. “Frankly, putting something on the ballot is also irresponsible if you care about the city budget.”
Stark calls it “a waste of taxpayers’ money and trees—for the paper, you know the joke.”
TTC chides the anti-tunnel advocates for wanting a surface/transit replacement of the Alaskan Way Viaduct that would transfer 110,000 vehicles daily to I-5 and city streets. But TCT doesn’t mention that the tunnel would put over 65,000 vehicles on those streets without any money left over from the tunnel—such as the transit they purportedly advocate—to mitigate those additional trips. As examples of the transit it supports, TTC’s website ballyhoos $190 million in Metro funding and the First Ave. streetcar. The governor vetoed that bus funding in 2009 and the First Ave. streetcar is dead in the water. Stark says the group is in discussions about transit funding in next year’s legislative session.
Got Funding?
Didn’t think so.
It’s still a budget cap buster tunnel that we can’t afford and don’t have the bonding authority to do.
Meanwhile, in the real world, iPS cells are being used to regrow nerves for paralyzed people in Japan, where they actually invest in stuff that’s useful.
speaking of capacity – the Deeply Boring Tunnel still has at best two-thirds the capacity of the other two options, and at twice the price.
And that’s BEFORE fare avoidance.
I would like to know what “transit” the “tunnel and transit” group is referring to. Even if the Governor hadn’t immediately jettisoned her promise to secure more funding authority for Metro, the transit component of the DBT is the smallest of all the alternatives.
Who are the transit advocates in this group?
http://tunnelplustransit.com/who-we-are/…
Ye Olde Curiousity Shop doesn’t count.
I wonder if this project ever would have gone through if Seattle had district (vs. at-large) elections? That’s not a statement, I actually wonder that.
The only transit in the Billionaires Tunnel will be the limos from the Gates Foundation and SLU to Boeing Airfield.
@6, plus my 25 year old ultra reliable Japanese built pickup truck.
Oof. This group will be just as helpful to the tunnel-yes crowd as SCAT is to the tunnel-no crowd.
@7 day workers don’t count.
Seattle is always wanting to be a “Real City”.
Yet almost all “real” cities like New York City and San Francisco, when faced with a delapidated downtown elevated highway, chose to simply remove it and go with a surface street.
The Embarcadaro and Westside Highway are both the very successful, traffic, pedestrian, bicycle, and transit friendly results.
Some people want transit, and some people want transit PLANS, because they know perfectly well that transit plans can be used to forestall actual transit forever, if you dick around with them enough.
Pretty sure the First Hill Streetcar is alive and well… scheduled for 2013 I believe. Although it has nothing to do with the tunnel.
@12 also it’s funded by Sound Transit, a multi-county agency, so it REALLY has nothing to do with the Tunnel ripoff.
Dominic,
2 minor corrections. You mean “First AVENUE streetcar”. It’s also not funded in the DBT plan. The $190m is for bus stuff only.
@9, I’m a night worker.
@ 14) Thanks, I’ve changed “Hill” to “Ave.” Was writing too fast, I guess. But I never said the $190 mill was for the streetcar, so I left that part as is.