"the money will go away"?

Really?

Like the city-paid-for Sea Wall?

I think you mean the INCREASED PROPERTY TAXES for all Citizens of Seattle will go away if we kill the Deeply Borrowed Tunnel. That and the $8 to $10 roundtrip tolls that put it out of the price range of all but the limo-riding Millionaires and Billionaires who ignored the vote by the Citizens not to build a Tunnel.

Wait a second... the anti-tunnelers use WINE GLASSES? And they write CHECKS? This changes everything I've ever thought about the tunnel. Excuse me, I'm off to get my money back.

@2 well, at the party hosted by the two Mikes, I think they had brats and were using any glass they could get their hands on, including glass jars. Including some wine glasses - but probably cause there were too many people last Friday, many of them young Seattle parents with babes in arms.

Fine. Strike the provision putting Seattle on the hook for cost overruns and you'll get no argument from me. Well, maybe less of an argument.

Wider I5?

I didn't know we could get that instead of a stupid old tunnel.

Now I'm really anti.

More lanes on I5 would finally pull the butt plug of downtown out of the colon of Puget Sound highways.

Hey, nice! And remember taking the viaduct down before the tunnel's in place is the opposite of what the legislature voted to do. Anyone who wants the viaduct taken down sooner should ask the mayor to go use some of those great working relationships in Olympia he's cultivated on your behalf.

Will Kelley-Kamp: Or, just to spite us, they could give us a brand new viaduct, a wider, bigger, quieter replacement of the current structure complete with downtown exits and grand views of the harbor.

I wouldn't take this threat too seriously. If the mayor, a single councilmember, and a referendum can stop the state from building the tunnel, then certainly the mayor and all nine councilmembers can stop the state from building a new viaduct.

Questions for Will in response to your own question, "Why not tear it down sooner?" You seem to be deploying one of the tunnel foes' chief gambits.

Are you saying the state should start planning to tear down the viaduct sooner in the context of still going ahead with the tunnel project? Or are you saying the state should delay the tunnel project until after the managed teardown? You appear to be implying the latter. If so, how do you expect to compel the state to do that other than by blocking the tunnel project through referendum? And how much delay are you willing to tolerate while you get your political ducks in a row for a teardown? How soon could a teardown reasonably take place if we're back to Square One politically?

Which returns us to the Take Home Message from yesterday's SLOG thread:

Why NOT tear down the Viaduct sooner (e.g. before 2012) than later (e.g. 2016 as the pro-tunnel risk-taking debt-sodden tunnelers want)?

Well? If it's dangerous, do it now.

#8

A question which even as high an official as Mike McGinn has asked...yet, the answer is...silence.

@9 no, I think he answered that.

it's very annoying that we constantly seem to be building new roads instead of improving our existing ones for bigger and smoother numbers.

The tunnel and viaduct are bad ideas.

@11, the viaduct replacement isn't a new road - it's a capacity reduction replacement for a crumbling state highway.

I don't buy this logic. The viaduct is part of the state highway system. One way or the other, it has to be decommissioned - and soon - and the state will have to pay for that since it's their highway. The money doesn't go away; it's just kicked a little further down the road.

I love the argument, though. It exemplifies civil-service thinking. ("I know we don't NEED a new printer, but if we don't spend the money, we LOSE it!")

Really, though - that's the best op-ed that's been submitted thus far? Come on - someone must have a compelling case to make.

Wow #13. Did you ever take Introduction to Logic?

Your argument is totally absurd.