- Seattle Municipal Archives
- An R.H. Thomson Expressway planning document
Want a model for successful opposition to a mammoth Seattle highway-building project? Here’s one:
Decades before transportation planners even dreamed of boring the widest tunnel in the world under downtown and running cars through it, people were dreaming of encircling the city in surface highways—because, great idea! It was the 1960s. They called it the R.H. Thomson Expressway.
As Knute Berger recounts this morning in a long look at the fight over the R.H. Thomson, Seattle activists were ultimately able to derail a “concrete dragon” that would have torn up neighborhoods, messed with the Arboretum, and made Seattle, as many warned, a lot more like L.A.
How did they do it? “It happened,” Berger recounts, “only because opponents bought time to change minds, and to reshape the political landscape.”
Which reminds that Seattle has an opportunity to reshape the political landscape coming right up: An election this fall in which five of the City Council’s pro-tunnel members will be on the ballot.
Right, because a tunnel under downtown that would enable the dismantling of the elevated freeway on the waterfront is so very much like a “concrete dragon” encircling the city, knocking down neighborhoods, destroying the arboretum, and turning Seattle into LA.
What is it with The Stranger’s fetish for lost causes?
And Knute Berger? Really? First you guys all hop into an alliance with SCAT nutjob Elizabeth Campbell, and apparently now you’re all about anti-urban anti-density asshole Knute Berger….what next?
I love it! I’d seen Baconcat keep posting about the Thomson and Bay as if they were examples of City voters shutting down State-led projects too, and I hazily remembered reading they weren’t that at all. Then Google unearthed this frankly wonderful PDF of a 1979 case study by one Margaret (Peggy) Connon Johnson of Seattle U. Not dry at all, promise. http://www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/ED205438.pdf
Yes, the City of Seattle planned the Thomson as a new highway plowed through residential neighborhoods. The whole deal was a city project through and through, from council to mayor to engineering department. And city taxpayers were to fund it themselves through a bond issue, with federal and state chipping in with money and planning as needed. It was part of the city’s comprehensive plan at the time.
When you read the 1979 paper, look for familiar names and how the fight brought new faces to Council and new names to neighborhood activism, including the young League of Women Voters activist Jean Godden, who helped fight another new freeway further north in Seattle, too. (And look for excerpts from the newspaper reporting of one–eeek!–Susan Hutchison.
This is a great, stirring story, told by Peggy without cant or hyperbole. I think there’s a lot that will inspire anyone, and spur some thought about what is and isn’t similar.
The author at the time noted that her account was incomplete, and that wild differences of opinion about how exactly the victory was won were completely understandable given the complexity. Still, she gives Al Schweppe’s homeowner lawsuits credit for stalling the city’s project at several key junctures (funnily, you’ll read that Schweppe himself thought the Thomson was an abomination of an above-ground highway that had to be stopped by any means, but he suggested it would have worked….as a tunnel!):
And the Bay Freeway? Though that shootdown didn’t take very long, like the Thompson it also was a City-led effort to shove a non-replacement highway through existing residential-zoned neighborhoods. It was to have been financed by City taxpayers through the same bond issue. Here’s the juiciest HistoryLink article on it:http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&file_id=3156. It notes that one driver of resistance to the Bay was the horrifying prospect that a portion in South Lake Union was to be… a massive viaduct.
Happy reading, whenever people may get to it. (Don’t miss the historical clippings at the end.)
Dang, sorry about the bad HistoryLink, er, link being nonclickable the way i inserted it. Here it is all clickable (plus a choice excerpt, since I’ve had too much coffee already):
http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?Dis…
Thanks for the recap, #4. It’s very interesting — and more than a little ironic, that part about the tunnel, or the fact that Jean Godden was one of the heroes of this effort 🙂
Which five city council members are up for re-election this fall?
Opposition to a freeway that would have destroyed neighborhoods isn’t the same as opposition to a tunnel because you have an anti-automobile ideology. I’m sure it’s got the base energized to think “they did it too!” but “they” are not and were not you.
Oh and I suggest you guys wait until a month before the city council election then start screaming at the tops of your lungs flailing around the FACTS to keep those evil auto-centric assholes off the practically tea party based right wing city council.
The reason why surface/transit isn’t going to happen is because of guys like you unfortunately. You all waited until the last second to get your shit together (I use that term generously) and now instead of presenting anything reasonable to the city you’ve done nothing but obstruct and amp up the bad feelings on both sides. If the Stranger is going to be a propaganda rag for the Mayor and his agendas, I honestly wish you guys would rethink your political strategies to get that rhetoric out there at the very least.
We should be building transit.
We should be building more sidewalks.
We should be building a quality biking infrastructure.
You think the tunnel is the most important thing – I think you’re short sighted, single minded, and looking for a “win” over old Seattle rather than looking out what’s truly best for this city.
Sometimes compromise is what’s best, even when the plan you’re compromising on sucks ass because it pays off down the line. Welcome to reality – surface/transit is not going to happen. The people of Seattle don’t want it and neither does the State of Washington. So we’re left with a rebuild (duh, no) or the tunnel. The sooner you accept that the tunnel is going to happen the sooner this city can get back to work on all the other really, really important stuff that’s been set aside for this obstructionist nonsense.
Part of me wonders whether this ‘concrete dragon’ would’ve been all that bad. Ballard/Magnolia/W Sea/etc might actually be considered part of the city rather than remote exurbs.
Time and time again the Citizens of Seattle have kicked the Developers and their comrades amongst the Powers That Be to the curb.
@8: If the Stranger is going to be a propaganda rag for the Mayor and his agendas, I honestly wish you guys would rethink your political strategies to get that rhetoric out there at the very least.
This point deserves repeating. The Stranger has proven itself to be an utterly inept propagandist/advocate for this issue.
I’m not entirely averse to S/T (especially if it did something productive with the waterfront), but the coverage in The Stranger has alternated between unbearable and laughable – name calling, transparently working backwards from conclusion to cherry-picked facts, doublespeak, obvious rhetorical inconsistencies, hyperbole, willfully ignoring inconvenient truths, not to mention incredibly long-winded. Who exactly do you expect to win over with this approach? When lunatics like Will in Seattle, John Bailo, and Baconcat are your loudest supports, it’s a pretty good sign you are doing something wrong.
If someone wants a thoughtful, thorough, and honest assessment of S/T, where can they go? Nowhere, it seems. Certainly not here, where you’ve made it clear you’ll say/do just about anything if you think it will help your cause, and you just can’t resist an opportunity to stick a thumb in the eye of the Seattle bourgeoisie.
@4: I was wrong — although, ahem, lots of state-level involvement and lobbying is readily apparent throughout the document you linked to. Page 37 is one of several that talks about how necessary the state was for the project, 44 details how the state was ready to take over the process from the city if necessary. … but as originally planned and executed, it was a city plan. Got that part wrong. My bad. 😉
That document is important, however, and I think Dominic should delve into it further. I’m already on my second read through and it’s pretty amazing, from education campaigns that helped rout stubborn City Councilmembers to the wonderful Page 77 which is an amazing rundown that is easily applicable to most any highway expansion project.
This could be an important gamechanger, gus, and probably good momentum to remind people of what we’ve done and how we did it. Thank you!
#11 – They’ve managed to turn me off to two things I supported – the monorail and surface/transit. Although I admit I kept voting for the monorail right to the end, just for the hell of it. (Remember the monorail? That’s back when the Stranger crowd despised Knute Berger — and now they are linking to him!). And I still have nothing against surface/transit, other than way its hardcore supporters are handling defeat.
@12, I’m so glad. Pay close attention to the wrapup where the effort’s leaders cautioned about all the genuine conditions that actually made the Thomson a crappy idea – i.e., they didn’t have to bend the facts, just highlight them. Also how, absent those genuine harms the Thomson activists faced, the current anti-tunnel effort, if it’s not careful, could wind up being what it looks like at the moment – more noise than signal.
Gotta second 11. I know ‘slog’ is the more personal/opinionated side of the Stranger, but the balance here has gotten so off-kilter and has obviously spilled over to the main pages. There’s no more of a chinese wall between opinion and editorial here than there is over at Fox News.
And I know what you’re thinking – the Stranger has never pretended to be impartial. Fine. But there’s a line between advocating a cause conscientiously, accurately and snarkily (as I would expect from this paper) and this win at all costs “everything and the kitchen sink” SCAT PR re-releasing approach.
Honestly. Go one day without talking about this issue. Either here or with anyone else. Grab a beer. Consider other important issues. Then, if you get back the next day and you’re still convinced you’re doing the right thing… well, hell. Been nice knowing ya.
@4: Another thing that jumps out, and you highlighted it, was that there were certainly many different plans behind the unified message of “not this highway”. Some wanted none, some, like Schweppe, were okay with a substantially different execution. The unified message though, the winner, was “not this highway”.
At numerous points throughout the cycle, the CARHT folks from all sides were told they were defeated, done for, finished. The contracts were signed, they were told. The state’s monetary contribution would be pulled, it was suggested. The project was moving forward anyway, it was said. They didn’t have their own solution beyond “more transit”, people cried.
Anyone on the fence on this project and the 59% supporting options other than the tunnel should probably read this several times.
gah, I meant to say opinion and reporting. You get my drift.
Eh, whatever Stranger. Keep fucking that chicken.
@14: I noted that supporters of the RHT bent the facts that CARHT were putting out there, too, using engineers and others to play the PR game (pg. 33). The largest and main push of opposition didn’t get kickstarted, it seems, until the environmentalists got involved. Neighborhood activists had started the ball rolling, but the momentum was in the environmental message inherent to the whole campaign.
And it helped that many of those neighborhood activists were also environmentalists.
@16, it’s true what you write, that they won though at “numerous points throughout the cycle, the CARHT folks from all sides were told they were defeated, done for, finished.”
Just as you’ve repeatedly insisted the tunnel project is defeated, done for, finished. Tunnel or anti-tunnel, the victory, as with the Thomson, will go to whoever winds up the most credible.
Can’t help but think you’ve got some room to grow in that direction. Good luck.
There is a reason why most of the Tunnel hires were for PR people and not engineers.
Because they’re trying to sell you week-old fish wrapped in a pretty bow, at $400 a pound.
Don’t forget how we used the Seattle Way to block that nasty light rail the gov’mint wanted to cramp down our throats in the 70’s as well!
Damn, wasn’t that progressive!
Haha #21
Will the option “do nothing” be on the ballot? I’m sure it would garner the most votes.
@23 the best option would be Tear Down Viaduct and Build Seawall.
Those are necessary preconditions for all the non-DBT options.
Since expressways are bad, what we really ought to do is look back at a 1962 brochure, then shut down I-5 throughout the City. Talk about ripping up neighborhoods!
Want to drive? Move to Bellevue! We don’t need no stinking freeways! Blow up the Ship Canal bridge, sink the I-90 and SR-520 bridges, and run light rail to the East side on ferries.
@21: Knutie’s piece notes that a majority of Seattle voters favored the Forward Thrust (man, the fun the Stranger could have had with that one), but that a 60 percent majority was needed.
I’d hardly describe Knutie as a convert to the S+T cause. Being Knutie, he tries to spin a Seattle exceptionalist aura to the RHT freeway revolt, claiming that Seattle chose a middle way between Manhattan density and LA sprawl.
Claiming that building a rail system in the 70s would have resulted in NYC density is kind of a reach.
SF built BART in the late 60s and early 70s, and got a little extra core density to show for it. Seattle got roughly similar density, which was sufficient to sound the outrage in the late 80s from Greenlakers who were traumatized that they could see the Columbia Center while.
@11: Actually, the S+T alternatives are reasonably well defined, all the more so given that they’ve invariably been set up to fail in the loaded evaluation processes that were intended to favor first the Nickels Big Dig and then the DBT.
Given that S+T has never had an official imprint, other than being the unloved backup for Nickels, it’s pretty well defined. From the initial PWC vision, it’s been analyzed rather extensively.
But never mind them. What’s your vision? What do you think is needed to replace the AWV?