On his blog, freshman state Representative Reuven Carlyle (D-36) takes a shot at mayoral candidate Mike McGinn over McGinn’s call to put the deep bore tunnel on the ballot:
The proposal from Mike McGinn to put the tunnel project to the voters of Seattle is both inappropriate and unwise. This is a state highway and the state—in partnership with the elected leadership and stakeholders of the local community—has made a decision after eight years of process.
Carlyle’s point is a decent one. We can’t resort to hitting the restart button when we don’t get our way. But what, in Carlyle’s opinion, is the correct way to go about making a change? “If you want to overturn that decision, overturn the people who made it, and get new folks in office,” he writes.
You mean like we’re doing? It’s possible that by January of 2013, none of the original players in the viaduct debate will still be in office. With Mayor Greg Nickels out of the race and Ron Sims in D.C., that leaves Gov. Gregoire.
Some of Rep. Carlyle’s readers returned fire:
Brice Maryman:
When the public stakeholders recommend two potential options—an elevated rebuild or the I-5/surface/transit solution that McGinn favors—how are we citizens not to think that our elected leaders are beholden to someone else besides the voters? If the governor/KC exec/Mayor had recommended one of those two options, then we probably wouldn’t be in this situation, but when our elected leaders usurp the power of their constituents and don’t make their case about why they are doing it, then why shouldn’t we, the people, remind our elected officials about where power lies in a democracy?
Seems like you’re angry at Eyman and taking it out on McGinn.
In a three way vote, I doubt very much that either a tunnel, a rebuild, or the surface/transit option could garner the fifty percent plus one that would be required to settle this viaduct question, once and for all.
Which part of “can’t afford it”, “stop building projects for Billionaires to get a cush ride from their Foundation to the Boeing Airfield” or “40 percent freight capacity and zero transit capacity is a non-starter” don’t they get?
Here’s a clue … Eyman would be laughed at by everyone if they didn’t push stuff Seattle didn’t want down our throats when we already said No Heck No!
Reuven also voted with leadership to stick Seattle with cost overruns. What a message to send to his constituents!
Can someone remind Reuven that Nickels is now a lame duck, Sims is in DC, and that he’s up for re-election next year? It’s not smart to threaten voters.
Why, exactly, CAN’T we “resort to hitting the restart button when we don’t get our way”?
Remember the resounding “NO!” vote on a new ballpark that the Legislature ignored, saying “in this case ‘no’ doesn’t mean NO!”? How about the monorail? Four consecutive “YES” votes didn’t count, but the fifth “NO” vote did?
The big moneyed interests do it to US all the time, so why shouldn’t we get to pour a little sauce on their goose for a change?
If the voters in Seattle decide not to spend any of their tax money on a deep-bore tunnel, then the deep-bore tunnel is dead, because the county and state so far haven’t committed enough funding to cover the construction costs even with the City’s contribution; if the voters elect to withhold that, then there’s an even bigger funding gap to bridge than the one that exists already, and in the current economy there’s no way they’re going to come up with the money from another source.
If I could vote to use the money we’d save by building a Surface Plus Transit – or an Elevated Rebuild – instead of a Billionaires Tunnel to put Tim E on a rail, tar and feather him, and ride him across the state to dump him in Idaho … heck, I’d vote for that.
@4 Exactly. If this state highway is so important to Olympia, let them fund this without Seattle taxpayers. From my understanding of the funding scheme, we have to vote on a property tax to go to this project. That’s one levy I will gladly vote NO on.
“Angry at Eyman and taking it out on McGinn” is a pretty snappy line!
To all the half brains – State Road – the State pays the bill.
Whatever else is in the conger jar, won’t happen.
Ask Sally Bagshaw, good legal mind. Running for the council.
The city might have to pay a lot of cost for the sea wall, city streets, and on down a list. The tunnel. No way.
It is a wish list from Olympia or a smoke screen, howerver you prefer.
Oh, red herring, even better.
By the way, the gas tax is still gushing, can only be used for road projects.
Mc Ginn is full of political blather on this one too. Do or not to do, the cost of the hiway part belongs to the very deep pockets of the State of Washington.
Another story the Stranger has missed.
Is it just the money? What is so bad about the tunnel option?
COMTE@4: You have a weird definition of “resounding”. The 1995 stadium vote was 50.1% NO, 49.9% YES. Kind of like a George W. Bush mandate, I guess.
@9:
it’s the money, but the tunnel also is not multi-modal. no light rail, no bike lanes (not that that is needed), just north and south lanes for vehicles.
and when vehicles & freight get through the tunnel, THERE ARE STILL STOP LIGHTS ON 99 ON EITHER END (north of the zoo, michigan st. to the south).
Based on these comments, I guess we can look forward to the voters of Burien shutting down Sea-Tac airport.
The state is saying “oh, we’re paying for it, so we’ll just do it” — except they’re removing almost all freight capacity and 100% of access to downtown Seattle without giving us any money for our own roads that we have to manage. 60% of trips get on/off downtown and they’re forecasting a drop of only 20,000 in capacity in the new tunnel from current ADT levels? Where will those additional 25,000 trips come from? And where will all those folks kicked out of the tunnel go? Right, our streets. So basically they’re foisting a massive traffic nightmare on us and using the smokescreen of “if you don’t do this, you’ll be in terminal gridlock”.
The credulous fatheads screaming about “giving up” state money seem to forget the all-too-vital facts of this matter, if only to further this agenda of shaking their fists at Seattle’s legacy of being too green for its own good. No, not building the tunnel will not create total gridlock, but building the tunnel absolutely will.
And that line about an “8 year process” forgets the 80 year process to build high capacity rail in the region, or the 25 year process for the failed R.H. Thomson expressway and Bay freeway.
So stop trying to stick it to the grassroots and “Seattle Process” by voting like a dickhead.
yup thinking long range we probably can only afford one bored tunnel under downtown
so put high speed intercity rail plus local subway in it
if then you can cram in 2 lanes for cars, okay, but make it a freaking transit tunnel, move more people, foster density.
the tunnel as is has no exits downtown so it even sucks as a highway and only “serves” the sprawlistas not those living in w seattle or ballard who want to go to downtown.
and yes each option does not get a majority so that means:
1. stalemate
2. viaduct comes down
3. mmm starting to look like surface can win by default, whereas other two options can’t….
@12: Pretty much: http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?Dis…
@12 – that’s federal. not that it stops protesters – just ask Fort Lewis. or any other federal installation.
Sally Bagshaw is a wholly owned subsiduary of downtown business interests. What do you expect her to say?
McGinn was one of the people who pushed for a stakeholder process to resolve the viaduct mess after the 2007 vote. Now he is unhappy with the result, which was overwhelmingly for the bored tunnel + transit plan. What a sore losing jackass.
@18
The result of the stakeholder process and the deep bore tunnel decision have nothing to do with each other. Jackass.
@18: No, the stakeholders approved an elevated and surface+transit solution for final consideration, but Nickels, Sims and Gregoire chose otherwise. There was no unanimity in this process, it was simply Nickels, Sims and Gregoire being unhappy with the result, which was overwhelmingly for a choice between an elevated and a surface option: http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/NR/rdonlyres/324…
Gosh, I wonder why McGinn would see this as politicians going over the head of the public…
Almost none of the stakeholders thought the surface option was workable. It finished dead last after the bored tunnel + transit (#1 by far) and another elevated structure. That is a fact. It was deemed completely unworkable by a broad range of stakeholders.
Subsequently the Amalgamated Transit Union, Fire Fighters Union and Police Guild confirmed that the surface option was pure science fiction.
Thank you for posting the truth, Baconcat.
So, a bigger question is: Is Reuven gunning for a chair position on Transportation, or does he just hate Seattle’s voters and the people in his district (Ballard, Magnolia) who won’t be able to get downtown after the Billionaires’ Tunnel is built?
@21: Go back and read the memo from WSDOT.
Where does it say that the stakeholders approved a bored tunnel. Please point that out.
Trust me, I know. I was one of the stakeholders.
Yes, @21, please, enlighten us with these facts. Give us a link to your information.
@24: Ahhhhhhh…genda.
@25…no need to trust you, this was a public process. There’s documentation of the proceedings. It will be easy for you to back up your statements.
Right?
ralph, other stakeholders who were in that meeting don’t agree with you – the Billionaires Tunnel was not a consensus decision, the two finalists were the Surface Plus Transit and the Rebuilt Viaduct options.
Or at least that’s what they have said in public meetings.
I called McGinn on the stakeholder claim you are still defending at a public meeting. He completely backed down and admitted that the stakeholders never endorsed the surface option. That was after he made that claim on KUOW and multiple stakeholders wrote into KUOW and called him on his big lie. His response to me calling him out publically: “I never said the stakeholders endorsed the surface option”. The lies pile on top of each other. Sad.
“In a three way vote, I doubt very much that either a tunnel, a rebuild, or the surface/transit option could garner the fifty percent plus one that would be required to settle this viaduct question, once and for all.”
ahhh, the pleasant seattle way. three way votes that get us back to square one. i kinda think a lot of folks just like it that way–no progress, no change, just talk and bloviation.
Semi-unrelated: while poring over SEEC reports, I found that Slade Gorton gave to Mallahan according to a C3 from 10/09/2009, as did a few folks from out-of-state. I also noticed Ballard Oil, a stakeholder in the tunnel project, had donated to Mallahan.
I only noticed a couple other stakeholders named there, so it’s hard to figure out where they all stand on the issue of McGinn vs. Mallahan.
The surface option was looked at very closely and with an open mind by the stakeholders until a meeting last November at which there was a revolt against it. That happened when “current” commute time that was being used as a comparison metric was examined. In order to make the surface option palatable, the consultant had secretly used a formula that calculated a surface condition without the viaduct as the “current” condition, not the true time with the viaduct. After that, the whole surface option unraveled, because in reality it would double the commute times for many people living in Seattle, whether they drive a car or take a bus.
That is what happened. The surface option never worked out. Sorry to burst your bubble, but that is a fact. Transportation isn’t a religion that requires faith, ultimately it comes down to empirical data.
Ballard Oil was against the tunnel option because it can’t use it for moving oil, so there goes that theory.
Ralph…I think you’re confusing a few vocal members of the Stakeholder group with “The Stakeholder group.”
The Stakeholder group recommended the I5/Surface/Transit Hybrid and the Elevated solution. The group also recommended that the bored tunnel solution continue to be studied. Then, magically, after less than a month, the Bored Tunnel became the prefered alternative and the other two options have been completely discarded.
Can you point to the data that claims that commute times would double (compared relatively to other options studied)?
Timothy: The stakeholders never made that recommendation. What happened was that the three DOT team arbitrarily decided in December that the two finalists would be the surface and elevated options, and that the bored tunnel would be removed from consideration. No reason was given, it was presented to us as a fait accompli. That is when the stakeholders reacted strongly and pushed for the bored tunnel, and it was eventually adopted as the recommendation. The Governor personally called many of the stakeholders. She got involved and I think she is the one who ultimately pushed the tunnel + transit option through – based on her getting direct input from stakeholders. I can’t tell you what her conversations were with the other stakeholders, but I can tell you she was very direct in the conversation with me and wanted to know what and why, no beating around the bush.
I genuinely appreciate the passionate perspective on the issue and I wasn’t really taking a shot at my friend Mike. I was trying to help elevate the level of dialogue about where we stand with pushing issues to voters. Isn’t that at least a little bit better than electing folks who won’t take a stand on the weather?
My larger point is that I happen to believe that we do live in a representative Democracy and that there is a cost (not just a benefit automatically and always) of punting every tough issue to the voters. We need good people in public office who think critically and have a willingness to engage in courageous honesty about tough policy issues. Too often we retreat to the safety zone of asking voters to decide every issue that gets hot. California has become ungovernable and we are on the wrong track in terms of pushing nearly every single tough issue to the ballot. It may be convenient politics but it’s not inherently good policy.
I do want to fix one really, really inaccurate statement that is just plain wrong and unfair:
@2 I passionately, aggressively, actively and publicly did NOT vote with leadership on the Seattle amendment and fought it tooth and nail as much as a freshman, back bench member of the Legislature could. I stood up in caucus and on the House floor against this unfair and punitive amendment. Given that I had been in office all of a few months, I hope there’s at least a shout out for giving it the old college try.
I continue to push, prod, agitate against this provision at every turn.
For the record, I went public against this deal. Here’s a little refresh of history: http://publicola.net/?p=4930
Reuven Carlyle
State Representative
36th Legislative District
Timothy: On your question of whether there is any information available publically that substantiates the doubling of commute times with the surface option, the answer is yes, but it isn’t readily available because quite frankly it was a bit of a scandal. Fortunately every meeting was recorded, and I will point you to the meeting in November that happened in Town Hall. In that recording you will hear the question being asked about how the “current” times were calculated and the response from the transportation planning team – as well as the reaction of the stakeholder group. BTW, the planning team never updated the material to reflect real times, so the material available on the web is still the old and misleading data with the current times being a calculation of times without the AWV in place. Perhaps that is what is confusing people.
So, Ralph, you don’t actually have data that confirms your view, just a suspicion that if a different modeling technique were used, it would yield the results you’re suggesting?
I know Mike McGinn’s position on the tunnel were a little more nuanced. I wish he followed Reuven Carlyle’s unintentionally insightful advice: “”If you want to overturn that decision, overturn the people who made it, and get new folks in office.” That is, I wish he didn’t want to subject this to yet another public vote.
At this point, with a divisive issue like this, direct democracy isn’t a tool for achieving resolution; it’s a tool of distraction and dysfunction.
That said, you’d have to think that the current tunnel proposal would fare poorly with voters. I mean, look at how horribly the first tunnel proposal did in a direct vote, and this tunnel proposal is that much harder a sell.
In fact, when I look at this tunnel plan and how it doesn’t have any downtown exits (even though the much viaduct traffic is from and to, rather than through, downtown) and how its financing is so much smoke and mirrors, I get to thinking it’s not so much a plan to build a tunnel as it is a plan to avoid building a tunnel.
I started my post @39 with “I know…” I meant to write “I wish…”
@31 for the Skeletor win.
Why do I have the feeling that Seattle will be arguing about what to replace the viaduct with until an earthquake comes along and knocks it–and anyone who happens to be on it–down?
@10:
The FACT is that the pro-stadium faction LOST, despite out spending the opposition more than 20:1, and despite threats the team would be sold and moved out of town.
In case you slept through your Poli-Sci 101 class, in a democracy, most votes are decided by a “50 percent plus one majority”. If you want to quibble over the actual percentage points that the stadium was REJECTED BY that’s fine with me, but it still LOST. Yet despite that, the Legislature, under pressure from the team owners and business interests who saw their cash cow’s udder drying up, effectively told the voters of King County, “Oh, well you REALLY didn’t vote against the stadium, you voted against a particular funding mechanism for financing the stadium, so we’ll just come up with another funding mechanism you didn’t vote for, but which will allow us to build it anyway, even if you said you don’t want it”, effectively telling us, as I stated previously, “in this instance ‘No’ does not mean ‘No’.”
@ 2 You are wrong – Reuven did not vote with leadership to stick Seattle with cost overruns. http://publicola.net/?p=4930/oPermanent%…
@44 He voted agains the amendment but for final passage. That’s known in the Pacific NW as “pulling a Reichert”
Eh, from the way I see it, if you take the tunnel now, you have the option of doing either the surface option or another elevated option later. If you do either of the other options, the tunnel is the only way to expand. Doesn’t this just keep your options open for later?