Somebody needs to hand deliver a couple of freshly killed raw crows to Chris Gregoire and Tom Rasmussen for their condescending lectures to then Mayor McGinn that the tunnel would be completed on-time and on-budget and that he was an ill-informed obstructionist.

The first draft of history already shows Gregoire, Rasmussen, et al. to be, at best, credulous hacks and, more plausibly, lying scum-suckers.

By contrast, McGinn, Dominic Holden, the Merrymans, and other opponents come off as prophets.

If the council did decide the Viaduct was unsafe, but WSDOT didn't agree, would the City have the authority to close it?

Tear it down.

City Light can shut off all water & power

City itself can void the permits for the Tunnel "rescue" (which won't fix it), the Tunnel itself, and the Viaduct (safety), and any roads or connections and business in serving those

But that would take guts

It's a state project, just like Washington State route 99. So all the was so-and-so council member "pro" or "con" tunnel was essentially appearances relative to whether the thing was going to go ahead (and then get stuck)

Will dear, City Light can not just "shut off" the power. And it certainly can't shut off the water. As long as the bills are paid and there's nothing unsafe about the electrical service, the lights stay on. Or would you prefer that the city government start picking and choosing which places "deserve" electricity?

There are times I miss living in Seattle, but reading about the viaduct and the tunnel make me glad to be where I am now.

I'm just waiting for when the Seattle Big Dig inevitably blows past its budget, to watch the equally inevitable battle between the city council and the state legislature over who will have to pay for this boondoggle. That should be entertaining.

How can O'Brien think he can use City money to hire a consultant to look at the safety? Does he understand this is a state project? Why should City residents pay for an investigation of this mess?

@8, well, if the city took steps to shut down the state megaproject before completion, there's probably some tortious interference-type accountability as to any added costs.

But, given O'Brien's past history of wasting city money on personal pet projects with no legal authority, I would trust him about as far as I can throw him. I don't think the city council can legally shut down a state highway, nomatter how many hired consultants whisper in Mike's ear.

http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2…
The city of Seattle has reached a tentative agreement to pay $500,000 to settle its losing fight against publishers of yellow-pages phone books, according to two sources familiar with the lawsuit.

The city has decided not to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court an October ruling by a panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that a city ordinance violated the companies’ free-speech rights.

The panel ruled unconstitutional a city law that created an opt-out registry for unwanted phone books and charged the publishers a disposal fee for recycling costs.

City Councilmember Mike O’Brien, who championed the measure as a way to reduce waste and the disposal costs to the city, said he couldn’t comment on negotiations to settle the lawsuit because they were still ongoing. He said the settlement agreement could also decide “the future of Seattle’s yellow-pages opt-out system.”

Quick! Let's do the Seattle thing: get a referendum to the polls! What do the people think?

If the viaduct is shut down temporarily, give the bus commuters from West Seattle something to facilitate their bus rides through SODO such as marking off and defining temporary bus only lanes on 1st and or 4th Ave S help the buses get through/past the SODO car traffic with as much speed as possible.



It would be unfair to leave West Seattle bus commuters hanging with cars in clusterf*cked traffic.

@6 we do it all the time. City Light charges non Seattle users market rate for power water sewer and Seattle citizens the cost - significant markup.

You just lack imagination.

@12 the Viaduct that serves West Seattle is one of the other parts - this has very little effect on them. We phased it in parts so that most would get built even when the Tunnel part proved to be a no go.

Will dear, I will grant you that you do have a lot of imagination - especially when it comes to rates, and what a power company actually does.



City Light is electricity in Seattle and seven suburban communities. Seattle Public Utilities provides water, sewer and garbage to single family homes in the City of Seattle, plus they sell water at wholesale to water districts and municipalities outside of the city. Water and electricity do not mix.

@18 But we get our electricity from the water!



It actually was a bit confusing at first. You get two different invoices but you can pay them both with one payment from the same online portal.

Different water, mostly. Although the Tolt and Cedar watersheds both have modest hydro facilities.



There's a lot more electric accounts than there are water, because if you live in a apartment or condo your water is either included in the rent/HOA, or you are sub-metered by a third party.

@17, If you're going downtown from West Seattle during the rush hour, the express buses take the viaduct, if they can't use it, they must snake through SODO. It's very black and white; there's no other convenient way to get downtown from the peninsula if you close the viaduct. The closure would have a huge effect on West Seattle. A big problem is a lot of people who don't live there don't give a sh*t about the ramifications of the closure for us.

The Council loves me until things get Too Real, and then they get scared.

@BerthaDeBlues