The Let’s Move Forward election-night party at The Stranger‘s penthouse offices erupted in cheers as the Referendum 1 results came in last week. “Drill, baby, drill!” the staff of The Stranger and other revelers spontaneously chanted as champagne corks bounced off the high ceilings, city council member Sally Bagshaw disrobed and took a bath in the chocolate fountain, and news editor Dominic Holden wiped away a few well-deserved tears of joy. It was a long, hard slog, but together with a ragtag team of governors, legislators, council members, labor bosses, business leaders, high-priced political consultants, multibillion-dollar international tunnel contractors, and other disenfranchised outsiders, we managed to move public opinion and miraculously win the day.
Not since our tireless effort to defeat the harebrained monorail has The Stranger led the way to such a critical and gratifying public-policy victory.
Of course, it wasn’t an easy path, and it was always an uphill fight, but while other news organizations pandered to the mayor’s office or parroted the conventional wisdom of powerful transit-lobby shill Cary Moon, we bucked the trend and stuck to the cold, hard facts. But then, as we consistently argued, the truth was always on the tunnel’s side.
Let’s face it: No major city has ever managed to tear down an urban freeway without creating endless gridlock and economic havoc, and with gas prices plummeting and the housing market booming, downtown traffic is only destined to get worse. Where the fanciful surface option would have dumped tens of thousands of greenhouse-gas-spewing cars a day onto city streets, the tunnel will speed them effortlessly and cleanly underground, dramatically reducing traffic congestion through the downtown core, along the waterfront, and on I-5. And at only $4.1 billion for a two-mile stretch of road, plus a $5 one-way toll, the tunnel would be a bargain at twice the price, let alone the piddling $7 billion it might cost once financing is factored in. Hell, the tunnel project even pinky-swear promises to fund enhanced bus service! What’s not to like?
That’s why The Stranger chose to set aside our customary impartial editorial tone and put our faith in the scientific experts at the Discovery Institute who first proposed the widest diameter deep-bore tunnel ever: Because drilling through miles of unstable and poorly studied soil using a custom-built boring machine on a scale never before attempted for the sake of a car-only infrastructure that does nothing to help public transportation is simply too important to the future of our city not to warrant the most passionate advocacy possible.
As election night came to a close and we were licking the foie gras off our fingertips while peering through our floor-to-ceiling windows at the panoramic waterfront view from the Stranger penthouse, we couldn’t help but feel a little pride at how we once again helped to reshape our city. Some will remember the tunnel debate as a bitter and divisive fight, others as an emblem of Seattle’s endless dithering, but we at The Stranger will always choose to remember this night as yet another victory.
So thank you, Seattle, for moving our city forward. And thank us for leading the way.
in Stranger Advocacy
A Look Back at Our History
• Endorsing George W. Bush
One of our proudest moments, the first election of President George W. Bush ushered in eight years of prudent foreign invasions, responsible economic stewardship, and eloquent speeches. He was our kind of American. Though we stumped hard for him, we must acknowledge that his stunning victory—and strong showing in normally far-too-blue Washington—was greatly aided by our Eastside news affiliate the Seattle Times.
• Rejecting the Monorail
Can you imagine anything sillier than spending billions of dollars on a risky transportation megaproject through downtown that connects to West Seattle and Ballard? We can’t. “There remain concerns about the project’s finances and impacts as a whole,” Seattle City Council member Richard Conlin said to voters, who heeded his and our concerns in 2005, wisely rejecting the monorail.
• Preventing a State Income Tax on the Very Wealthy
Standing up for the defenseless 2 percent of the state’s population who earn over $200,000 a year, we fought hard to block the ill-advised Initiative 1098 in 2010. Collecting income taxes from the wealthiest people to buy health care and a public education for the poor? Sounds like a beeline to socialism. Our friends Steve Ballmer, Frank Blethen, and Paul Allen agreed.
• Cheerleading Gregoire’s Medical Marijuana Veto
If we had to pick between comforting bureaucrats and comforting the ill, we’d pick bureaucrats every time. That’s why we agreed with Governor Chris Gregoire when a medical marijuana bill came to her desk. Even though there was no precedent in the United States of Feds hassling state employees for administering a medical marijuana program, Gregoire said the Feds “would” prosecute. So she vetoed the bill, making bureaucrats feel safe and making sick and dying patients more vulnerable to arrest than ever before under the previous law. But dying people are the definition of a lame-duck constituency, so who cares?
• Ushering in the Chihuly Museum
In 2010, Space Needle LLC announced plans to construct a for-profit glass museum at the Seattle Center dedicated to the works of living genius Dale Chihuly. The Stranger stumped hard for the visionary project at City Hall, even though critics argued that it would supplant a public park. Tourists will not pay $15 per head to walk through a park, we argued, but they will to stare at glass. Parks are for the birds.
• Keeping Liquor Stores in State Hands
Washington State’s system of doling out liquor drop by drop has been in place for 70-plus years, and there could never be any legitimate reason to change that, as no one has ever driven drunk in our state. Alcoholics all reside in California, where liquor is retailed in the private sector and where it is required by law that you take a shot before getting behind the wheel.
• Launching Tim Eyman’s Career
While the rest of us merely pontificate on public policy, former Stranger news intern Tim Eyman has taken the advocacy lessons learned at Dan Savage’s knees out into the real world, where he’s made a true difference. Like a proud parent, we’ve watched our little Timmy grow into Washington’s most powerful advocate for responsible, right-sized governance: From his anti-affirmative-action I-200 (funny story: It was Mudede‘s idea) to his budget-crippling tax-cutting initiatives, no one has done more to turn Olympia into the well-oiled machine it is today. So keep up the good work, Tim, and thanks for the dozens of dollars Stranger staffers have collectively saved on our car tab fees. 
WIN
How much chutzpah does it require for people that caused political gridlock for 10 years to suddenly decry the same? Was the entire goal to drive this conversation on for so long until public opinion was so tapped out that it would be easy to just strut in with the most expensive option?
meh
I thought the Stranger was also opposed to the Seattle Commons. Totally shocked that didn’t make it into the list.
God this is lame.
This is the most whiny, self-serving crap I’ve ever seen in the Stranger — which is saying a lot.
I’ll take Failures in Ironic Distancing for a hundred, Alex.
this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woFkIziqb…
Anyone else ever think that Dale Chihuly looks like Mama Fratelli?
http://images.wikia.com/villains/images/…
The project was never in jeopardy. The vote was meaningless. on-the-ground preparations have been ongoing for some time. follow the paper trail. resource protection wells are everywhere.
Yawn
I for one am glad that 60% of voting citizens decided to actually do something rather than fiddle while Rome burns, citing the holy “Seattle Process”.
This is not new for us. I was sorry to see the monorail slowly strangled. Back in the 70s, the wise locals (I’m talking to you Sgt. Doom) decided the area would never grow and rejected a mass transit system that the Fed was going to pay for 90 CENTS ON THE DOLLAR. Atlanta got the money and now they have Marta.
Is the tunnel risky? Could it become a cluster fuck? Sure. But so could ANY multi-billion capital construction project. Even the pipe dream of a surface option, with so called I-5 improvements, could have become a cluster fuck.
After 10 years of dithering, the voters decided doing was better than talking.
Doubling down on a bet you lost twice. BRAVO!
Idiot libtards
@14: Wow—-we must be the same age or around it!
Yeah—voters really blew it when they shot down mass transit offered through federal money.
After decades of politicians doing nothing, here’s hoping the tunnel works.
This is one icky article. I need a shower now.
Um, suddenly upon further scrutiny of this article, is The Stranger being just the teensiest bit sarcastic over the tunnel issue? Or has the long-term memory of The Stranger’s editorial staff gone bye-bye?
I remember back in November 2004 when George “Dubya” Bush got “re-elected”, and the editor’s reaction then was FUCK! FUCK. FUCK. FUCK. FUCK. FUCK….
Dubya is not my “kind of American”. And I wouldn’t exactly be proud of launching Tim Eyman’s career, either.
Dan Savage might as well have endorsed George W. Bush with his endorsement of the Iraq War. That is Bush’s biggest legacy. Also, remember that the Stranger endorsed the monorail, then turned against it.
@18; Agreed. I do, too!
@20: While people can and do change their minds on the ballots, I can’t imagine Dan EVER supporting any agenda of George W. Bush!
This article is just immature and unfunny, and it is beneath the already low journalistic standards of The Stranger. Some advice for The Stranger staff (“the adults in the room”): GET OVER YOURSELVES. We lost, and we should accept defeat graciously. The people of Seattle voted overwhelmingly to move forward with the tunnel (and these are the same voters who overwhelmingly approve every human services levy put to them, so you can’t exactly call them stupid or corporate pawns.)
And, what did the Stranger say about regrading Denny Hill?
I’m sure you’ll be whining when you’re taking friends and family down around the new cafes, shops, housing, bike paths and open spaces with views of the Sound and the Olympics without all the highway noise. Yes, I’m sure you will.
#25
None of those things will be created, and you know it.
Awfully sophomoric, Dan and company; get over it…
You will have your day when the sink holes develop, the buildings lean, or the drill bit gets stuck, not to mention when the cost overrun bill comes due. OK, we needed your comfort in November 2004 . . . that post election edition helped me get through it. Made me proud to be urban. But today’s piece reduces the credibility of your editorial staff, wastes time and newsprint, and compromises the forward motion of your political strength. Save this shit for the sex column, dude.
This is one of the best “fuck yous” ever. Well done, Stranger!
Voter sentiment was the same as in 2007. Both times voters were dishonestly misled by DOT officials who rigged studies to limit options and with commercial business cronies raid the public treasury. Seattle will remain a dump until its citizens realize their transportation planning agencies are directed by well-dressed corporate bastards and bitches.
Many historic Pioneer Square buildings will be damaged beyond repair and demolished. Developers will profit. Seattle is so rich yet so poor. In 10 years, Seattle traffic will be so much worse. Ka-ching! Automobile-related profits! Die humanity. Only the wealthy will survive.
Dan did indeed support Bush’s lets fight saddam (and not Osama). When it all turned ugly, the Stranger washed its hands of the mess, declaring that if they had known how f-up Bush and cronies were they wouldn’t have supported it, but hey we were right, it was just Bush.
Why wouldn’t I expect them to deflect with a joke?! The Mayor, the tunnel, glad I’m living OS
Dan did indeed support Bush’s lets fight Saddam (and not Osama). When it all turned ugly, before the surge, The Stranger bailed, washing its hands of the mess, declaring that if they had known how f-up Bush and cronies were they wouldn’t have supported it. In true liberal war hawk fashion they claimed they were wrong, but actually they were right, it was just Bush, typical, Slate/crissy hitchens style.
Why wouldn’t you expect them to deflect with a joke?! The Mayor, the tunnel, glad I’m living OS ….. hey what me worry
Orcs, morlocks and c.h.u.d.s will come rampaging out during the grand opening ceremonies. We’ll all be eaten or enslaved. Thanks deep bore tunnel.
Gee my sign up post posted at 30. Now can you delete it.
@26 Come on, there will probably be a few new cafes. Seattle really needs more places to pay four dollars for a small cup of coffee in a vat of rancid milk! Well worth 4 (or 6, or 8) billion dollars.
Somehow I doubt a mea culpa will be forthcoming a decade hence after this boondoggle renders a few downtown blocks unstable to the tune of billions of dollars. Being a hipster means never having to say you’re sorry!
Okay. After we get eaten or enslaved, are zombies next?
Of course, The Stranger did endorse Eyman’s I-776, which was an attempt to derail Sound Transit’s light rail system. So you do deserve blame for helping Eyman become what he is today. Now you turn around and write this smug article where you try to hide it. Assholes.
Fortunately the stranger staff will not be using the tunnel once built since they are so against it.
Who are you people? Why are you whining about the Stranger whining? That’s what we do here. It makes us happy. Go the fuck away. Go back to the Weekly. Alternately, you could stop reading fluff pieces when they irritate you. You have no one to blame but yourself if you have confused the Stranger with the Economist. I pick up this free fucking rag every week BECAUSE it’ snarky, peurile, needlessly vindictive, and will commiserate with me when my fellow citizens vote for tunnels to bring them cafes and ponies and rainbow skilttled dysentery. More, dammit!
“Seattle is Doomed”
Seattle’s proposed bored tunnel is an engineering atrocity. It will further destabilize soft fill and watery soils beneath downtown towers. It will lead to the demolition of historic Pioneer Square buildings and others above and nearby its entire length. Subsurface alteration of underground water flows and pressures predict catastrophe.
Two inextricably related street rearrrangements are likewise atrocious engineering.
Mercer West ‘widening’ of Mercer Street insensibly redirects 20,000+ cars and freight trucks via a dangerously steep hillclimb/descent through high-density residential Queen Anne neighborhood to the tunnel’s north portal. This traffic pattern adds to the Lake Union segment of the Mercer corridor to I-5, derisively known as the Mercer Mess. Mercer Street is being reconstructed with the hope of improving traffic flow ‘while’ reducing capacity and adding stoplights. In other words, the currently overwhelmed Mercer Mess will have less capacity to handle more traffic that is redirected through high-density residential and pedestrian-oriented neighborhoods.
Likewise, the currrent design for Seattle’s waterfront boulevard Alaskan Way sans the damaged & unrepairable viaduct (SR99) cannot handle more traffic expected with either the bored tunnel or any sensible SR99 replacement option. The recommended surface boulevard option supposedly studied (a 6-lane couplet) is almost laughably impractical.
I charge Washington State & Seattle DOTs with numerous criminal violations of their legal obligation to serve the public. Virtually all DOT studies were “rigged” to achieve predetermined outcomes. Their planning process was unecessarily lengthened to present a plethora of least worthy options to honest and dishonestly misled citizens.
Gee Wells
Seems Portland had its own trouble with a deep bore tunnel ie the Westside Max but they still managed to survive. Get a life please.
Ya’ll also came up with the 25-foot-rule which prevents smokers at bars and restaurants from enjoying their nefarious pleasures….And saves the children
its called identity theft! the (real) wackos of Seattle use the “Beijing and Moscow and Berlin and Portland have it and I want a Identity thats just like them”
can we change our city flag to look just like Chicago’s?
can we gut this city until it looks like Scion?
now lets see how fast that 7 billion only pays for a big hole in the ground and the big fancy shoreline park and a new Sea wall are not included.
I must be getting old … the uber-hip whining by the Stranger here is just boring.
This article needs to mention the deep bore tunnel. It would be better if it did.
You shut down the forum as the spam was circumventing Internet explorer as it was every software application available and now we are back to the Sea of clowns who cant understand a thimble full of logic? No! I don’t have a problem understanding the clown show its just that if I have to live in this clown world and deal with every problem and decision they make why the hell do I need to wonder why the hell they insist on a big parade of clowns all over the Internet. History says it all and when the Tunnel is dug and survives the fist moderate quake and the fancy electronic toll works then everyone will jump on I-5 to save a gallon of gas and a claustrophobic attack when they see the smoke from the underground fire thats been burning and stinking up that pre-school when the Alaska Via Duct ends? If they cant even put a fire out thats been burning longer than most of ever lived in Seattle to protect baby’s from breathing smoke then go guess? hey now the Stranger is just like the Mercury! good job kemosabi!
I don’t get this article (which is a piece of shit by the way). Is the idea to establish credibility for backing the wrong horse in the tunnel debate? So now you are compelled to remind us that in the past you were correctly Anti-Bush, anti-Chihuly, anti-Eyman, etc? (You were always wrong about liquor privatization- which BRINGS IN MONEY FOR THE STATE.) What a fucking stupid article.
Gee, Spicy McHaggis, are you a liar or an idiot?
There is little similarity between the MAX Robertson twin-tunnel and Seattle’s DBT, but a liar would argue they are similar and an idiot would believe it. So, which are you, liar or idiot? I’ll guess a little bit of both. If you think Wsdot has your interests in mind, you’re just an idiot.
Was Mr. Steen at the election night party? Or was he foxtrotting with Jean Godden at the Rainier Club?
@40, @48: Ummmmmmmmmmm…….I’m a Seattle native, and not whining, only commenting. Which, if you open your articles up for blogging, is something you WANT me to do, right?
I’m not trying to start WW3 here, I’m just saying.
@40 & @48: So where are you guys from?
I was born here; my mother was born here. I know and love the ground under our sacred City, and I love it. That is why I look forward to the day that the custom-built drilling machine is being christened by the Chamber of Commerce, the Downtown Business Association, and Richard Conlin is making some profound remarks as my beloved Seattle earth begins to shake and roar, and the bodies are never recovered.
Thank you. I wish more had listened to the truth. Loved your sarcasm. Good Day to you all!
sound transit is crooked, and as a city we should have monorails zipping all over the place, but noo, we somehow let it die, and now, instead of spendin 5 billion dollars on oh i dont know, transit, we’re fucked, and the cost overruns will further fuck us, btw, born here, and i will probably die here…. off topic, but seriously, we need rent control in this city, areas like lower queene anne are dying, because greedy landlords hold out for thousand dollar a month rents, and write it off on their taxes…we need rent caps in this city, empty buildings mean empty neghborhoods…sometimes im ashaimed to say i was born here.
@56: I agree. As a fellow Seattle native and former resident, the decline of this great city is indeed sad. Oh, what once was and could have -should have- been!
It wasn’t until I re-read this article that I realized all the acidic sarcasm of its content.
Okay—-so how many of us inherit the Earth, what’s left of it?
The city of Seattle never heard of the “Big Dig” ? Boston will be paying for that mistake for another twenty years at least. The cost over runs and the usual “unforeseen difficulties” will more than triple the cost of this mega (fuck up) project and I thought you folks were a bit smarter than that.
This article is testament to why I only read the Stranger for movie times, show listings, and I, Anonymous. Everything else is drivel. Fuck off Dan.
You forgot Dan Savage’s support of the invasion of Iraq…but that one was no joke, he really did.
Can we move on now? So I can actually enjoy reading this rag again. There’s other things out there more worthy of getting worked up about.
@61: Geez—It sounds like you’re more worked up than I am. Go on to another article and chill out, dude.
History says it all and when the Tunnel is dug and survives the fist moderate quake and the fancy electronic toll works then everyone will jump on I-5 to save a gallon of gas and a claustrophobic attack when they see the smoke from the underground fire thats been burning and stinking up that pre-school
_________
Allen
http://used.gov-auctions.org””> used cars
This is the greatest article, and greatest comment thread, in the history of The Stranger. Kudos!
Sucks to live in Seattle! Haha.
i cant believe this me and my sister just got two i6pads for $42.77 each and a $50 amazon card for $9. the stores want to keep this a secret and they dont tell you.
go here, http: //bit.ly/qJFHsO
Tunnel = bad idea financially. With all the whining about tax increases, where, and what century, do people expect to get the money for this?