At last week's launch party for Friends of Seattle, a new group that aims to unite the issues of density and livability (good luck with that), more than 200 people jammed into the back room of a Belltown bar whose regular clientele is more likely to arrive by stretch Hummer than bike. The buzz that night was all about the Alaskan Way Viaduct, visible just 50 yards to the west of the high windows.

One person who must have felt out of place amid all the progressive revelry was city council member Nick Licata, a passionate proponent of retrofitting or rebuilding the viaduct. (As at least one observer whispered, "He's brave to show his face around here!") Right at the start of his remarks, city council member Peter Steinbrueck made sure Licata knew he was on enemy ground, bellowing, "We have to find a better way.... We are going to tear down the viaduct, and we are not going to replace it!" By the time the party was half-over, Licata was nowhere to be seen.

FoS isn't the only group that has endorsed a "no/no" vote on the March dual viaduct ballot measure. (The first "no" refers to a new elevated viaduct, the second to the mayor's speculative four-lane tunnel.) This week, in the wake of King County Executive Ron Sims's high-profile Olympia endorsement of the "no/no" position, the Sierra Club reversed its previous "no/neutral" position and endorsed a "no" vote on both measures. The endorsement could be influential among other environmental groups, several of which have endorsed the tunnel.

The Seattle Department of Transportation is asking for a massive staffing increase to manage the $365 million "Bridging the Gap" transportation tax that passed last November. SDOT is asking the council for 70 new positions, including 7.5 (seven plus a half-timer) "strategic advisers," a position council staffers say is pretty much meaningless, as it encompasses nearly every imaginable type of job. (Strategic advisers, according to the city's personnel department, are people who "make recommendations" or "help the city in strategic areas." The classification, incidentally, pays more than comparable job titles at the city: between $54,000 and $103,000.)

The city's bike advisory board was understandably alarmed when two longtime SDOT employees, bike advocate Pauh Wang and nationally renowned bike expert Peter Lagerwey, were, respectively, exiled (to SDOT's sign shop down on Airport Way) and demoted (to a lesser position in the bike department), after pissing off the mayor by supporting a controversial advisory board nominee. In a scathing letter to SDOT traffic management director Wayne Wentz signed by the entire advisory board, board members said SDOT staffers "should not be held accountable for the comments of independent-minded citizens on Seattle advisory boards and commissions," even when "that advice is controversial or inconvenient." The board member at the center of all the controversy, Catherine Staunton, believes bikes should be totally segregated from traffic—an idea that's completely at odds with the bike master plan, which aims to help bikes and cars coexist, but which at least deserves a hearing.