It sounds like the new S-DOT guy knows his way around street maintenance, including pothole repair. That's very good new. Some of our streets are rough when in a car. I can't imagine riding a bike on them.

Lots of radio silence regarding the tunnel from people who bitch about public transit not turning a profit

"Federal Reserve Board Chairman and Tiny L'il Guy Jerome Powell announced today that they're raising interest rates. I personally have 0% interest in that news."

This is why you will never rise any higher than you are now. You have already reached your level of incompetence.

@3 supporting the business in your immediate community is a good thing

The new SDOT guy didn't name himself after an African nation, so that's an improvement over his predecessor.

Developers shouldn't block public sidewalks for free during construction. Good for SDOT to bill them for the space. Weird that the Stranger would think this is a bad thing.

@3
Paying a toll to go through the route 99 tunnel or 520 bridge is called a user fee. East coast travelers are accustomed to paying for toll roads. West coast drivers bitch because they expect to get roads for free.
The tunnel works quite well, by the way. It’s much faster than going down I-5.

I assume having heavy equipment parked and moved about creates more damage to the road and sidewalk than just parking a passenger vehicle on it, and the fee is for this purpose. And yeah, parking your construction shit on the sidewalk is kind of annoying so please pay a fee if you are blocking the walkway.
But reason flies out the window when Charles Jr gets a chance to take a swing at cars.

@7 Yeeeeessss!!!

It's like Baume just discovered that Construction is expensive.

@9 -- You are missing the point. One of the big selling points of this road was that it was going to be in high demand. The tolls would greatly offset the very high cost of building it. Others, of course, said that was stupid. We should just get rid of the viaduct, and put money into transit and a small improvement to I-5.

Now, of course, it turns out very few people are actually using the road. This was the case before COVID, by the way. The road was a very bad value.

If you are a transit fan, don't worry. Pretty soon you'll get your chance to spend money on a very bad value too. From West Seattle to Ballard; from Issaquah to South Kirkland; to Everett and the Tacoma Dome; we will waste money as we build a very poorly designed mass transit system to go with our very poorly designed new road addition.