I really hate to be so crass but I’m calling it how I see it. Just as I started to warm up to the tunnel Gregoire shows her real priorities. She played Ron Sims and now there is very little reason for greens to support this solution. This was the last thing holding many on and it will be interesting to see how the tunnel fairs in the next few weeks.
I had a ton of questions about the deep bore tunnel and now I think a lot of people are going to take a hard look to see if this is the best solution, especially now that more bus service isn’t hanging over their heads.
For example look at the finances. The port has yet to pitch in 300 million (btw they are hurting right now, with container volumes down ~30 percent from last year). WSDOT has a funding deficit of 400 million (which looks like it can only be solved with tolls). And that is chump change compared to the roughly 1 billion that the city needs to raise. I’d like to see how much of an appetite there is for raising that kind of money when the state has a nearly 6 billion dollar deficit and as thousands of Boeing, WAMU, Starbucks, and Microsoft employees are getting laid off.
Despite the grand rhetoric I think there are at least a few more twists and turns down the road.
I never thought “greens” supported this solution from the start. It’s a four lane road with no special transit lanes. Seems pure and simple a car enabler from word go. Granted, of the plans to move cars off I-5 this one has the most merit but that’s never seemed to me to be a “green” solution.
As a don’t spend a penny on anything reduce taxes to zero type myself the tunnel proposal represents an unprecedented “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” area in where we can come to agreement.
Excuse me, but I missed the part where Gregoire said her first priority was better bus service in King County, and the tunnel was only a means to that end. I also missed the part where the governor of the state has much to say about whether voters in King County pass an excise tax. Where is the big betrayal here?
As near as I can tell from reading around, Gregoire and Murray annnounced that the state would proceed with plans for the tunnels, which are intended to deal with the portion of Viaduct traffic that simply bypasses Seattle’s downtown. Rightly or wrongly, the state feels they have a mandate and obligation to provide for that traffic, and they also believe they own the viaduct and have a right to replace it, either in situ or in another way.
And frankly, simply by the law of averages, there should be a number of people who didn’t want to see the Viaduct rebuilt but have no objection to traffic continuing to bypass downtown. In fact, I kinda suspect that the number of people who want to just tear it down and see what happens next are probably in the minority.
We might remember that Gregoire’s political life would be considerably easier if she just greenlighted Chopp’s idea. Being a bait-and-switch, it looks in the promo literature to be better and cheaper (a deception legislators from eastern Washington would be happy to promulgate), and the rest of Gregoire’s legislative agenda would probably go through a lot easier if she gave Chopp this one. I don’t blame her a bit for not wanting to be held hostage by an election in King County to impose a new tax.