Ongoing debate over viaduct takes place behind closed doors

Source Crosscut
Psst! Wanna see the Viaduct disappear?

By David Brewster

The debate about Seattle's Alaskan Way Viaduct used to be a very public, contact sport, but as many local politicians were carted off the field, the controversy moved to a 30-person stakeholders group, who meet very quietly. Meanwhile, the politicians edge back onto the playing field and hint at solutions.

Gov. Chris Gregoire addressed a group of civic worthies Wednesday and dropped broad hints that she is now a fan of the no-tunnel, no-viaduct, surface-plus-transit solution that she used to excoriate. Noting that Seattle is an "international city," Gregoire defined that gauzy term by saying an international city could not possibly have on-street parking downtown or two-way streets. (So much for New York and Paris, but nevermind.) Those may be weird definitions, but they are unmistakable signals that she is buying into the stakeholder group's emerging consensus to divert a lot of viaduct through traffic to Seattle's downtown streets, thus needing only a four-lane, slow boulevard on the central waterfront.

But this is only a hint, so far, a kind of don't-hold-me-to-it pander to Seattle urbanists who favor this solution. The actual recommendation of the state-convened group is not due out until after election day next November. Likewise, another mediation group is keeping alive the hope that the 520 bridge could afford a deep tunnel connecting the bridge to the Husky Stadium intersection, so the governor doesn't alienate the Montlake zealots. Gregoire's opponent for governor, Dino Rossi, meanwhile has surprised many by saying he now favors a skinny-lane tunnel on the waterfront, and also an eight-lane 520, thus appeasing both the eco-density gang on the waterfront and the highway-hugging traditionalists in the suburbs. (Rossi badly needs some transportation advisers of a contemporary outlook.)

The other politician putting his head up above the foxhole, just a bit, is state House Speaker Frank Chopp, who has all along wanted the viaduct to remain elevated (for those great views) and able to handle all 110,000 vehicles a day that it currently carries. These ideas are anathema in Seattle, so Chopp has tried (always backstage) to come up with mitigations. First he put a park lid on top the new structure. The latest version, unveiled to the unimpressed stakeholders' group last week, is a lower structure, partially covered with green space and incorporating new buildings and low-income housing to help pay for the costs and spread around the political benefits. The new structure would reportedly be moved out to the shoreline, where its great weight would be a problem over such deep water.

The imperatives of getting re-elected, combined with the wariness of politicians who lit all those exploding cigars last time, mean that we don't get to know the actual proposal until after we've done our duty in the voting booth. But it's getting pretty obvious that there is a broad coalition on the new waterfront plan, including unions, the urban design crowd, the Downtown Seattle Association, and greens. It means a surface boulevard replacing the viaduct, and various ways of deflecting the extra traffic with a little more transit (bus rapid transit serving Aurora, Ballard, and West Seattle) and a lot of new traffic capacity on Seattle streets, especially Western, First, and Second avenues. State, county, and city politicians seem on board (always excepting Chopp).

It's one thing to be on board when everything is still not public. The real test will come when the public sees the details, stores start screaming about lost curb parking out front, and everyone worries about how the scheme might end up diverting too many cars to I-5, already jammed. (The I-5 impact had originally been Gregoire's main reason for ridiculing the surface option.) The other real test is getting anything past the all-powerful Speaker Chopp, though he may budge if there's enough low-income housing somehow worked into the package.

The story marks a remarkable political journey by local politicians. They have gone from thinking that all the present traffic needed to be accommodated by any solution to the viaduct to thinking in terms of moving people (in various modes), not just cars. All these urban freeways were once paid for largely by federal money. Now they are in need of expensive repair and the feds have fled. One solution is to scrape up local money to rebuild them. When the voters said a loud No to that idea (and the climate change issue moved to the fore), we quietly thought about another approach: removing freeways. It might work.

Gregoire: "Watch me tear Viaduct Down!"

Gregoire: 'Watch me' tear down the viaduct
Governor tells the city she won't let issue be pushed to back burner 1/3/08
By CHRIS McGANN
P-I CAPITOL CORRESPONDENT

OLYMPIA-- With or without Seattle's approval, the state will tear down the earthquake-damaged Alaskan Way Viaduct in 2012, Gov. Chris Gregoire said Thursday.

"It's coming down in 2012. I'm taking it down -- the middle," she said, referring to the elevated portion of the span that runs roughly from Battery Street Tunnel to Pioneer Square, which has been the most vexing and controversial piece of the transportation puzzle.

"That's the timeline. I'm not going to fudge on it. And if we don't have some alternative by then, boy are we going to have a mess on our hands because it's coming down."

Asked if she, as governor, could trump the state's largest city and county and unilaterally tear down a highway that carries more than 100,000 vehicles a day through the heart of Seattle, Gregoire said:

"Yeah, watch me."

The governor set a hard deadline after a tortured and unsuccessful attempt to resolve the issue last year. At that time Seattle, King County and the state fought and floundered in their attempts to produce a viable option for replacing or rebuilding the viaduct.

Instead of a new $2.8 billion elevated highway similar to the current viaduct the state wanted, Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels fought for a more expensive tunnel and King County Executive Ron Sims wanted a street-level solution that would have included much more transit.

Last year Gregoire twisted arms and issued her recommendation but ultimately deferred the decision to Seattle voters, who rejected both a proposed elevated rebuild and a more expensive tunnel along the waterfront. The surface option was not on the ballot.

In the end, elected leaders agreed to a truce and opted to begin demolition and utility relocation on the south end of the roadway.

That gave everyone until 2012 to agree about how to replace the double-decker section through the heart of the city.

Now Gregoire said she's not letting the issue get pushed to a political back burner.

Seattle Deputy Mayor Tim Ceis said setting an inflexible deadline is unrealistic.

"This is not just an issue for the city of Seattle to ensure that the system functions when it comes down, this is an issue for the entire state of Washington, because this is the economic center for the state," he said.

If the statement was intended to be a threat, Ceis said, it would be out of character to Gregoire.

"I find it hard to believe that she is issuing a threat right now because we are all working so well together. ... It's everybody's objective to get the viaduct down as soon as is possible and practical. But in order to do that, you have to ensure that projects have been funded and completed that allow the transportation system to continue to function if you cut off that corridor."

He said the city and the state are making good progress toward crafting a workable solution the people will agree on.

"No matter what, the state has to be a constructive partner in this project," Ceis said. "The state has the funding and we need to be able to make those fixes to the rest of the system in order for the viaduct to come down by 2012."

Ceis said the timeline was not, in itself, impossible, "but it's going to take a real push by all parties involved."

As for the sticky question of how to pay for the project, Gregoire said the state would keep its commitment to provide $2.8 billion. Any more would have to come from other sources.

Although she plans to team up with other governors to appeal to the federal government for increased investments in state infrastructure projects, Gregoire said that money would not be secured in time for the viaduct replacement.

Sims applauded the governor's hard deadline and her openness to addressing the problem with a much more comprehensive solution.

"The viaduct has to come down. It's not safe," Sims said. "I support (Gregoire's) position on that. It is a tough decision to make ... but it's the smart thing to do."

In the past, Gregoire opposed a surface option, but in recent months she has said she's now open to the idea.

In last year's debate, Speaker of the House Frank Chopp, D-Seattle, was unbending about his desire to rebuild an elevated viaduct.

"I'm comfortable with her statement," he said. "That project has got to get resolved; it cannot just go on forever."

He said Gregoire had already made her deadline clear.

"I remember her telling me that a long time ago because obviously, it's a safety issue," he said.

As the discussion continues about a surface option, leaders are careful to explain they aren't simply talking about a ground-level highway along the waterfront.

The viaduct traffic would have to be dispersed and otherwise addressed through a wide swath of Seattle.

"What Greg (Nickels) and Ron (Sims) and I have talked about is: 'Let's stop thinking about replacement of the Alaska Way Viaduct and start thinking about how do we do transportation in all of Seattle from I-5 to the waterfront,' " Gregoire said.

"We really are fundamentally not efficient and effective now. Our offramps from I-5 are not efficient to the flow of traffic. What international city do we know of that would have two-way traffic in downtown? What international city do we know of that would have street parking in the middle of downtown?

"We have not stepped back, collectively ... and said, 'How can we make this a user-friendly, international city?'

"That's why a 'surface option' is on the table now," Gregoire said. "If we simply say replace the viaduct, and if that's all we do, the surface option won't work. I still stand by that. I've looked at it, the ramifications to the waterfront are terrible. We won't have any legitimate freight mobility. ... The surface option works only (and I don't know if it does) but only if you look at the totality."

P-I reporter Chris McGann can be reached at 360-943-3990 or

Eyman lays groundwork for I-985

Tim Eyman's great year 1/28/08

You might love to hate him, but the populist initiative king is having a banner year — and even liberals are finding some areas where Eyman's laws are helping. Maybe you should send him a thank-you card.

By Knute Berger
Few political obits are as much anticipated as Tim Eyman's, but rumors of the Mukilteo watch salesman-turned-populist-crusader's demise are, as Mark Twain once said about his own, greatly exaggerated. In fact, these days, Eyman is in his prime. Maybe there's a reason his email-Christmas card depicted him as a dancing elf.

His victory prance seems anomalous since the state's Blue-ward shift has marginalized the state conservatives. Democrats control Olympia and they've taken much of the suburbs from the GOP. But Eyman has advantages as a political player: he doesn't need to lead, he can cherry pick his issues, he's not a party animal, and sometimes, he does things that prove to be popular not only with Reds, but Blues and Purples too. That freedom has turned him, despite the vitriol of his opponents, into a political player on a par with Gov. Christine Gregoire and House Speaker Frank Chopp. Arguably, he's the most influential conservative in the state.

Let's take a quick survey of his domain.

Last fall, voters approved the Eyman initiative, I-960, that makes it more difficult for the legislature to raise taxes. It also requires that the public get email alerts when tax legislation is proposed with estimates of how much they will cost. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports that the initiative is already working, indeed, it's "rattling" Olympia as constituents are demanding to know the details of proposed tax increase bills and legislators are thinking twice about wallet-draining proposals.

Also late last year, the state Supreme Court knocked down another Eyman initiative, I-747, that put limits on property tax increases. Another failure for Eyman, right? Hardly. With the moral leverage of the I-960 passage, a looming election year for Gregoire, and Democrats looking to expand their conquest of swing districts, the Democrat-led legislature leapt into action in a special session to codify the basics of Eyman's anti-tax initiative into law. Was it a win-win? No, it was an "I win." Eyman dissed the legislature as panderers while also claiming credit for the legislative victory.

Eyman has always been out of step with Seattle liberals. I remember some years ago, we featured him on the cover of Seattle Weekly in a story in which he provocatively said what he would do "If I ran Seattle." Readers trashed the issue with anti-Eyman stickers and one reader faxed a copy of the cover with a little Hitler mustache drawn on Eyman's face--it looked rather convincing given the brown suit Eyman wore in the cover shot. But the residents on this islet of the Blue archipelago continually under-estimate the fact that much as they hate Tim Eyman, many of his ideas are popular and, dare I say it, not radical but mainstream. Some of Eyman's laws are even producing results that frustrated liberal Seattleites are happy about.

Mainly, I-900, the Eyman performance audit initiative which passed in 2005. It is proving a boon. The idea was to unleash the state auditor, currently Democrat Brian Sonntag, to look into the performance of public entities, ranging from state agencies to local ports, stadium authorities--whatever--and suss out problems. Opponents of I-900 complained that it would be used as a political tool by Sonntag (considered by some in Olympia to be a grandstander) and Eyman, who could use the audits to push initiatives. That's turned out to be true. But is it a bad thing?

Performance audits are squishier than straight-forward financial audits because they inevitably get into policy areas--matters not of math but interpretation, priorities, methodologies, management. Nevertheless, Sonntag's audits are producing information that the public is happy to have. Exhibit A: the audit of the Port of Seattle, a nearly impenetrable public entity that has had the whiff of waste, arrogance and corruption about it for years. The recent audit of the Port has unleashed a firestorm of criticism. It has day-lighted questionable practices and scratched the Port's coat of Teflon that has frustrated the media, citizen activists and Port-watchers for years. It has also goaded the state and the Port to take some action toward reforms, even as they deny there really is a problem.

Eyman is often ridiculed for silly public stunts, like showing up in a gorilla suit. But Eyman's outrage over the Port at a recent meeting seems like the normal, shared outrage many people feel at displays of Port arrogance. No matter what you think of Eyman, it's hard not to cheer him on when the Port is his whipping boy.

Eyman has said he will push a King County initiative to eliminate the Port's ability to levy property taxes--an idea previously pushed by former Port Commission Alex Fisken, a liberal Democrat who works for the city. Eyman also likes the idea of having the county take over the port and wants all of the audit's recommendations implemented. In the meantime, the feds have opened a criminal inquiry into the Port.

Some audit skeptics are waiting to see if there's a there there in terms of criminal activity, but the public has a lesser standard. Proof of waste and abuse of public trust is enough. The bottom line: Tim Eyman passed a law that jump-started the process of getting to the bottom of one of the biggest sinkholes in local governance accountability. There may be some grandstanding going on, but maybe that's what it takes.

Transportation is another area where Eyman's populism might prove popular. Recent audits have prodded and found fault with Sound Transit (they failed to deliver light rail on time and on budget as promised in 1996) and the Department of Transportation (not enough done on congestion relief, slow progress on some repair projects). There are critics of Sound Transit and the WSDOT on both sides of the political aisle who are ready to believe the worst of these entities.

But the roads-friendly Eyman is also honing new plans to deal with congestion and responding to Gregoire's recent declaration that 520 will be tolled. In his 2008 initiative, he'll look to funnel funds into car-friendly congestion relief schemes and he seek to limit how road tolls can be used.

The tolling debate is moving to the front burner and no one is sure where the public stands. I talked recently with a very knowledgeable transportation policy veteran who is part of a group looking at regional tolling. He said that the public is of two minds about tolls, according to polling. The public likes "user fees," but hates "tolls."

While many people would not object to paying a specific toll to pay for a specific bridge's construction (as with the original Lake Washington bridges, or with new Tacoma Narrows), policy makers are looking at tolls as part of more widespread revenue generating schemes. Already, the notion has been put forth that if 520 is tolled, I-90 must be tolled also, otherwise more chaos and congestion will ensue. But by that logic, you can argue that all major commuter routes should be tolled. Some policy wonks do.

Eyman says putting tolls on roads to pay for other projects is simply taxation by another name. He'll likely find support for limiting tolls: from people who hate them on general principle to Seattle area commuters who see limiting tolls as reasonable. Then there are social progressives who object to tolling from a social justice perspective because they fall hard on the poor and are often a precursor to privatization. In short, Eyman's initiative may define the early tolling debate before anyone has a chance to propose anything more ambitious, and it will likely define tolls as unpopular taxes, not acceptable "user fees."

It looks like Tim Eyman good run will continue. More audits rooting out public abuse, hamstrung lawmakers in Olympia, Democrats eager to codify tax limits. Plus, he's in the driver's seat when it comes the future of transportation funding. No wonder he's feeling like a jolly elf. He's got good reason to be frisky

* Knute Berger is Mossback, Crosscut's chief Northwest native. He also writes the monthly Gray Matters column for Seattle magazine and is a weekly Friday guest on Weekday on KUOW-FM (94.9). You can e-mail him at mossback@crosscut.com.

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