Welcome to the fabu world of Washington politics and government: the battle for the Alaskan Way Viaduct.
What a complete and glorious pooch screw.
Anyone that has seen the Seattle coast line in the last fifty years has seen the Alaskan Way Viaduct. It’s an elevated highway with two decks – all concrete and pillars. Nice that it provides a highway-like clear shot through Seattle – in addition to i-5 – and it was built to deal with traffic: it’s a required road. Problem is that it was damaged by an earthquake in 2001. It’s been repaired, but people – read, the Media – has brought it to everyone’s attention that a) earthquakes happen here from time to time, b) elevated highways can be damaged by earthquakes, c) elevated highways don’t stay in the air without help, and d) a long double-deck highway falling to the ground would travel at 9.8 meters per second and, well, hurt everything it touched on the way down.
This sets the stage for the debacle that’s followed.
About a year ago, the Media around here started a mini-hype machine that made it sound like the thing could come down today if someone sneezed near it. That got people talking and when people talk out here it’s insta-debate which turns into insta-protest and government insta-posturing. And don’t get me wrong: I love the fact that people are far more politically aware and active in the community than compared to what I grew up with in CT. It’s really good to see. The problem I have with it is that there seems to be a cache of people that stand ready for the cause of the day. I would swear that they just wait for something new to rabble about, the Media throws them a bone, and *wham*: insta-news for a month or more. For a loose comparison for these types of protesters, see the Cause Heads from PCU.
So now that we’ve got our problem and subsequent debate, what are the options and the opinions?
The mayor proposes that we replace the aging viaduct – that’s how it’s described on the news, 99% of the time: aging, just to hammer home that this is newsworthy! – with an underground tunnel: three lanes per direction. I say, “Whoa, that’s pretty good: opens up the skyline, keeps the same capacity, and will be built with earthquake innovations that have developed over the last 50 years.” Yeah, sure, so it sounded a little like The Big Dig, but it’s not nearly as big and it’s well known that Boston could screw up a wet dream, so I had hope. The public freaks on two fronts. One because of the cost and the other because of the “historical nature of the Viaduct”. Cost? I don’t live in Seattle so I wouldn’t have to foot the bill yet I can totally understand why they would freak about it. Look at how much money they spent on a monorail that never even got one hole dug in the process of construction. The historical nature bit? Che cazzo?! It’s a long slab of concrete for peat’s sake. Historical my ass. If you had the room to close and preserve the thing, fine. Consider it a 1500 year old Roman aqueduct, put a velvet rope around it – make it part of the tour. But what the hell are you thinking otherwise? Traffic is bad enough with this highway open – you don’t want to make it better some how? The conduit has to stay open so preservation is out.
Enter option two, the smaller tunnel. As part of the original tunnel option, civil engineers told the mayor “we dunno about 6 lanes” and the cost was too high at that size, so the mayer said “new option”. This would be crap, honestly… I remember one version had a double decker tunnel and another option dropped it from 6 to 4 lanes – either way, creates more traffic? Meh. At least it would give us back the skyline. Enter more protests for the same reasons as the first tunnel proposal.
Option three? A new viaduct. Uwaaaaaah? Yeah, you heard me. I attribute this to the same mentality that allowed CT lawmakers to not only declare the Merritt Parkway [one of two major arteries between New York City and CT] a historical landmark which – by law – states that it can never be widened. Oh and they spent millions on replacing all of the steel guardrails with wood guardrails because it looked more historical. Traffic is so bad in that part of the state that by 2015 they think it will take 8 hours to go from CT to NYC during the morning commute. Their only other option is a federal highway and is elevated: that won’t be widened any time soon. They didn’t shoot themselves in the foot: they destroyed the rest of the body so the foot would be saved. Same mentality, different highway structure. Feckin’ brilliant.
Enter the governor. She weighs in at this point saying “You can’t have a tunnel.” BAM. Just like that now it’s a full blow political battle.
Washington being Washington, it decides to do it’s most natural thing that it can do: let’s vote about it!
Shortly after the vote is announced, the governor says “vote all you want, you’re getting a viaduct” while the mayor says “let’s see what happens because I want a tunnel”. For the last two weeks there have been Pro-Viaduct and Pro-Tunnel protests all over the city. Demonstrations. Placards even, if you can believe it. At least there were not candle light vigils for either side. Yet. The votes are in and still being counted… the public was asked: “Do you want a tunnel?” followed by “Do you want a new viaduct?” The public [currently] says: no, we don’t want a tunnel and no, we don’t want a new viaduct.
Um, so we are basically agreeing to do nothing until the current viaduct collapses, right? I mean what are the options left? Oh right, those were mentioned this morning: retrofit the existing structure – which is iffy – or bring down the viaduct and let the local streets absorb the traffic – zOMG, are you kidding me?!
Both sides of the protest are claiming victory. Seems that the pro-tunnel people didn’t want a new viaduct; the pro-viaduct people didn’t want a new tunnel. Both of them are happy this morning. The governor doesn’t have to lower the hammer on anyone because her idea was supported – the mayor says that he knew the smaller tunnel plan was bunk and he was just fighting the new viaduct.
The loser? The average driver that needs to commute to and through Seattle. Unless that the average driver is sitting in a mini-van, stuck in traffic, thinking happy thoughts because “democracy just works!”. Sometimes I wonder if people are so dumb that they don’t realize that for democracy to work it means give and take, rather than “stand firm and do nothing no matter what.” Of course, in this case it’s not OK that they debate this until it dies – like the monorail or the last gubernatorial election – because one thing is true: the Alaskan Way Viaduct is old and it does need help, if it’s expected to not collapse. Even if the news isn’t sensationalizing it, I figure it’s got about 10 years left… just enough time to fix it or build a replacement.
I guess my mind balks at the fact that people don’t want to erase a 1950’s eyesore of a highway… why wouldn’t you want to show off your skyline to the bay? How often do you get a chance to correct a decision that was originally made for practical reasons and replace it with something better? In highways, it seems you get a chance once every 50 to 100 years… I would think people would jump at it. I’m obviously wrong.
The real horror of it all is that this will be the lead story for the next two months… just like the “controversial” school closings that went through more rounds of final votes than there are Final Fantasy titles.
Welcome to Washington government, where Lather Rinse Repeat is more than an ideal – it’s a way of life.