Today the Governor will sign the bored-tunnel bill authorizing that we spend billions of dollars on two miles of highway. This is a mistake. I was one of the 29 citizens who sat on the Stakeholder Advisory Committee. We worked together for over a year, building trust among folks in the community who don’t always work well together, to really understand the concerns that others had in deciding how best to replace the existing structure in a way that met the needs of our future. Over the course of the year, we studied 11 different scenarios to determine which would best meet our collective goals.
The process was very well run by the respective departments of transportation, and by the end I had a much better understanding of the needs of the freight community, the neighborhoods, downtown businesses, and the broader environmental community. We ultimately reached consensus on two designs that we felt could best meet our collective goals: throughput investments to I-5 combined with transit investments and surface street improvements, or a rebuild of an elevated structure without the downtown exits. I strongly prefer the first option. The other nine options were eliminated because they had fatal flaws. This was a collaborative process at its best. It was a lot of work on the part of the committee and the staff over the course of a year, but it was worth it because of the product we produced.
Then something happened that happens all too often in this town. The voice of the people was ignored. The Governor, Mayor, and County Executive came in and thanked us for all of our work, then threw it in the trash. They created a twelfth option that had not been studied - a single deep bore tunnel that would be the largest diameter tunnel of its kind ever built anywhere on our planet. In a couple weeks they did their own analysis, disregarded the year of work from the committee and decided on a new course.
As you might expect, there are all sorts of problems with the new course: it costs a billion dollars more than the recommended alternatives; the technology is untested, creating scenarios for additional cost overruns; it focuses the spending exclusively on automobile capacity with no funding for alternatives such as transit; it leaves the existing dangerous structure in place well beyond the promised closure of 2012; and it locks us into a design that will continue to encourage ever-increasing dependence upon foreign oil.
The biggest problem, however, is the process. In March 2007 they asked us what we wanted in a vote, and 70% of us said no tunnel. In the stakeholder process they asked us to come up with a better alternative. We did. They ignored us both times, and that was the only part that was predictable. In an exit poll in March 2007, only 14% of respondents said the politicians would listen to the voters. That is the real tragedy.
There is no shortage of people in our city who have great ideas and care immensely about our future. As a councilmember, I will call on all of you for your input in collaborative processes, but then I will actually listen to your input and fight to implement recommendations.
You totally have my vote.
It’s no different than when the citizenry voted down a new ball park. We were ignored
and those in charge knew better what was good for the taxpayers than did the
taxpayers.
You’ve seen this, right?
http://www.seattle.gov/Transportation/awv.htm
Note the window title: The Alaskan Way Viaduct: The Facts
Makes it sound as if this was all happily approved by the advisory council, in a “transparent process.”
Steve
Oh also, is there a link to the council’s conclusions?
Steve