52 Replies to "Election 2011: Tunnel referendum 'yes' leads, & other results"

• westello August 16, 2011 (8:54 pm)

  Some analysis of the School Board elections:

  – the incumbents all survived and handily

  – however, in 3 of the races, the totals of all the challengers’ votes were over 50% and the fourth one, just under 50%

  – the highest total vote count against an incumbent (59.02%) was against Sherry Carr in Position 2 (but she had the largest number of challengers)

  – Peter Maier, in Position 1, surprisingly came in first of all the incumbents at 50.97%. Hard to believe it will hold for the general as he was the one incumbent in the best position to call a early whistle on the Silas Potter case.

  – Hard to know if all the voters who went for a challenger will hold to that in the general election but if they do, we’re going to see a changed School Board

• (required) August 16, 2011 (9:48 pm)

  Our state needs to rid its constitution and laws of citizens initiatives and referenda. We elect people to make decisions, not to punt questions back to us. Elected officials that cannot decide, or decide against the public will, should be voted out. Referenda and initiatives make elected officials more obsequious and less effective. Worst, these citizen votes leave important decisions to slim percentages of voters who vote, and of those, more than half often don’t read or understand all the issues they vote on. Awful way to do business. Just sayin.’

• visitor August 16, 2011 (10:48 pm)

  >>>>Elected officials that cannot decide, or decide against the public will

  Question: how would elected officials know what the public will is, on particular issues?

• Aman August 16, 2011 (10:52 pm)

  Yeah! mayor mcginn supports the tunnel! (I think?) Does anyone know if it will have a bicycle lane?

• JanS August 16, 2011 (11:13 pm)

  Aman..Mayor McGinn has never supported the tunnel. He said he did before he was elected mayor, at the last minute, but changed his mind after he was elected.

• dm August 16, 2011 (11:45 pm)

  I worry about West Seattle. Best of luck to everyone.

• Donn August 16, 2011 (11:52 pm)

  Had someone came up with a real alternative plan to the tunnel and found a way to convert that $2 billion into transit funds from the state, I would have supported that plan. I would love to have seen our leaders support a light rail line from Westwood to Ballard and north to Northgate.

• JN August 17, 2011 (12:02 am)

  I don’t mind all the traffic and congestion the tunnel will end up causing. People adjust and change with traffic patterns. I worry, though, that there will be no money whatsoever for additional transit projects, since we will be throwing our money into the gaping maw that is the DBT.

• Paul August 17, 2011 (12:15 am)

  enjoy your tunnel!

• J August 17, 2011 (1:28 am)

  UHG, Sundquist! I can’t believe a guy can run on an ‘open communication’ platform and never return emails or phone calls of his constituents, and do nothing but spout board policies and ideas at community meetings. Cog.

• redblack August 17, 2011 (6:06 am)

  can’t let you get away with that, jan. mcginn never once said he supported the tunnel. (and he still hasn’t said it, aman.)
  .
  in 2008, he said he would honor agreements made by greg nickels and the city council, provided they were legal and didn’t put seattle on the hook. that’s hardly what i would call “support.”
  .
  but feel free to start the recalls based on revised history.
  .
  JN: spot on and well-said. this project will bring WSDOT to its knees. and if proponents think keeping AWV open until 2016 will make things easier, they have a nasty surprise coming. just read the EIS.
  .
  oh, yeah. one last thing:
  .
  “mcshwinn rides a bicycle and he wants us to give up our carz!!1!1!!”

• wsjeep August 17, 2011 (7:29 am)

  “Our state needs to rid its constitution and laws of citizens initiatives and referenda. We elect people to make decisions, not to punt questions back to us. Elected officials that cannot decide, or decide against the public will, should be voted out. Referenda and initiatives make elected officials more obsequious and less effective. Worst, these citizen votes leave important decisions to slim percentages of voters who vote, and of those, more than half often don’t read or understand all the issues they vote on. Awful way to do business. Just sayin.’”

  I agree with you 110%. Its nice to see another similar thinker, are you from the East Coast? lol

• kmn August 17, 2011 (7:38 am)

  I agree J! Disappointed to see Marty not winning.

• bridge to somewhere August 17, 2011 (8:03 am)

  McGinn: “I worked to give the public a direct vote on the tunnel. The public said move ahead with the tunnel, and that’s what we’re going to do.” It seems to me McGinn is trying to spin his foot-dragging now. I suspect Seattle voters aren’t going to be fooled by someone hiding his agenda behind a bunch of convoluted processes . . .

• cj August 17, 2011 (8:12 am)

  Enjoy your death trap, er tunnel. Oh and the bottleneck and ramp building to funnel people to the toll booth that goes with it, and the added cost, and the destruction of a number of businesses downtown while building it followed by the excuses why rebuilding never follows.

  A lot of people do wait till the last minute to vote though , it only requires a post mark the day of. Lets hope they actually count them.

• Mike August 17, 2011 (9:26 am)

  20 years in the process to possibly make a start on the tunnel. Good god, finally!
  .
  For those that are freaked out by the tunnel, say it’s a death trap, yap about how horrible it will be. I point you to Oslo, Norway. They have an absolutely amazing waterfront, pretty much the same situation as we’re in now they fixed many moons ago. They also have similar water ways as Puget Sound. Take a look at http://www.bergen-guide.com/538.htm

• Huindekmi August 17, 2011 (9:34 am)

  Funny thing happened this morning. I grabbed my smartphone and wanted to get election results.

  My first stop was the Seattle Times website. Even though they just went through another web redesign, they STILL don’t have a mobile version of their site, which is designed for use with a big monitor and high resolution. Only one legible headline off the bat – the tunnel vote. But I want all the results for my district. After a bunch of zooming and panning, I find a sublink to a Full Results page. That page has some MS widget on it that isn’t loading on my phone. FAIL.

  Next stop – Seattle P-I. They’ve had a mobile version for a long time now. But the filtering for their mobile headlines seems to be based on facebook forwarding popularity. The top local news – same as it’s been for two weeks now – is about a Sounders coin toss at the Space Needle. I find one headline about the tunnel vote. Digging deeper and deeper into the local categories, I still can’t find a link to full results. FAIL.

  Finally, I come to WSBlog. Nice mobile interface. Second headline with a link to a story with the full election results.

  I should have started here first.

  • WSB August 17, 2011 (9:38 am)

    Thank you, Huindekmi. You just made up for our day getting off to a rocky start :) – TR

• sun*e August 17, 2011 (9:40 am)

  What is the alternative to building a tunnel? Anyone?…Bueller?…Bueller? All I saw was opposition and no other plan. I think people that don’t live in West Seattle don’t realize what our commute is really like most days; they need to live in our shoes/cars. What we need is a good, if not better alternative to the tunnel before we can really be expected to vote against it.

• Aman August 17, 2011 (9:49 am)

  REACTION: Mayor McGinn just broke his silence via Twitter: “I worked to give the public a direct vote on the tunnel. The public said move ahead with the tunnel, and that’s what we’re going to do.”

  Why would the mayor “move ahead” with the tunnel if he didn’t (now) kinda ‘endorse it?’ He’s free to change his mind. Afterall, he IS a politician.

• metrognome August 17, 2011 (9:49 am)

  light rail from Westwood to Ballard … just snorted corn flakes out my nose!
  The tunnel referendum may have been as much about McGinn’s future as mayor as it may have been about the tunnel.
  As far as the tunnel being a death trap … someone’s been watching too many Hollywood disaster movies.

• bsmomma August 17, 2011 (10:05 am)

  I was under the understanding that regardless of a Yes/No vote for the tunnel issue, it was still going to be built either way. I thought the vote had something to do with HOW the process would go…….sooner vs. later. I think I have just given into the fact that this Tunnel is going to happen one way or another and our commute out of WS will be totally screwed for a tunnel that a lot of us will not use because we don’t need to OR out of principle OR because we’re claustrophobic.

  • WSB August 17, 2011 (10:14 am)

    BSM – Technically, the vote itself was not capable of stopping the project, but if “reject” had prevailed (and yes, the votes have not all been counted, but in 25+ years of covering elections, I’ve never seen a 60-40 margin reverse), it would have meant that the City Council would have had to vote again on this particular part of the process regarding agreements they signed. And if they voted “yes” again, theoretically, another referendum could have been brought forward on that. And so on, ad infinitum. But it was of course seen as a much broader symbolic vote – if “reject” had prevailed, it would also have been a political dilemma for tunnel supporters, who would have been faced with concrete proof of opponents’ ongoing claims it was an unpopular project. – TR

• mightymo August 17, 2011 (10:14 am)

  sun*e – the alternatives have been talked about before, chief among them a combination of improving I-5 and surface streets along with transit corridors and other alternative modes of transportation. That this alternative isn’t a conveniently packaged plan is because government agencies chose a preferred plan (the most expensive plan) and pushed for it hard-core while giving lip service to studying alternatives.

• Tuesday August 17, 2011 (10:18 am)

  Wow. I’m flabbergasted. Is anyone aware that Boston is STILL paying for their tunnel debacle? They’re trying to add a fee (tax) to pay for BASIC road maintenance here. I wonder what kind of tax they’ll come out with post tunnel. Because of course they don’t want it caving in on anyone DURING AN EARTHQUAKE and certainly existing taxes and proposed sky-high tolls will never be enough to maintain it. This result really does confirm that the rational voter truly is a myth.

• WS commuter August 17, 2011 (10:19 am)

  I tend to agree with metrognome … even as a tunnel supporter, I think as many people voted for Ref.1 because they knew McGinn was against it. If I could lay book, I’d bet heavily that McGinn will (thankfully) be gone in two years (I see he’s already started his re-election fund-raising … are we a tad nervous, Mr. Mayor?)

  I’m glad the vote went the way it did because no matter what, the tunnel was always going to be built, but now we’re spared the public caterwauling about “the meaning of a no vote” … and of course today, McGinn is spinning wildly (his press release being remarkably disingenuous … but entirely in character for him).

  Sigh of relief that we can get on with this.

  And for those of you “death trap” or “toll booth” fear-mongerers … c’mon … get real. Just don’t use it if you actually believe these things.

• husky August 17, 2011 (10:37 am)

  Now we get to spend more money we don’t have, and borrow some more from China to pay for this fancy tunnel.

• Mike August 17, 2011 (11:20 am)

  20 years, just remember that when people complain about the cost now and how we ‘now’ don’t have money for this project. They delayed and complained and bickered for two decades about this idea to put in a tunnel. It used to cost a lot less and was a much larger tunnel. Back then we had a booming economy. Wouldn’t it have been nice to have the tunnel already and support our economy more without having to worry about paying for it NOW? Stop delaying, dig!

• Tuesday August 17, 2011 (11:25 am)

  Death trap maybe not, but tolls are an undeniable reality.

• Dave August 17, 2011 (11:35 am)

  “Death Trap”? and the current Viaduct held together with glue and dreams is what, a unicorn ride?

• WS commuter August 17, 2011 (12:07 pm)

  Tuesday – our situation is NOT analogous to Boston (despite the fear-mongering here to try to compare our project to Boston). The reasons why Boston’s Central Artery went so bad are mostly inapplicable here – not that our DBT doesn’t have risk (all project do), but my guess is that you’ll see this project is much more rooted in sound engineering planning (including the worst-case scenario of a stuck TBM) and the costs for all of that. Will it come in on budget? I don’t know. But I do know the planning here is far superior to what Boston did.

  Tolls – a fact of life – we pay for what we use. See the Narrows Bridge … SR 520 … and others to come. People don’t want to pay an income tax in this state, but then complain when they have to pay user fees.

• jedifarfy August 17, 2011 (12:16 pm)

  Even if I’m not a fan of the tunnel, at least they made SOME decision. Now it’s only 10 years before the council figures out how to pay for it, decides it’s too expensive, and cancels the whole thing. Yay!

• Ash August 17, 2011 (1:10 pm)

  @Dave, no kidding, right?! I would rather be driving in a brand new tunnel than anywhere near the viaduct in an earthquake. I just don’t understand how we can continue to argue time away when the current solution is such a liability.

• george August 17, 2011 (1:24 pm)

  I wouldn’t exactly call Boston’s Dig a piece of cake. There’s a reason for the larger budget. It included a multi layer tunnel connecting I-90/I-93, a suspension bridge, subway trains, a tunnel to the airport and viaducts that were much bigger and longer than the AWV. If you could see a comparison of before and after, you’d be amazed at the results of the pedestrian avenues that were built over the interstate in downtown Boston. Envisioning that where the AWV is now would be an amazing evolution to the waterfront. I wouldn’t exactly call Seattle’s planning “superior” to Boston. “Joke” seems to be more plausible.

• johnny Davies August 17, 2011 (1:35 pm)

  The Hoover Dam took 5 years to build. Today’s technology & available workforce – this tunnel could be built in two. Bring the troops home & reinvest the War $ in America’s infrastructure. Employ some of the unemployed making America a better place, thereby kickstarting the economy. Lets get to work! Glad to see something happening.

• My two cents ... August 17, 2011 (4:46 pm)

  Initiative & Referendum? Too bad that Eyeman and others have used this tool to their own means. We elect leaders to gather and make decisions for today and tomorrow – the general populace isn’t the way to go about this. You can’t boil down everything down to a 30 second sound bite. Issues require research, time, effort — based on polling numbers, this is sorely lacking.

  Boston comparison? Come on! Boston cost over-run does not automatically equate to Seattle cost over-runs. A valid concern? Yes, but fact? No.

  Metro Tunnel? Seem to remember a it of hand-wringing over that – cost and otherwise. How did that work out overall for the city, commuters? ‘Nuffield said. Emphasis on overall success people.

  McGinn Legacy? One term mayor whose agenda, while admirable in some respects was ultimately doomed because of the backlash. Who will be funding his plans his plans for the next term? Has he improved relations with the council (or vice versa)?

• Cascadianone August 17, 2011 (5:28 pm)

  Thankfully, I don’t work downtown. For those of you who do, good luck when the viaduct comes down… You can thank a tunnel supporter for your endless commute.

  Are we ready to secede Seattle and rename ourselves North Burien yet???

• JayDee August 17, 2011 (6:27 pm)

  No majority of the voting public supported any of the options, and still doesn’t–they just voted to end the pain. Holding elections for unpopular decisions is stupid–we elect representatives to express our will. I wholly agree with Westello.
  –
  Second, I predict the last refuge for those supporting other options will be voting for Eyman’s anti-toll proposal. It will be the definition of “strange bedfellows”: Eyman and the pro-transit/surface option progressives.
  –
  Lastly this has nothing in common with the scope of the Big Dig. As Danny Westneat pointed out we dug a railroad tunnel under Seattle by hand in the 1800s–surely we can do it now.

• Mike August 17, 2011 (6:55 pm)

  Cascadianone, our options are
  .
  1) Keep the current viaduct and let nature kill a few thousand people during rush hour.
  .
  2) Band-aid fix the current viaduct and let nature kill a few thousand people during rush hour.
  .
  3) Take the viaduct down and put a new viaduct in it’s place and let nature kill a few thousand people during rush hour.
  .
  4) Take the viaduct down, but get this… a tunnel project can be started before it’s removed! *gasp*
  .
  5) Take the viaduct down and ‘then’ start the tunnel project.
  .
  The cheapest route for local politicians is to have an earthquake take the viaduct down, then they can get Federal disaster money to replace it and it’ll only cost lives of people driving on and near it when it crumbles.

• SLS August 17, 2011 (8:19 pm)

  A couple points, the first of which has been said many times, but is worth repeating:
  1. SDOT or anyone else calling this a replacement for the Alaskan Way Viaduct is wrong in that it’s not a true replacement of like function — it’s a different function. Most rush hour commuters are using the current viaduct to get into downtown using the Seneca or Western Avenue exits. The tunnel, however, bypasses downtown, so this isn’t the same function. And it’s the function that somehow got missed by those planning all of this.
  2. The construction work on the SW end of the viaduct down near the port is pretty much proof that a true replacement structure could have been planned and built by now.

• Cascadianone August 17, 2011 (9:08 pm)

  Mike,

  I think you are a bit confused. Read the SDEIS Executive Report: http://www.seattle.gov/transportation/docs/TunSEATTLECCTMP00ExecSumm.pdf

  The proper choice was to build the ST-5 Hybrid: Surface, Transit and I-5 improvements. This would eventually lead to demolishing the current viaduct and leaving a ground-level street with connectivity to downtown. Shockingly, this produced the lowest impact or congestion on our streets. It would also have met your goal of allowing traffic to continue on the viaduct while the other parts were put into place.

  The tunnel was the choice of megacorps and ultra-wealthy real estate magnates. It was chosen despite rickety funding, harsh traffic impacts and a complete lack of connectivity to the city’s core for those us of in Ballard/Magnolia/West Seattle.

  Make no mistake sir, we were fooled and we will suffer for it. That tunnel may never be finished, but just like the monorail, you and I will be on the hook for millions. I have to wonder if they sit in their skyscraper board rooms and laugh evilly or if they actually feel some shame for how they treat us; these secret masters who rule our city???

• wscommuter August 17, 2011 (10:34 pm)

  Cascadiaone … please, by all means – provide proof to document your statement that the DBT was selected to appease “megacorps and ultra-wealthy real estate magnates.”

  Proof. Not your delusional, paranoid rantings … proof. This isn’t Fox News – this is the WSB. Opinions are fine, but you’re acting as though this is fact.

  I’m really – be serious.

• redblack August 18, 2011 (5:08 am)

  cascadianone: i tend to agree. ST5 should have come first and foremost, regardless of which option ultimately replaces the viaduct. as EIS admits, there is no mitigation for traffic displaced by tolls. that alone could run into the billions, almost doubling the cost of this project.
  .
  the other thing EIS fails to talk about is cost of removal of AWV. while it claims that the tunnel will be complete in 2016, it never mentions what happens afterwards. AWV has to come down, followed by years of disruption of alaskan way while SDOT rebuilds the seawall.
  .
  the other options discussed in the EIS – and to those tunnel cheerleaders who are too lazy to read it, there are 2 other options and a non-option option – get both replacement options and AWV removal finished at the same time.
  .
  the EIS is more of a sales pitch for the DBT than anything else. but it does confirm for me that cut-and-cover is a superior plan.
  .
  and before you start harping about the importance of 99 as a through-route, take a look at what your commute is going to look like starting in october for 5.5 years from the day they eventually begin – when traffic is diverted to those 2 skinny ramps and slowed to 25 mph.
  .
  saying that DBT keeps the viaduct open as a through-route is like some kind of sick joke.
  .
  we could do no worse by implementing ST5, dropping the viaduct, and fast-tracking cut-and-cover. the result would be a 6-lane tunnel that maintains belltown access, surface improvements, and a superior waterfront that accommodates rail, and a new seawall, all completed by 2020.
  .
  and all paid for.
  .
  DBT gives us half as much for twice the cost.
  .
  but no. we’re too short-sighted to really look at the end results.

• Matt August 18, 2011 (6:45 am)

  Cascadianone, “the secret masters who rule this city” are otherwise known as ‘citizens’ and 60% of them would like to move forward with the tunnel.

• sam-c August 18, 2011 (8:33 am)

  sorry to hear about your cornflakes metrognome. McGinn doesn’t seem to think it is that preposterous though, at least to Ballard anyway-
  from the Seattle Times article:
  “Mayor Mike McGinn, in a statement, thanked the council for putting the fee on the ballot, though he preferred the full $80, for more years, to build rail links, including a Ballard line.”
  http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2015927620_seacartabs17m.html

• george August 18, 2011 (10:31 am)

  96,000 votes have been counted. I hardly count that as a resounding voice.

• huindekmi August 18, 2011 (4:10 pm)

  George – With today’s results, we’re at 118K+ votes counted. That’s 31% of the registered voters. Just what percentage of the registered voters would you consider to be a resounding voice in a mid-summer primary race?

• Aman August 18, 2011 (9:47 pm)

  The votes are in. The percentages do NOT really matter. Respectfully, ALL have had a forum on this issue.

  The mayor has spoken; He said yesterday, “I worked to give the public a direct vote on the tunnel. The public said move ahead with the tunnel, and that’s what we’re going to do.”

  Time to move on to new issues. Maybe a better use of energy & effort. Thank you.

• Mike August 18, 2011 (11:36 pm)

  Cascadianone, the ST-5 Hybrid option does NOTHING for commuters that are using 99 to bypass downtown and avoid I-5 (which is most of the commuters on the viaduct). Throwing mass commuting traffic along the waterfront on surface streets will be a disaster. The waterfront ‘should’ eventually be low levels of car traffic and more foot traffic. However, we have a ferry dock which provides access for thousands every day to get home, so there will still be a need for surface car traffic on one end. Then there’s the train, if we throw traffic in mass amounts along the surface street, you’ll have a massive traffic jam beyond what we currently have every day when the train comes through (best of luck re-routing the train).
  .
  Those mega corps you mention include scientists, environmentalists and lots of very smart but not corporate types from the late 80’s and early 90’s who worked for King County and the City of Seattle. Many got started on this idea for a tunnel after the San Fran quake in ’89 when a road way like our viaduct collapsed http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/october/17/newsid_2491000/2491211.stm

• redblack August 19, 2011 (3:46 am)

  mike: even the EIS says otherwise, and that ST5 should be implemented in addition to a through-route for 99.
  .
  unfortunately, the DBT budget is so tight that it squeaks and there’s no room for what the EIS calls mitigation of toll avoidance.
  .
  respectfully, i think a vast majority don’t know what they’re talking about, what they’re advocating, and what they’ve voted to do to the city in the name of expedience. (just look at how many people ask why the state won’t consider putting downtown exits in a DBT) they got sold a bill of goods and now they’re doing victory laps after voting to crash the local economy some more.
  .
  you know, some things are more important than “i want it now.” but whatever. enjoy your “victory” – while it lasts.
  .
  meanwhile, some of us will be pushing WSDOT to work with the city to implement ST5 simultaneously and immediately, and start tolling 99 forthwith to fill the state’s budget gap.
  .
  you’re welcome.

• Matt August 19, 2011 (7:01 am)

  Redblack–good luck with that.

• Aman August 24, 2011 (11:33 pm)

  “meanwhile, some of us will be pushing WSDOT to work with the city to implement ST5 simultaneously and immediately, and start tolling 99 forthwith to fill the state’s budget gap.”

  Is there an organized collective citizen-effort to do the above? Any website? Planned meetings? Grass-root communication campaign?

  Where can we learn more? Possibly participate/contribute?

Sorry, comment time is over.