Doesn’t the whole Viaduct thing seem more like a bad movie every day? Usually a comedy; hopefully not eventually a tragedy. Today’s plot twist: The No-Tunnel-No-Way state legislative leader starts making Third Option noises. Incidentally, the official ballot measures we’ll be voting on by-mail-only (boo) are now online (here’s tunnel yes/no; here’s replacement-a-duct yes/no).
I just read the article about this in the Seattle Times. My take on things, my question about things. Yes , I use to viaduct to get to my doc on Greenlake, yes, I use the viaduct to get to my daughter in Magnolia, and , of course, to get to downtown on occasion. I live AND work in West Seattle, so lucky me doens’t have to commute there. But…I don’t understand how Tunnel Lite, and a surface street option will allow me access to the downtown core, i.e., First Ave. Seneca, Union, Pike, etc. They’re all way uphill from the surace streets. I haven’t seen detailed plans, so maybe it’s addressed..but how am I to know? If my downtown access is King St. then I may as well rely on taking First Avenue all the way, which I would do now, for that option. By the way, I was called a few weeks ago by survey takers asking my opinions on Tunnel Lite and the replacement option. It was divided into 2 sets of questions, mostly redundant, with the first ones asked by the replacement people, and the second set of questions asked by the tunnel people. All in all, probably not worth my time, since the questions were definitely slanted, in my opinion, towards whoever was asking. I kinda felt bad for the poor guy who had to make the calls. It didn’t sway my opinion one bit, for sure. I haven’t seen any results from said”survery”, so assume it was just a political thing. I think that we need more answers from the planners of these things in order to make a good decision about this on the popularity contest vote in March…oh, well…did anyone else get a call like that?
This is ridiculous political bullcrap. The damn thing has steel reinforcements strapped to it, so we know it’s falling apart. Cars carpet the thing every day. An earthquake could happen at any time. Can these idiots just DO something? Please? Before it crushes thousands of people and makes the world see what a bunch of morons are running this circus.
Yes; I got one. It’s called a “push poll”, and it’s unethical. That the “poller” did identify the groups who paid for the “poll” is to their credit, although disguising a campaign call as a poll is pretty dirty: The sponsoring groups were identified as: “Not Another Elevated Viaduct” and “Friends for a Better Waterfront”.
I have not received any calls. However, I feel the tunnel will best serve the condo-owners in downtown Seattle. I enjoy the viaduct and would like to see the same sort infrastructure. I will not use the tunnel, if it’s built, considering the topography. And, it’s a freakin’ tunnel. We should learn from other cities, like Boston’s Big Dig. Driving on the viaduct, you get to take in the views. Our (West Seattle resident) Mayor seems really bent on the tunnel and I would like to know what his motivation is.
I also say “boo” to not having the option to go to a polling place to vote. I like the pomp and circumstance of it all.
Rhonda, I felt the same way you do until I learned a bit more about the rebuild.
The views we currently enjoy from the viaduct would mostly be eliminated with a rebuild in order to meet current safety standards/regulations. The new viaduct would also be 50% wider (!) and 13% taller.
I’m still undecided on the tunnel, but I know for sure that I don’t want a rebuild. You don’t have to live in a condo downtown to not want to see something so big and ugly built right on our city’s waterfront.
The original and now tunnel lite options offer no downtown exits/entrances (Seneca/Columbia). If you want to get downtown you either get off at King Street or bypass downtown and go to Western and then double back. Seems woefully inefficient. The elevated option at least preserves the exits. But I agree the elevated design proposed leaves a lot to be desired. At least one elected official feels the same, listen to his comments here http://kuow.org/DefaultProgram.asp?ID=12219
I just don’t see how a surface street replacement is going to make the waterfront a pleasing place to be. Just seems that there would now be cars whizzing by at 50 mph on the same level as the pedestrians.
a curiosity question….we have seen artist’s renderings of how the waterfront would look without a viaduct…all green and wonderful and oh, so pretty. Are there any artist’s rendering of what a new viaduct would look like…how different it would look than what we have now? Are there plans that the normal citizen can look at? All I hear is that it would be just as ugly as what we have now…I’d like to see how ugly. Does anyone know where to find this information?
Jan, the “no elevated structure” campaign folks have something like that on their site:
http://www.noelevated.org/bigger.html
Not quite the same thing but helps visualize a bit.
Sorry, comment time is over.
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