Call me asleep at the wheel. I didn’t really realize there was serious talk of making the Viaduct replacement a toll road. It’s mentioned in passing in this Times article today. In a quest for more information, I found the state’s study of Viaduct toll viability. Doesn’t sound like it would be worth the trouble (a few million bucks a year). I think I’d rather try cross-bay swim commuting than try to wade through that sort of mess.

If you have a spare million or so, you’ve got only about two weeks to get in a bid on the sad but promising site of dead monorail dreams … end-of-the-line in more ways than one.

Or maybe you’d prefer a parking lot?

I can completely empathize with this dangerous-driver tale of woe from FairmountSprings.org. Our neighborhood includes a busy intersection where ridiculously rushing drivers routinely ignore signs and put lives at risk. We too have asked about extra city controls, only to receive some sort of foggy multilayered answer about petitions and waiting lists. Note to drivers: Stop signs are there for good reasons. Really. And they’re orders, not suggestions.

Seems like this hits the newspaper traffic columns every week. And here it is again this morning — somebody beefing to the PI (last item) about the morning commuters with self-delusions that they are driving buses. Hey, I’d settle for a couple minutes of slowdown if that’s the only side effect of stationing undercover cops (cleverly disguised as roadside breakdowns, perhaps?) to bust ’em.

Third-to-last paragraph in this P-I story about the status of the monorail tax and the “monorail board” (shouldn’t we call them the non-monorail board?) dithering on when to kill it. “Take it up in his neighborhood”? And this guy expects that pulse-taking to last more than approximately .03 seconds? Let’s just save him the trouble and all yell “KILL IT NOW” simultaneously. Really, I’ve confessed this before, and I’m not the least bit ashamed of it — I was a monorail supporter. I would vote for it again tomorrow. I was excited about it, and I’m still upset about the chain of events that means we’re not likely to see non-bus mass transit in WS in my lifetime. But enough with the tax already. I’ve already paid hundreds since the death-knell vote, and perhaps you have too. I’d rather see a bailout for the remaining bills on this, than for, oh, say, another stadium renovation. (Go, Sonics! And I do mean “go” …)

Funny, yet frightening — and practically plausible.

If only the people who shut down the Seattle streetcars last century had had a little more foresight, we wouldn’t be in this mess.

(When you see somebody weeping in front of the historic streetcar pix in the window of the Train Store in the Junction, it’s usually me.)

OMG, if they say four years, it’ll really be six. Start lobbying your boss for telecommuting …

Something else from the “I had NO idea” file:

The City of Seattle has a dozen or so of its own traffic cams, in the vein of the well-known DOT cams you see on TV all the time, and two are on this side of the bay:

Fauntleroy & Alaska

35th & Fauntleroy

I’m thinking about making a separate West Seattle cams page for This Here Blog. These two will be a good start, along with the Fauntleroy ferry cam.

Today’s mail brought a “2006 (Legislative) Session Preview” from one of our West Seattle-based lawmakers, Rep. Eileen Cody. Conspicuously missing — some mention of transportation besides ferries. If I were a legislator based on this side of town, I would say something about the viaduct, at the very least, and perhaps add on something about water-based commuter service across the bay — not across the sound — how many of us really commute westward, anyway?

Among Rep. Cody’s other listed priorities are helping schools do more to “ensure that every student has a fair chance to pass the WASL.” Ugh. Let’s not put more eggs in that flawed basket.

I ranted earlier this month about the folks who use the bus lane on The Bridge as their personal fast track. Learned today in this Times article that there is a heavy price to pay for it. Great; so where are the cops who should be staking it out?

If only clicking my heels together like Dorothy in “Wizard of Oz” could have gotten me home faster tonight …

Traffic through downtown was so horrendous tonight (are that many people REALLY going to watch the StupidSonics?), I had to try the viaduct-free way home.

Took an hour to get from north of downtown to the 1st Avenue South onramp for the WS Bridge. One hour, five miles tops. And this is WITH bumper-to-bumper traffic filling the viaduct itself. Without that placeholder for those additional hundreds of cars — the backup will start at my workday parking place. Really.

Is anyone holding brainstorming sessions about this looming disaster? Will we wind up telecommuting, shift-staggering, unemployed, or forming new WS-based businesses to take advantage of the talents of The Peninsula-Bound? I’m going to go look.

Seattle P-I editorialist Ted Van Dyk must not live on our side of the bay. Witness this quote from his guv’ment-advising rant in today’s combined paper:

Rail transit is not the only public transit. Seattle since 1970 has had one of the best bus transit systems in the United States. But bus funds are being diverted increasingly to rail. The City Council recently announced it is “looking at options” to replace the canceled monorail line between Ballard and West Seattle. The monorail needs no replacement but regular, well-scheduled bus service.

Ever try to commute from WS via bus? I have. First mega-problem: Unless you are going straight to the heart of downtown (preferably along 1st Avenue), it’s transfer city, which means potential hours of travel, even if you’re not going too much farther north than the Space Needle.

Worse problem: As monorail campaigners pointed out, you do have to “rise above it all” to get out of the traffic mess. Short of the Jetsons-style suitcase spaceships, their idea, flawed as the financing was, would have at least accomplished that.

Never mind the “bus lane” squeezed onto the bridge a few years back. Impatient drivers turn it into their personal fast track every morning rush hour. Just try to get across it to the viaduct-bound right lane, and you’ll see for yourself (if you live to tell the tale).

I salivate at the sight of the Sound Transit light rail columns going up along the freeway from Burien to Sea-Tac. Can we have a little taste of that? Please?

West Seattle ferry riders may not have to return to grumbling-tummyhood after all. Or so says the Vashon Beachcomber.

Glad to hear it; tried one of the Sound Food sandwiches some time back, surprisingly gourmet for cold, pre-packaged fare. (They offered some hot choices too; we just weren’t in the mood for them.) But really, the run is so short (unless you’re on one of the occasional straight-shot-to-Southworth trips), do you need food? If you’re sailing from Seattle, hit the Thriftway deli or Tully’s en route, or the Cat’s Eye Cafe once it reopens. (Speaking of which, the WS Herald just posted the cafe story.)