March 29, 2006

By KEVIN FULLERTON
Contributing Writer

Once, many of us in the Sierra Club were ready to declare the waterfront tunnel proposal a winner and take the mayor’s Christmas goose home.

It’s not as though the Club typically likes highway proposals, underground or otherwise. But what a cathartic break from the past to bury that Alaskan Way eyesore. What an apt repudiation of wrong-headed 1950s transportation design — so brazenly worshipful of the car and psychotically insensitive to our waterfront.

The alternative, rebuilding the structure, seemed as abhorrent as re-introducing polyester slacks. Given these choices, it was no contest: The tunnel was the way forward.

Still, as advocates for transit and other things that reduce car use, we were enraged that city leaders could rally support for a $4 billion highway when just adding a bike lane to the rebuilt Westlake Ave. was too much trouble. Let alone building sidewalks on N. Aurora. Voters said a $5 billion monorail was too expensive, and the city can’t seem to get to that half a billion dollars’ worth of street and bridge repair neighborhoods have been waiting for.

What if we, the Sierra Club, had $4 billion to spend? How great if we could improve bus service and try again for a desperately needed rail project.

Well, maybe someday. Right now, drivers are at risk of being delayed several minutes getting past downtown if we don’t build a replacement highway for the teetering viaduct. The state Department of Transportation says we have no choice but to accommodate those drivers on the waterfront, even if it is city property. What to do but scurry dutifully to the rescue — take up a collection — sacrifice for the greater good? It’s the Seattle way.

The state says it’s willing to put up the bulk of the money for a solution, but who’s really covering that tab? Puget Sound residents pay most of the gas and sales taxes that support transportation funding. Most of that $4 billion is ours. And if you polled Seattle-area taxpayers and asked what transportation solutions they’d ideally invest that kind of money in, the majority would likely say — as they did three years ago by rejecting the regional road package called Referendum 51 — that transit is the top priority.

The leading lights on Mayor Nickels’ Green Ribbon Commission on Climate Protection would be equally happy to spend $4 billion on alternative transportation. In fact, the excellent report the commission just released says that the most direct way to curb the carbon-dioxide emissions causing global warming is to reduce vehicle trips. The report recommends infrastructure improvements such as bike paths and sidewalks but also changes in personal habits — i.e., all of us driving less.

These are great suggestions, but what greenhouse gas reductions could we get by not building a new highway downtown? What if we could make roughly 25 percent of the vehicle trips the viaduct now carries disappear? Research shows that when other cities have removed urban highways, that’s the percentage that go away.

Then, what if we used the money saved by avoiding construction and built those new bike and pedestrian amenities anyway? And even funded commute trip reduction programs and provided incentives to use biofuels? Our air quality might rapidly shoot past the Kyoto standards, sending a signal to other cities that healthy air is just not that difficult.

But getting back to the traffic problem everyone fears if we don’t preserve a waterfront highway. Here’s the reality: We can’t avoid it. We’ll have to do without that road for years while a viaduct replacement is built. Anticipating this, the city has already invested in a plan to make the downtown street grid work more efficiently by diverting traffic onto a series of underutilized routes. A second part of the strategy is to open new bus lanes that will improve north-south transit service.

It begins to seem odd that 50 years after the viaduct was put up, in a city that now purports to hold more enlightened planning and environmental values, we find ourselves faced with the decision to tunnel or rebuild. Two designs representing the same antiquated idea. Where’s the option to prioritize transit, or sidewalks, or a rail system? Why does it suddenly seem like 1953 all over again?

The Seattle City Council has been given authority by the state legislature to put viaduct replacement options on the November ballot so we can choose our preference. Seattle deserves a chance to select a solution that would spend our money building transit and street capacity first.

Let’s get something worthy out of this city’s lofty environmental and civic goals, not another highway our children will regret. Demand a third option. n