Breaking: Voters to get say on elevated highway and four-lane tunnel

[flamingyouth]

Seattle voters will get to choose March 13 whether to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct with an elevated highway or a four-lane tunnel.

The Seattle City Council voted 6-3 this afternoon to put two alternatives on the advisory ballot. Council members seemed unsure what would happen if both measures passed.

The council has until Monday to finalize the ballot wording, but members did agree to list $3.41 billion as the cost for the four-lane tunnel, a trimmed-down tunnel alternative that Mayor Greg Nickels began promoting this week. The measure asking voters if they support a new elevated structure would indicate that most of the funding for its $2.8 billion cost has been secured.

Council President Nick Licata and members David Della and Peter Steinbrueck voted against putting the measures on the ballot.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003532645_webviaduct19.html

[maxsolomon]

1. can i vote no on both?

i'm with Steinbrueck - just tear the fucker down.

http://www.peopleswaterfront.org

[sneakythomas]

2. Yes, you can vote no on both

You can also vote yes on both. Or yes on one and no on the other. If you're a politician you can try to figure out what the fuck the voters are telling you. Or you could consult a ouija board or goose entrails or have Pat Robertson tell you what God wants.

What this state needs more than anything else is a politician with a back bone. At the rate we're going, we'll study options until it falls down, then we'll start having studies to determine why nothing was done while people crawl over the rubble to get to work.

[Pierzin]

3. YES! Study goose entrails! then ask the Log Lady from Twin Peaks!

While we're at it, we'll see what Artis the Spoonman and the Pike Place Piano playing guy says, and whatever they tell us to do, that is what we'll do! And then we'll send the bill to Halliburton and KBR and Exxon Oil, since the Bush Administration is more concerned with waging war than investing in important national infrastructure that might actually last a couple of generations, instead of just seconds to blow up.:hippie: :hippie: :hippie: :freak: :freak:

[ConsAreLiars]

4. Jonny Hahn (the piano playing guy) now has (almost) a website:

http://jonnyhahn.com/

A front page only, and no links work yet. But he, like Artis, is a true Seattle original, and his music is both beautiful to listen to and revolutionary if you listen closely.

[LisaM]

5. I have a question about the street level alternative

won't that seriously muck up traffic down by the waterfront? I go to the waterfront frequently and the last thing I want is the equivalent of Highway 99 roaring by me if I just want to go to lunch or for a jog. Would they restrict the speed limit?

[SeattleVet]

6. The speed will be self-restricting if they do that, since everyone will

be basically sitting in the monster daily traffic jam, and nobody will be going anywhere.

[LisaM]

7. LOL, well, aside from that

I mean, do people just envision a six-lane highway at street level? I ask this in all seriousness, because I don't even know which option I favor. I don't think I want the tunnel, though. I'm really tired of Greg Nickels' pushing all of his projects through.

1) The Lake Union development is killing my commute. Traffic on I-5 South gets completely backed up at the Mercer and Stewart exits and it's all single-passenger vehicles. I don't see any buses exiting there.

2) The Northgate area, where I live, is getting absolutely ruined. They are building a horrendously ugly parking structure at the Northgate Mall that doesn't even connect to the mall, so I don't think it will be safe at night (it's located, of course, on the side where troublemakers congregate. I've seen more than one fight there, outside the food court), it's going to be nothing but big box chain stores, the new library is so close to the road that if a car went off the road it would shatter all the windows, and they put in a new "park" that isn't landscaped and has no security. I should have seen this coming when they built that awful, awful building that houses Target and Best Buy. Aside from the Bell Harbor International Conference Center and the new library, it's one of the worst looking buildings I've seen. Who approved a permit to build such an eyesore?

3) Downtown, where we enter from the carpool lanes in the morning, they are building a hotel addition. Not only is the building shockingly ugly, they've had possession of that lane of Union Street for MORE THAN A YEAR, right where the express lanes and regular lanes both exit. I go home on the 41 bus, and aside from the erratic scheduling and ridiculous route since they closed the tunnel, again, where it hooks up to the convention place entrance to I-5, there is a lane closed on Virginia Street, and another on 9th, both where they are building new condos, which clogs up the traffic enormously. My bus ride used to take 15-20 minutes. Now, it takes 25-40.

[maxsolomon]

8. not the waterfront's problem

at some point, we'll all be forced out of our cars, even virtuous express lane carpoolers like you & me. if the battery street tunnel can be connected to a 6 lane alaskan way, with a trolley line, bike lanes, wide sidewalks, and housing & retail all the way from the sculpture park to safeco field along a rebuilt seawall, you'll quit worrying & start enjoying city life. go visit the embarcadero in SF to see what's coming.

this city is too cheap to pay for any tunnel, and the viaduct happens over the dead bodies of every design professional in the state. the surface solution is in keeping with our scandinavian heritage (read tightwad).

http://www.peopleswaterfront.org

oh, and 2)? the target building is AWESOME - a vertical mall is much better than shite Northgate across the street. nbbj designed it. the city was happy to permit it. as to the parking structure? wait till you see what is going up on the South Parking Lot site - you will like it. housing, offices, retail, and a daylit thornton creek, all adjacent to a transit center. that is much preferable to asphalt.

[LisaM]

9. I take transit whenever I can, just carpool in the mornings

The Target building might be functional, but you can't say that it's attractive. It's horrible. It's made out of sheet iron or corrugated metal or something. The only good thing about it is that I know that underneath the facade is a painted sign that reads, "Iron Workers Get it Up Fast!"

I don't want a bunch of big box stores coming to Northgate. Also, I live right near that new development. I won't like it unless 1) they provide adequate parking for the people who live there; 2) they really daylight Thornton Creek, which to my knowledge they aren't doing; 3) they clean up the new park they've created which is right by my house and right now just attracts a bunch of kids who smoke pot and shoot off fireworks (none of the woman I know in my neighborhood who ride the bus will cross that footbridge unless they're with someone else, which is really disturbing); and they make a real effort to make sure that traffic is mitigated. I also don't want a 16-plex movie theatre.

The mall is ugly too, I can't disagree with that. It didn't used to be quite as ugly as it is now, but then they added all those non-matching entrances and exits. Inside it's not so bad.

[maxsolomon]

10. that's not what the project is

its housing & offices. no movie theatres, no big box stores. adequate parking is a function of the Seattle Munincipal Code. the project does what it can with thornton creek's daylighing - there were a lot of mitigating factors.

and i can say that Northgate North is attractive. it is an honest expression of its function & materials. i could stand on any side of it & point to 10 worse eyesores. the POS EIFS senior housing facility to the NE comes to mind. Men's Wearhouse, the empty lot, etc.

you're pretty picky - did you go to the early design guidance meetings for any of these projects (Ngate N, the Park, Ngate S)?

none of this changes the fact that a rebuild is NOT AN OPTION.

[LisaM]

11. They NEVER hold those meetings when I can go

not to mention that they announce them with very little time to plan, but I know the neighborhood objected strenuously. And I have a friend who went to all of them and she said the city just wouldn't work with anyone, particularly on the Thornton Creek Issue. The Thornton Creek Alliance is very upset. They aren't going to daylight. They built a "flood plain" over by where the footbridge is (and it did work - we weren't as flooded this year as others), but in that old parking lot, they plan on mixed housing which I'm sure won't have adequate parking, and why would I be happy with more offices? I wanted that whole parking lot to be a park.

But, even if the NGN building were attractive (we're going to have to agree to disagree on that) you can't like that it's plastered with giant logos of national chains. They ARE planning on putting in a movie theatre and Barnes and Noble, just to name a couple of things, on the west side of the mall. I'm not picky. I just like things that are restful to the eye and verdant.

And there's not a local store in NGN. Yes, the strip malls around there are pretty bad, but all the new development is just going to be a mishmash, like everything in Seattle. They don't care about us and they don't do a thing to attract local business. I heard Greg Nickels on the subject and he punted, as he did on everything else.

[maxsolomon]

12. the parking will be adequate to SMC requirements

but it doesn't sound like that's good enough - we do live in a major city. i lived at harvard & roy for 3 years with a car & no parking spot & i thought it was fine.

Design Review meetings are usually at 7 at night.

[LisaM]

13. I don't think those requirements reflect how many cars people have

You know that big apartment building at the corner of 103rd and 5th NE? The overflow there is tremendous. I don't know how many parking spots they were required to have per unit, but it's clearly inadequate. We have one car between two people (we live a couple blocks away) but I think some of the units in that building must have three or four cars and drivers per unit. I just imagine it will be the same at the new development, despite the fact that it's right next to a transit center. Yeah, I know I sound like a grouch, but I don't like what they're doing to Northgate, local stores are vanishing, they really haven't accommodated adequately for pedestrians, and there is absolutely nothing planned for bikes over there. They created a little park between the new library and the footbridge, but as I mentioned before, it's unsafe and none of the women I know who take the bus will walk through it alone, choosing instead to go down 103rd or 105th, both of which are pitch black at night. I know some that won't even walk over the footbridge alone in the morning. I emailed Jean Godden's office about it one time because when she ran (I didn't vote for her) she bragged that she would take care of all the teens hanging out at Northgate, and got a really la di da response about it, not to mention that her staffer hung up on me because I was upset!

[maxsolomon]

15. that's bcuz Jean Godden is a senile flibberdigibbet

you're probably right about the apartment overflow. if the apartment is filled with, say, mexican immigrants, then there's probably 6 guys in a 3 br.

those requirements work basically like this:

1 br. unit = 1.15 parking spaces
2 br. unit = + .5 spaces
etc.

this is building total, not per unit.

but 10 units & below, only 1/unit is required.

[LisaM]

16. LOL, no Mexicans, but lots of immigrants - African and Asian mostly

I think they are students for the most part, in which case they could easily be taking the bus to U.W. (there are several that stop right outside their door) or North Seattle Community College, to which they could walk.

We have neighbors that have three or four cars - for two adults and a baby! It's nuts; many many people seem to have the same number of cars as drivers, or MORE cars than drivers. This is a problem all over the city. What really pisses me off is if you're trying to go to Cooper's or anywhere in Wallingford, you pass house after house with a driveway with no car in it, garages being used for other purposes, all their cars out on the street using up all the street parking, and sometimes signs saying you can't park there without a permit. Why can they park in their driveways? (I'm not including those driveways that incline down at 45 degree angles. Those are insane).

[rhett o rick]

14. You may get to vote, but it is premature to think your vote will mean anything. nm