Chopp's "No!" to tunnel reverberates

They're calling you "The Man Who Killed the Tunnel," I tell Frank Chopp.

At first the speaker of the state House of Representatives laughs. "Oh, geez. I guess they can blame me if they want. I've been accused of a lot worse."

Then he hardens.

"Don't call me that. I'm not the one who killed that tunnel. The tunnel died on its own. All I did was take a stand against fiscal insanity."

It's late on a Friday, after an exhausting first week of the 2007 legislative session. But Chopp, a Wallingford Democrat who runs the 98-member state House, is as blunt and as jacked up with nervous energy as ever.

We're talking about the six-year odyssey to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct. This coming week is "Viaduct Week," as the City Council is scheduled to decide whether to put the issue to an advisory vote.

The theory has been that city voters will choose between a tunnel or a new elevated structure.

Chopp doesn't see the point of holding that vote.

"The tunnel is dead," he says, categorically. "A lot of people are questioning whether a vote like that would mean anything at all. It's only a real vote if you vote on real taxes, to pay for a real project. Anything else is a distraction.

"It is past time we started talking about what we can actually accomplish."

I agree with all this. But that's not the only reason I'm putting Chopp's comments in the paper. Ask folks involved in the viaduct debate what is going to happen next and invariably they'll say, often bitterly: "Ask Frank Chopp."

Who is he? He's probably the fourth-most powerful politician in the state, after the two U.S. senators and the governor. Yet looking back over the six years we've been hashing out the future of Seattle's waterfront, it's never been obvious that Chopp would turn out to be the key.

As it happened, he really is the one saying "no." Most of the other big players still want a tunnel, and have not given up.

Chopp says he was fine with that, until it became clear there wasn't enough money. Unlike in other notorious tunnel projects, such as Boston's Big Dig, here it was local taxpayers who would be on the hook.

"Back when the federal government would pick up 90 percent of the cost, I'd have said, 'Go for it, let's build a tunnel,' " Chopp said. "But this tunnel is on us. And the costs are so unsustainable it's ridiculous."

The governor, who had been staying out of it, eventually came around to Chopp's way of thinking.

So what does Chopp say we should do now?

First, he says not only is the big six-lane tunnel dead, but so is the four-lane "tunnel lite" idea being peddled at Seattle City Hall. For the same reasons.

Second, he's intensely interested in the "thousand little things" idea of using dedicated busways, freightways and a surface boulevard to make up for the loss of the viaduct. He's not convinced it would handle the traffic. But he stressed he would support doing much of it anyway, even if we also replace the viaduct.

Finally, he said the design for the elevated viaduct is "awful" and needs an architectural makeover. He envisions reducing the proposed width, extending Victor Steinbrueck Park over the top of it and incorporating arches or some other less-blocky design.

"I'm just asking people to rethink the elevated," he said. "It doesn't have to look like the Kingdome. We learned that with Safeco Field."

The speaker also wants to enclose the elevated structure in concrete, to damp the traffic noise. He was irked I had described this in a column last week as a "bizarre contraption."

"What is bizarre about wanting to make the highway quieter and more beautiful?" he demanded.

I still think an enclosed viaduct is bizarre, sort of like an elevated tunnel. But as everyone else should now realize, you ignore what this speaker says at your own peril.

Danny Westneat's column appears Thursday and Sunday.

Reach him at 206-464-2086 or dwestneat@seattletimes.com.