High on elevated viaduct

It's so early it's still dark outside. That's OK because Frank Chopp is lit up like a halogen high-beam.

I came to hear about your roadway, I mutter, coffee-deprived, to the speaker of the state House of Representatives.

"It's not a roadway!" he cries, jumping back a step.

He begins bobbing in and out as if we're boxing.

In — "It's a waterfront parkway!"

Out — "It's a hundred ideas from 75 people!"

In — "I bet everything you've heard about it is wrong!"

It's been nearly eight years since we began blue-ribbon-committee-ing the Alaskan Way Viaduct to death. Most people are sick of the issue.

Not Frank Chopp. He's known to speak in exclamations anyway ("I have the best children's health proposal in the nation! In the nation!") But I don't think I've seen him as jacked up as he was at a 7:30 a.m. meeting of the North Seattle Industrial Association.

He was selling his plan for rebuilding an elevated viaduct along Seattle's waterfront. It would enclose the traffic lanes on the third floor of what would amount to a mile-long building. As tall as the current viaduct and nearly twice as wide.

The bottom two floors would be 13 blocks of new retail, office and living space (to be built by private developers.) Up top would be the world's longest rooftop park.

It's been called a mall with a river of cars roaring through it. Back when it was just a notion in Chopp's head, I called it an "elevated tunnel."

But I have to give Chopp credit. He's done a lot of work since then. He's met with engineers, architects, planners. He has sketches of how porticos, plazas and creative use of concrete might make the columns and roadway disappear.

Plus he's a helluva persuader. This is a guy staring at a $5 billion hole in his state budget, yet he's picked now to be the man with an unstoppable dream. He's pitched 25 community groups. Tuesday he put on an hourlong slide show, after which the industrialists swooned, calling it "thrilling" and "genius."

One attendee said the thing about Chopp is, he's contagious. He loves his idea so much he wills you to follow. Whereas others present their plans for traffic as "bitter pills."

Call it the audacity of Chopp.

"When we ask people on the street about this, they say they love it!" Chopp enthused. "We've got the people with us!"

OK, maybe. I salute him for running at the issue instead of away. But his sketches look extravagantly costly (and Chopp admits he doesn't know the price tag of the whole thing).

It would still be a big wall on the waterfront, which city leaders oppose. And can we really work, shop and live inside a high-speed, six-lane freeway?

Yes we can! Chopp insists.

The other schemes don't bring parks or transit or don't carry enough traffic, he says. Such as the surface boulevard, which he told me he's now dead-set against.

So we're back to the same showdown we had two years ago. It's Chopp vs. Seattle City Hall.

Something's gotta give. Based on all those exclamation points, it sure doesn't feel like it's going to be Frank Chopp.

Danny Westneat's column appears Wednesday and Sunday. Reach him at 206-464-2086 or dwestneat@seattletimes.com.