Time to try a surface solution

When the governor tossed the viaduct to you voters, she saw it as a clever way to untie a Gordian knot.

The idea was, only you could slice through the paralysis that has bullheaded politicians hung up between a new elevated freeway or a waterfront tunnel. "I don't believe that without a vote, either option will move forward," Gov. Christine Gregoire said at the time.

It turns out that with the vote, neither option will move forward. At least they shouldn't.

You voters are a belligerent bunch. You ignored the knot, didn't even try to solve the puzzle. You picked up the whole mess and threw it in the trash.

The choices were A or B. You picked "neither."

How about a tunnel, a four-laner that the highway agency said was such a rush job it had no clue what it would cost?

More than two-thirds of the city said "no." In election-speak, that means "we don't want to hear another word about this tunnel ever again."

The vote was closer on a new elevated freeway. But not close enough. Tuesday night a new viaduct was losing by 11 percentage points -- which in American politics verges on a landslide.

You voters are wise. None of the above was the sensible choice here. If someone offers you two lame options, you don't have to play along. In fact, you become complicit in their lameness if you do.

Plus, I sense Seattle wasn't just saying "no" to two highway designs. It was also a shout of "NO!" to our elected officials. For behaving like toddlers.

Such as the mayor, who last year clung to his mega-priced six-lane tunnel like my 6-year-old does to chocolate. And the governor, who tried to bully a concrete monstrosity down the city's throat.

OK, so we said no to all that. What happens now? As the "No and Hell No" campaign joked, will it now be "Chaos? Cats and dogs living together? Gridlock and finger-pointing?"

First, "no" doesn't mean "nothing." It also isn't a license for more political bickering.

There's a lot of work that everyone agrees could start now. There is what became known in this column in January as a "thousand little things," projects that can help move traffic and goods once the viaduct is closed.

Things like rebuilt arterials, new offramps, dedicated busways, freightways. Why not do these now? How about state and local leaders announce that you are starting on this stuff ... today?

Second, what a resounding "no" means is: Try something else. And almost every public official who can't agree on an elevated or a tunnel happens to have the same backup plan: a surface boulevard.

It has been ignored. Traffic engineers have been whispering for years that it might work. It's also probably the cheapest. Yet everyone has been so hellbent to get their way that the obvious compromise plan has wallowed in obscurity.

Until now. The tunnel is dead. The elevated should be dead. If you can't bury the road and you can't put it in the air, I don't know, you tell me, where the heck else can it go?

It's not much of a puzzle. Maybe voters cut that Gordian knot after all.

Danny Westneat's column appears Wednesday and Sunday.

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