Now's not the time to cheap-out on the viaduct

After witnessing my colleagues on the Seattle City Council lay out money to study a "cheaper option" for replacing the Alaskan Way Viaduct, I can't help ask: What part of "no" don't we understand? The Washington Legislature is not going to give us $2 billion simply to tear down a state highway without an equivalent replacement. Instead, legislators gave Seattle two choices to replace the viaduct: a bulkier, larger aerial structure; or a cut-and-cover tunnel.

The no-rebuild, surface-street option was not one of those choices and for Seattle to pursue that solution seems folly. It misleads citizens into thinking that, if they simply believe, they can somehow make 110,000 cars go away. While that may be an appealing dream, it's as realistic as studying whether we should return to the far-off days when Seattle was known as a suburb of Nome, Alaska.

It's clear to me that replacing the crumbling viaduct and corroding seawall ranks as the highest transportation challenge for Seattle and the region. The city must be serious about replacing those structures in a way that will serve us long into the future.

The city of Seattle has been clear in its preference for a tunnel replacement. In January 2005, the Seattle City Council voted 7 to 1 to endorse the tunnel as the preferred alternative. Mayor Greg Nickels, too, backs a cut-and-cover tunnel as his preferred option. I count myself as a tunnel backer.

As part of my research, I traveled to San Francisco last December to learn about the Embarcadero redevelopment, where an aerial freeway was replaced by a surface boulevard and trolley lines. There, I met with elected officials, community and environmental leaders and planner Boris Dramov, famed for his role in Embarcadero/waterfront redevelopment.

I learned a great deal, including the relationship between geography and commerce. San Francisco is seven miles square and has numerous routes through the city; Seattle is nine miles long and — in places — barely three miles wide. I learned San Francisco does not have a trade-dependent waterfront like we do in Seattle.

But what works in San Francisco — a city with multiple layers of mass transit — won't solve Seattle's problems. A shallow cut-and-cover tunnel will simply serve us better, enabling Seattle to have a park-lined pedestrian waterfront on one level with a transportation artery briskly moving traffic beneath its surface. Buses must be part of the solution.

Seattle has a narrow window of opportunity. In March, the Legislature approved a multibillion-dollar transportation package delegating the Seattle City Council to recommend a preferred alternative for the Alaskan Way Viaduct/Seawall Replacement Project. But the Legislature left Seattle with only two (again, two) choices: a larger aerial structure or a tunnel. The Washington Department of Transportation and the governor will have the final say on which project is selected, but it is likely they will agree to the tunnel solution, if the city can identify funding sources.

The crumbling viaduct and the collapsing seawall present the city with a dilemma. But they also offer an opportunity that seldom comes along in the life of a metropolis. Which road will we take? The high road? That's out of the question. We won't be able to see anything from up there. Will we spin our wheels on expensive dead-end studies and cheap-out on the least costly option?

Or will we begin work on something that can be built, can be funded, can give us back our waterfront and keep the traffic moving. I, too, long for the pedestrian waterfront that the "no-build" forces seek. But common sense tells me — without a tunnel beneath it — that surface amenity won't exist. We would only be building a four-lane, traffic-choked, truck route on our waterfront, while packing our residential and retail streets with the thousands of cars with clouds of pollution that were displaced in the process.

The no-build option is the Marie Antoinette solution: Let them eat fumes. Studying it is an expensive boondoggle that likely won't convince the true believers. This is an attempt to turn back the clock to a time before Seattle was a mecca for commerce, the center of a great region.

With vision and resolve, I am hoping we will work toward a decision to bury our problem artery, and to build a wonderful waterfront that will serve Seattle for generations to come. For that, they will surely thank us.

Jean Godden is a Seattle City Council member who chairs the Energy & Technology Committee.