Friends, Seattleites, countrymen: I come to praise viaduct, not to bury it

I've been watching the HBO series "Rome" and thinking about the epic battle over Seattle's viaduct.

Those who stayed awake in World History class will remember Julius Caesar, Brutus, Mark Antony and Octavius as mighty warriors and shrewd political characters. In the series, they fight, they issue ultimatums, they fight, they make up, they torture their friends, they kill their friends, they join forces — all ostensibly for the good of Rome. Did I mention they fight? It makes for compelling, if gory television.

While I look forward to the next episode, I dread the Alaskan Way Viaduct debate's next installment. The farcical March 13 Seattle election irresponsibly puts voters in the bizarre position of saying yes or no to each option — a tunnel or an elevated rebuild — creating the possibility of four outcomes. Jupiter's mercy!

In this war, we have three political giants, the governor of Washington and the speaker of the state House, who are loosely aligned, facing off against the mayor of Seattle, each with their various lieutenants and political allies. I can almost imagine their armies converging to have it out on the viaduct's top deck with the stunning Elliott Bay in the background. Clang. Clash. Grunt. Slice. (Hey, the viaduct had enough star appeal to be featured in the medical drama, "Grey's Anatomy.")

But there's no bloodletting here, just bleeding political capital and the severing of taxpayers from more of their money in a city that loves to tax itself. Watching from a distance is a shrewdly calculating group rooting for the swift deaths of both tunnel and the elevated rebuild, creating a political opening for the fall of the viaduct with a transit-mostly option.

Mayor Greg Nickels and the majority of the City Council speak nobly of investment and paint a truly gripping vision of Seattle connected to its waterfront without the wart of the aging, increasingly rickety viaduct. They would shrink the road and bury it. More people would be pushed onto buses plying surface streets — better for the environment, proponents argue.

People who own downtown real estate in the viaduct's shadow suddenly would gain an equity-boosting view of Elliott Bay. The poor plebe's view of the bay — that jaw-dropping, soul-raising drive on the viaduct — would be lost. People would sit longer in traffic everywhere and pay more for the honor of it.

Meanwhile Gov. Christine Gregoire has a less-lofty but more-pragmatic mission — replacing existing traffic capacity with a safe, affordable alternative — and a broader constituency, the whole state. Already, at least two far-flung newspapers, in Vancouver and Spokane, have editorialized in support of the governor's position, urging Seattle to get over its costly fantasy and let the elevated option proceed.

If the Democratic governor who seized power with only a 129-vote margin in 2004 bends to Mayor Nickels, her Republican opponent in 2008 will breathlessly exploit the episode throughout the countryside. If she does not yield to Seattle, she risks losing critical support from the well-heeled city.

After requiring the city to rush a ballot measure to the people, Gregoire already preempted the results, saying Mayor Nickels' current tunnel plan doesn't pass muster. As if drawing a line in the decaying asphalt with his sword, the mayor wonders boldly how the governor will build an elevated replacement without city permits or cooperation.

I'm not a Seattle resident, but I work here and play often on the waterfront. It's tempting to be swept up in the intangibles of Mayor Nickels' vision of a sparkling, 21st-century city. But Seattle is not merely a pretty city. It is a city that works and it is part of a larger state that works. The tangibles — the cost, the safety — must matter too.

The mayor says he can cobble the money together for the extra cost of the tunnel beyond state and federal contributions. He would increase utility rates and create a local improvement district that taxes businesses. But the March 13 ballot question only hints that city residents will be on the hook for the difference and, by many accounts, misleads with its lowballed cost estimate. The people will have their say, but on a fiction.

In a TV drama, such intrigue keeps you tuning in for the next episode. In this reality play, you can only hope Janus — the Roman god with two faces representing middle ground between the past and the future, the urban and rural — will take pity on us for the good not just of Seattle but of Washington.

Kate Riley's column appears regularly on editorial pages of The Times. Her e-mail address is kriley@seattletimes.com