"The delusional 'surface option' has triumphed"

Deciding Seattle's future

The voters reach a fork in the road and take it

Editor, The Times:

Welcome to The Seattle of the Future!

Seattle's voters have indeed sent a mighty message — not only to Seattle's tunnel-fanatic mayor and Olympia's doggedly new-viaduct state government, but also to people from Portland, Bellingham, California and both Vancouvers: We don't want you traveling through our fair city in your car ["Viaduct? Tunnel? Voters say no and no," Times page one, March 14].

The delusional "surface option" has triumphed.

In the next chapters of our unfolding transportation debacle, the Washington State Department of Transportation will be pressured to cancel the Highway 99 designation for the Alaskan Way Viaduct.

The Seattle City Council will propose windshield stickers for cars garaged within the Seattle city limits allowing them to drive downtown, and all other cars will be forbidden to enter the downtown area.

The viaduct retrofit proposal will be ignored, and it will be blown up like the Las Vegas Stardust Hotel.

One-hundred ten-thousand more vehicles per day (that's more than three miles of average-sized cars) will have to try to go north or south through Bellevue, Carnation or Wenatchee.

After two or three decades of utter gridlock, an elevated Highway 99 roadway will be built above Interstate 5. By that time, it will have to carry 250,000 cars a day.

Is this great public policy, or what?

— Chuck Hastings, Federal Way

Fourth avenue blocked

To contrast a point made in "A roadway merge sign from voters" [editorial, March 14], a "no" vote on both the tunnel and elevated highway to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct does not mean an "enthused" public for a surface-transit option. That option might very well receive less support than the voted-upon options, as most Seattleites enjoy the views offered by the current elevated highway.

A fourth option that does not seem to have support politically is to continue to retrofit the current viaduct.

— Mike Pagan, Seattle

Remove lane divider

The people of Seattle did not vote against a tunnel replacement of the Alaskan Way Viaduct. The people of Seattle voted against a four-lane tunnel. The people of Seattle would have voted for a six-lane tunnel.

The vote gave the people two choices, neither of which would solve the problem.

The government and the media are sweeping the more-important issue under the rug, which is, what to do about the seawall. The only structurally sound way to replace the seawall is to incorporate it into a large, rectangular tunnel.

I have a bachelor's degree in physics and I can tell you that a six-lane tunnel is the only economic way to replace the seawall. Any other solution will not last 30 years.

The Seattle City Council and the office of the governor are both guilty of deliberate deception and wasting public tax dollars. Let the voters know the real issue here, which is all about keeping Pioneer Square from slipping into the bay. This cover-up has got to stop now!

— Robert Shiras, West Seattle

55% buried above ground

The Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement ballot, by design, divides and conquers both structures. Supposedly, this ballot offered four options: the double-yes, two flavors of yes-no, and the double-no.

However, the double-yes is not an option for any voter with a pro-build opinion. Who would conceivably vote to build something, yet forgo a chance to convey which structure they prefer by not voting down the other structure? Can we ignore that tunnel and elevated are pitted against each other?

This ballot solicits more noes than yeses, yet 75 percent of voters voted to build a highway. Still, both structures are "solidly rejected," according to The Seattle Times.

Hold on. How many folks voted no to both structures? Twenty-five percent, when you realize the pie is split only three ways: 45 percent yes to elevated, 30 percent yes to tunnel, and 25 percent neither.

I will guess this is exactly how Olympia interprets the vote. I don't like it. I didn't vote for it. But, I see (and fear) a new viaduct obstructing the horizon.

— Nathan Christensen, Seattle

All-around compromise

It's been decided: Seattle voters want neither a tunnel nor an elevated roadway along Seattle's waterfront. That's a no-brainer. Most voters probably don't want the huge expense of a tunnel, or the clutter of another noisy viaduct that visually separates Seattle from the splendor of Puget Sound.

We all want a waterfront that will look like Seattle's garden a century from now.

I offer an option: Why not split the difference? Build a surface road that's lowered a wee bit, perhaps 8 feet, and place a lid, or a series of lids, over it.

In the short term, no lid may help keep the costs down, but as time goes on, we can add a bit here and bit there until it's completely clean, green and serene.

Such an option can be expected to cost far less than a tunnel because it will minimize the structural requirements, but will eventually have the esthetic appeal we all know will let Seattle shine into the future.

— Mike Borfitz, SeaTac

Soluble in water

After watching the voting results come in on the two Alaskan Way Viaduct options, and the new calls for a surface-street option, I'm puzzled why Seattle and the state of Washington don't want to embrace a solution that will remake the Seattle skyline, open up the waterfront for the public space the mayor wants, reduce the noise pollution on the waterfront, save billions of dollars and avoid the years of gridlock when the viaduct is torn down.

Build a viaduct or bridge across Elliott Bay. Not just any bridge, but one on the scale and beauty of the Rio-Antirio Bridge in Greece. This bridge was built to overcome the difficulties of seismic activity, deep water, insecure materials for foundations and the probability of tsunamis.

All sound familiar?

Let's not reinvent the wheel, let's shamelessly steal the ideas of others to solve our problem. We clearly don't have the answer to our problem.

By adding wave- and wind-harnessing technology, the bridge could also generate clean green power to help defray the cost of construction, offset a small bit of our oil dependency and help drive Mayor Greg Nickels' goals of meeting Kyoto Protocol accords.

It's time for an open mind to fixing the viaduct problem by looking seriously at a bridge across Elliott Bay to replace it.

— Lance Ginaven, Seattle

After all that, it's still up in the air

It's time to get back to old Flash Gordon, of the ancient comics, and do a sweeping road in the sky, like the one at Columbian Way.

Make it sweep out over the Sound and go whichever way suits the most people and traffic flow.

We certainly have the technology to do it, since we corrected the engineering on the Narrows Bridge. Therefore, it is only the vision that is lacking, isn't it?

It would seem everyone in the whole state would pop their buttons over the eighth wonder of the world that that would be, wouldn't they?

Well, whatever, it surely was neat to visualize those long-ago years on my tummy on the front-room rug.

— Neil Helgeland, Auburn