The sighing of America: a time to take a breath

We now live in a make-do time. I'm hearing phrases such as "good enough" instead of "let's do this right."

That attitude can be seen in our aspirations as a community and a region. Perhaps that good old, "good enough" spirit has something to do with the sighing of America, a time and place in our great country when pausing for breath is needed.We see that in the calls for a pause in the funding of transportation projects. Megaprojects are on hold everywhere. A Sound Transit vote for the fall has as many supporters as it has people saying give it a rest, come back to us the following year, or maybe later.

David M. Lampton, a much-honored China scholar and head of faculty at the vaunted School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, pointed out last week that China now has 68 subway projects under way — and the U.S. has none.

He cited the decaying Interstate Highway System that spans America, but was built in the 1950s and '60s. A trip on Interstate 5 bears him out. If not for the patches, we'd be looking at rebar.

The staleness of urban America is visible even in this elegant city, with more panhandlers this spring than I remember in recent years, just as much after-winter trash on the offramps, and the buckling of roads and bridges under our tires.

The forest of cranes that cut the skylines of Seattle and Bellevue are inspiring, but not enough to match the realization that our feet are dragging a bit in the dust.

That's certainly apparent in the downsizing of the Highway 520 bridge, from aspirations of a grand highway across water and sky to a "good enough" version of a few more lanes and maybe bigger dreams later.

That may be true for the Alaskan Way Viaduct, which went from critical urban danger zone to an afterthought — something equivalent to the Magnolia Bridge instead of a corridor of significant proportions. The laggardly way we are coping with the viaduct leads some to inventive frugalities, as in the design for a retrofit that captures new space instead of hiding it.

Retro comes back on catlike feet in the shape of these designs from a group of engineers and architects almost ready to give up the ghost on grander viaduct plans.

In an earlier spirit, we used to print renderings of Scandanavian-class bridges across Elliot Bay, of grand sculptures moving people across Portage Bay. The most recent claim I've heard about the west end of the 520 bridge is a vow never to let any offramps intrude on the Arboretum's sense of space.

In such a diminished view, retrofitting the viaduct may be the best we can get. Architect and longtime Seattle figure Art Skolnik offers this view of steel-encased pillars and an open space beneath the viaduct for lots of shops and community activities. I don't know how that gets us past the constant noise, but in the world of "good enough," compromises are reached all the time.

Watch for compromises rising at the steady pace of an escalator about funding for schools, transit, wages, postal-delivery times and the size of the pork chop on your plate.

I don't see a weakening of our hopes and values, but a realization that some of them belong back in the 1990s. One of our most intensely popular television series, "Lost," comes at a perfect time.

Resolution and revolutionary ideas seem a bit tempered, just as the growth of the region's population and high density of our towns are greeted mostly with a sigh of resignation.

Writing smartly in the Puget Sound Business Journal, economist Glenn Pascall catches the mood perfectly with, "at a time like this, it is easy to become unnerved by the feeling of free-fall." Pascall also cites Amazon's Jeff Bezos' message that "frugality breeds innovation."

I haven't heard that in quite a while applied to this stunning region, but it fits like an old belt that matched a slimmer you.

I'm ready for a retrofit of the viaduct, if that is the only thing that is going to work. I'm ready for some comfort food in the scale of our towns and neighborhoods. Bet you are, too.

James F. Vesely's column appears Sunday on editorial pages of The Times. His e-mail address is: jvesely@seattletimes.com; for a podcast Q&A with the author, go to Opinion at www.seattletimes.com/edcetera