Don't mire viaduct plans with lawn-sign politics

FOR the first time in many years it looks as if all levels of government have found a promising way to resolve our long struggle over what to do with the unsafe Alaskan Way Viaduct.

It is, as it always must be in Seattle, a process involving lots of people: a large Stakeholder Advisory Committee appointed by the governor, the mayor of Seattle and the King County executive; a project team made up of the best of the three transportation agencies — the Washington State Department of Transportation, Seattle Department of Transportation and King County — and a mix of leading consultants and experts.

Unfortunately, even before cost numbers have been released by the project team, the lawn signs are starting to come out and the politics are back. Some advocates have taken the first steps in trying to turn a good process into a free-for-all political struggle among eight "candidates."

In an op-ed in the Nov. 16 Seattle Times, "Waterfront Parkway's the best plan for replacing Seattle's crumbling viaduct," a labor leader, a neighborhood activist and a venture capitalist argue for the elevated, enclosed highway advocated by Speaker of the House Frank Chopp.

It is one of eight scenarios under review by the project team and the Stakeholder Advisory Committee. Know as Scenario E, it is described as an "Integrated Elevated" with four lanes of surface traffic on Alaskan Way and four lanes of enclosed elevated highway with a park on top and, eventually, retail shops, art galleries and office space underneath.

There are obviously lots of unanswered questions on this and all the other scenarios under review. There are perhaps even more questions with this very large, multipurpose idea.

This is really the first time in the stakeholder process that we are seeing a flexing of political muscle behind someone's idea: labor, the neighborhoods, big money — not to mention the speaker.

In 2007, six years after the Nisqually earthquake damaged the viaduct, Seattle residents in an advisory vote went to the polls to choose between a new elevated highway and a tunnel/surface solution. Neither won the beauty contest.

To their credit, elected officials who had disagreed on the vote agreed to collaborate on a process that promised a decision on the best information collectively developed, not on politics and jurisdictional muscle.

The process has been under way now for many months, some of that time waiting for an election to happen so all parties could get the politics behind them before going to work in public on viaduct issues.

The engineers and the experts have begun rolling out their work — transparently in an open, collaborative process — so that the elected officials can decide from a menu of choices based on six consensus guiding principles. Such as what configuration is best for public safety, most fiscally responsible, most likely to improve the environment, most efficiently moves freight and people through the city, best sustains and improves the downtown and regional economy, and enhances the central waterfront as a place for people.

These are shared Seattle values in a search for the best answer, not individual lawn signs in a political struggle.

The process will run to the end of the year when, in a very transparent and public way, with solid, credible information, the governor, the mayor and the King County executive, as they agreed last year, will face their constituents and make some decisions.

Until then, let's all agree to put away the lawn signs, tone down the political rhetoric, and act as if this were the most important decision for our region, and especially our city, that one generation has ever made for the next one.

Norm Rice, Charles Royer and Paul Schell are all former mayors of Seattle.