We’ve got it pretty good here in Ballard. The Locks, Market St., our library, Golden Gardens, our high school, our farmers market, Ballard Commons Park, a working waterfront, and much, much more. You could easily stay in Ballard and never leave; we’ve pretty much got it all.

But we don’t have everything. It’s not the easiest neighborhood to get to and from. Our transit service needs dramatic improvement. We certainly don’t have our own municipal water system.

And if you’re like most people, and have to actually get around Seattle, you know that our transportation system needs some serious help. You know that we’ve got so many problems that we’d better make sure we make smart decisions with our money, and only proceed with projects that will help solve our transportation problems.

That’s why I can’t figure out why anyone would want to waste billions of our public dollars on a tolled tunnel that we can’t afford and won’t work.

There’s a lot of heated rhetoric flying around regarding the tolled tunnel and Referendum 1. But when you step back and look at the facts, it becomes clear that the tolled tunnel is a bad deal for Ballard.

We can’t afford the tolled tunnel. The $4.2 billion funding plan already has a $700 million funding deficit before construction has even begun. The state has no plan to raise the $400 million expected to come from tolling revenue (more on the tolls in a second), and the Port has yet to present any plan for how it will raise $300 million for the project.

Even worse, Seattle taxpayers will be stuck with the bill for cost overruns, thanks to a state law enacted by the governor and the legislature. That’s right, state law puts Seattle taxpayers on the hook for devastating cost overruns like we have seen in Boston’s infamous “Big Dig” and our own Brightwater tunnel that is years behind schedule and hundreds of millions over budget. At a time when we’re struggling to pay for our basic priorities, we simply can’t afford this risk.

The tolled tunnel won’t work. One way to fill the $700 million deficit is charging $7-9 roundtrip tolls. These $7-9 roundtrip tolls will be unaffordable to most, forcing tens of thousands of cars onto city streets. In fact, the State expects the tolled tunnel to create the same overall congestion on our city streets as if the Viaduct came down today and we did nothing to replace it.

Since the tolled tunnel is a bypass highway, it won’t help you get downtown to work, shop, or do business. And since the tunnel won’t have an exit at Western Ave, Ballardians will have to fight traffic halfway across town just to use it (if they can afford the $7-9 tolls).

But what about the transit service that Ballard needs so badly? Well, the tunnel project has NO money for improved transit and would make transit service worse when West Seattle busses are stuck in traffic entering Pioneer Square.

The facts are clear. The tolled tunnel is a bad deal for Ballard.

Instead of arguing the tolled tunnel’s merits, or tackling the project’s many failures, tunnel backers simply say we’re too far down the road to reconsider. They say we don’t have time to answer basic questions like how we are going to pay for it. They try to make this vote about personalities as opposed to facts. They say that your vote doesn’t matter.

Ballard, we can do better than this. Ballard deserves a solution for replacing the Alaskan Way Viaduct that we can afford, makes it easier to get around, improves transit service, and does not threaten our other, more important priorities.

Your vote to Reject Referendum 1 is the most important step towards a better solution.

Sincerely,

Elaine Corets
Ballard