On March 13th our city (had) the opportunity to advise our politicians as to our preference for replacing the Alaskan Way Viaduct. These politicians have narrowed our choices to a four-lane tunnel, or a six-lane elevated structure.

In fact, these same politicians have narrowed our choices further, with the governor and the state legislature essentially killing the tunnel and leaving us voters to choose between a dead alternative, and an awful one. I will not waste your time with another argument about how we must tear down the wall between the city and our waterfront, or extol the virtues of the defunct tunnel option; instead, I ask you to consider how we will explain our choice of an elevated structure in 20 years?

Gas prices are rising, along with the average temperature of the world. We have more proof than ever that our car culture directly contributes to global warming. Even our president publicly stated that our nation must respond to climate change.

We also know that the oil which fuels this car culture will not last forever, and many prominent geologists think that forever may come sooner than we would like to believe. Replacing the viaduct presents our city with an incredible opportunity to respond to the twin challenges of climate change and our region's car dependency through the adoption of the Surface + Transit alternative.

Why not provide real choices for people to get around, instead of spending billions to further enslave us to our automobiles? Many will argue that we need to rebuild the viaduct because without it we will face gridlock. There are three fallacies in this argument; first, we already have gridlock. Second, building more roads does nothing to alleviate gridlock. Third, what about the years it will take to rebuild the viaduct?

Instead of spending billions of dollars to replace an antiquated roadway, why not take the plan to mitigate traffic during construction, and supplement this plan with redesigned surface streets and increased mass transit? It's ludicrous to spend public money on a transportation mega project that promotes global warming by perpetuating our car dependency and ties our mobility to a resource that we already know will continue to rise in price, and will not last forever.

It's time that we shifted our paradigm to the mobility of people, instead of the mobility of cars. No matter how many roads we build, we will still face gridlock. In twenty years, I hope to look back with pride, knowing that our city had the vision and foresight to provide real transportation choices. By voting for the elevated structure you are simply subsidizing oil dependency and a car culture. Vote no and no.

Craig M. Benjamin

Ballard