Viaduct politics are starting to resemble the perfect storm.

Governor Gregoire surprised everyone by throwing down the gauntlet: have a vote or else. She declared the tunnel funding plan insufficient and infeasible, sort of a political death certificate for that option. And the chances for the elevated plan look nearly as low. The Seattle City Council passed legislation in September stating the elevated highway plan does not conform to a variety of established city codes - shoreline protection, zoning height limits, and growth management - and made clear they would not allow it to be built. Many civic leaders, business leaders, environmental leaders and citizen groups are assembling forces to block it. They see it as a lose-lose-lose option given the hardship it imposes on local business, the economic and community benefits it slams the door on, and how it invests in more car-dependence, not less.

Neither of the Washington State Department of Transportation's highway proposals looks like it has much chance of being realized.

So the City Council has to act fast to respond to the governor's ultimatum. Maybe they'll decide to have an up/down vote on the only Department of Transportation option still ostensibly on the table, the elevated. Maybe voters will be offered three choices: tunnel, elevated, or none of the above. Or maybe, given the lack of viable choices to offer voters, now is not the time for a vote.

Back when the City Council and the mayor made their decision favoring the tunnel plan, they named the Transit + Streets approach (street connectivity improvements, high-speed transit in the corridor, freight-only lanes, and a four-lane regular street on the waterfront) as their backup should a tunnel prove infeasible. Then in November, the City Council set aside $500,000 in the 2007 budget to develop the Transit + Streets proposal into a more solid plan. The Transit + Streets approach is the opposite of a highway in how it provides mobility; it optimizes the larger system to provide people lots of choice, instead of channelizing all the trips onto one facility.

Now seems like the right time for fleshing out Plan B. At roughly $1.65 billion, it's cheaper by a long shot. It offers downtown great park space because it shifts through-traffic away from our rich natural asset, the downtown shore, instead of concentrating it there. It provides much needed high-speed transit in this corridor. It provides trucks priority use of important freight routes. The remaining debate is how well redistributing 30 percent of viaduct car traffic across several improved streets can work in Seattle. Some transportation experts say this systemic approach works better than a highway because offering more choices better serves diverse in-city demand.

This opportunity is too important to just repeat a decision that made sense in 1953, without considering the 50 years of innovation in urban mobility since then. Urban highway construction is too expensive and too destructive to force on a vibrant urban neighborhood without considering gentler approaches. Our transportation system seriously lacks alternatives to driving, especially in this corridor; now is not the time to numbly renew the car-centric status quo. Because there is a backlog of $30 billion of unfunded highway repairs in our region - including SR-520-- we can't afford to not consider cheaper alternatives where they exist.

If city leaders cave to the governor's ultimatum, who really expects the results to stick? There is no plan on the table that works for Seattle's long-term interests. A vote now will end up wasting time and about a million dollars of our money, and the desire to find a smarter solution will flourish, not fade.

Before you demand that this is YOUR highway and downtown interests should quit meddling, put the shoe on the other foot. Consider for a moment if WSDOT were trying to force an elevated highway on Alki Beach. Or if King County were trying to force a wastewater treatment plant in downtown Ballard. Wouldn't you want your local community to have a say in determining the right long-term use of your neighborhood's most precious real estate?

It is time now to find the solution that works for downtown, that works for Ballard, that works for West Seattle, and that works for the future we're trying to move toward. It's time to find a plan we can afford. The Washington State Department of Transportation's inflexibility failed us in this. It's time to develop a local solution that works for Seattle's larger goals. Then we can have a vote.

Cary Moon is the director of the People's Waterfront Coalition. She can be reached at heyyou@peopleswaterfront.org. Lawrence Winnerman is a resident of the 36th Legislative District.