Now how about Mayor Nickels' insistence on replacing the Viaduct with a tunnel? He thinks the only solution to the noisy, earthquake-threatened elevated waterfront roadway is a tunnel.
He is possibly right if we wish to make the waterfront someday look like Miami Beach.
And to do that he thinks he can get five or six billion to do it from tolls, and city and state taxes. He is supported by wealthy downtown business interests and developers.
I don't know how imminent the earthquake threat is and I strongly doubt anyone knows.
But there is little doubt that whatever is done will cost enormous dollars-and monumental and costly inconvenience to present waterfront businesses.
If you think it is often a nightmare getting through Seattle on existing surface streets now, just wait.
I have no objection to a tunnel. It is possible that Mayor Nickels, the state legislature and the Governor will come up with a magic method to soak the taxpayer even though it looks dim for getting much federal help.
As long as we have to pump so many billions into guns, there will be a butter shortage.
A tunnel has a lot of things going for it. It opens up thousands of spectacular view condos with big tax values and a huge tourist attraction far beyond what is there now.
But it will also have a great negative impact on the shipping and probably eventually will eliminate it entirely along with the Seattle longshore jobs.
That industry is likely doomed someday as the container shippers' need for space will likely force it south of Seattle as far as Olympia.
But that will take many years. I am most concerned with trying to pack all those vehicles now using the Viaduct onto city streets already jammed with vehicles for four to six years. Nightmare on Elm Street.
It is mighty expensive to avoid this, but it could be accomplished by moving the seawall farther west and with that in place build a tunnel without first tearing down the rickety viaduct.
Cut and cover the new tunnel and then knock down the existing viaduct. Then build a new eight-lane thoroughfare. So it may cost ten billion.
Could Paul Allen and Bill Gates team up again?
