I am a West Seattle resident, and for us the recent ballot on the viaduct/tunnel has been a disaster. The political wrangling and posturing resulted in a ballot whose wording was ill conceived, not only for the presentation of what was on the ballot, but also for what was not on the ballot.

In the aftermath of the vote I keep hearing comments that it appears the people want a surface option, since they rejected the viaduct/tunnel options. Whoa, that will not solve the problem we in the west side (north and south Seattle) have of getting through Seattle in a timely manner. Let me elaborate.

I think there are two issues. The first is moving people into downtown, and the other is to move cars/trucks through Seattle. Getting into downtown could use a revised waterfront surface street approach and certainly needs to involve a much improved transit system. Reducing the number of vehicles is important and certainly would help both "groups." However, for me the issue is not having downtown as a destination, but getting through it.

The I-5 downtown bottleneck is a complete mess, and both north and southbound traffic on I-5 backs up for miles, as we know. The alternative for those of us on the west side is to cut over and take SR-99, through downtown via the viaduct. Removing that high flow core, which is our necessary alternative to I-5, and replacing it with surface streets, won't help us.

For those who are forward looking and thinking green, I am certainly in favor of reducing the number of cars, and utilizing mass transit. Unfortunately, the taxpayers don't seem to want to spend any money on many forward thinking transit projects. Light rail is a step in the right direction (it will help those in southeast Seattle, but rapid transit from the eastside has been continually voted down, and the monorail (which would have helped West Seattle and Ballard get into downtown) got shot down because no one wanted to pay for it. To those planners who think we will simply be futuristic and reduce the number of cars, that goal is noble but just not realistic. For those of us in the real world, who actually live on the west side of Seattle (north and south), we need an efficient transportation corridor through Seattle now and in the future.

Just so I don't just sound like critic with nothing to offer, here are a couple of suggestions. Why isn't the state designing a "fix" for the I-5 bottleneck as one if it's top priorities? There have been band-aid attempts, but with only 2-3 lanes, traffic still comes to a standstill. Redesign the bottleneck, one level on the existing surface and the other just beneath it, with at least 4 lanes in each direction. The revised portion would be relatively short, only a few blocks long. It would solve the I-5 problem directly, and it would now give an acceptable alternative to those on the west side of downtown. How would the cost of that project compare with the viaduct replacement?

Or, another alternative is to remove the viaduct and get people into Seattle via surface streets, but in addition, build a smaller capacity tunnel that would serve only as a "bypass" to downtown. If it was dug to the east (so as not have a seawater/bulkhead issues) and did not include multiple on/off ramps to access downtown it would be less costly. Just a "simple tube." And could be built without being concerned about disrupting current traffic while construction is in progress. You get the viaduct removed, north/south traffic flow retained, and minimal disruption of traffic.

Currently, we will now have the project in the hands of a "common ground" team composed of the same contentious groups that botched the planning in the first place. I hope those who represent the "city" represent not just the downtown business community but those of us as well who live on the west side, both north and south.

Michael Winter

Beach Drive