With a slight pause for details to an advisory committee, the state's department of transportation has said the Alaskan Way Viaduct must be torn down and replaced. It is not cost effective to fix it so it lasts another 25 years, says an independent project manager advising the state.

Now wait a minute, fellows. Retrofitting the viaduct comes up in every public meeting, is continually mentioned in letters to this newspaper, is mentioned on talk shows about the venerable highway with a view, and is discussed all the time by engineers who have worked on and with the structure for the past 60 years.

The Alaskan Way Viaduct Stakeholder Advisory Committee is just that, interested and informed people who have concerns about the future of the viaduct. Several objected to the axing of the rebuild scheme.

Ballard's Mary Hurley said 18 of 22 people at an open house spoke of fixing the present structure.

Vlad Oustimovitch said, "In West Seattle, the retrofit comes up constantly. To exclude it like this is not going to garner any public support."

Tayloe Washburn, representing the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce, made his opinion clear. "You will need to show your work to explain how you reached your decision."

For one thing, said Dave Dye, the deputy director of the state transportation department, it would cost "80 percent to 90 percent" of the amount for a brand new viaduct. Seismic standards are five times more stringent than they were when the viaduct was built.

It very well may be the right thing to dump repairing the old viaduct, but parts of it are being rebuilt as we write this and those repairs have stopped the sinking of the roadway so something is working properly. But advisors are skeptical.

"It's a bad investment of public funds," said the transportation deputy director. "Hundreds of millions of dollars won't extend the viaduct past its remaining 25-year life."

To this, a representative of the Seattle Marine Business Coalition said he was flabbergasted and eliminating the retrofit "without any hard data whatsoever is very, very concerning."

We agree wholeheartedly.

The people need more than a few minutes of talk at an advisory committee meeting. We have to be absolutely convinced that the decision is right before we agree on a tunnel, a surface roadway or a replacement aerial structure - none of which will provide the same vehicle capacity as the current viaduct.

Remember, we pay your salaries and we pay for the bill to replace or fix this thing. Grand pronouncements by "experts" need to be grounded in facts that the voters understand and accept.

- Jack Mayne

Plan needs update soon

The Ballard Neighborhood plan is woefully overwhelmed by the recent flood of development, and it needs to be updated more quickly than the city's plan for glacial speed.

At a meeting last week convened by Council member Sally Clark and Neighborhoods Department head Stella Chao it was revealed that the first thing that will be done is a report on the "State of the Neighborhoods." The city won't do anything until that initial assessment is completed a year from now. Then the city will prioritize the various neighborhood plans for which will be updated first.

So the whole upgrading process is paralysed for a year, or more while studies are done?

We are concerned that much of the damage might already be done by the fast moving contruction of condominiums and townhouses. Will our infrastructure be sufficient to take care of all this new development? What happens if we find out a year or two from now that some basic problems have been ignored and allowed to fester into major problems?

Remember the sewage backups last year in Broadmoor? Could that happen in the Leary Way, 15th Avenue and Market Street triangle?

We don't know.

Does the city know?

We fear they don't.

- Jack Mayne