What commuter has not been snarled in the Mercer Mess a few times, left boxed in but with no way out except to wait, muttering darkly about leaders of a city who would keep something like this for 40 years?

It may be a few more years before anything is done after a meeting last week in which a lone City Council member said loudly that the latest Seattle Department of Transportation fix for the Mercer Mess would make things a whole lot messier and cost a whole lot of money we do not have.

The meeting produced a parade of people opposed to the idea, left several Council members wondering if the idea was sound and got the flat rejection of at least one powerful member of the Washington Legislature.

Called the Mercer Corridor Project, the idea would be to make Mercer a lot wider and busier. The transportation folks describe the idea this way on their Web site:

"The Two-way Mercer Corridor Project will widen Mercer Street between I-5 and Dexter Ave North to accommodate three lanes of travel in each direction, parking, sidewalks and a median with left-turn lanes. Valley Street will be narrowed to a two-lane, two-way street."

The transportation folks list these benefits of a two-way Mercer and narrow Valley Street, again from their Web site:

- Provide a direct route from I-5 into and through the area to serve existing and future travel needs;

- Improve a key alternative route to Seattle Center and surrounding neighborhoods during Alaskan Way Viaduct construction;

- Improve travel time from I-5 to Queen Anne;

- Remove barriers, such as turn restrictions, and make it easier to get around by car, truck, foot, or bike;

- Support transit use through convenient pedestrian access and a street network that allows east-west transit service;

- Connect bicyclists from Eastlake to Dexter with new lanes on Valley and Roy streets;

- Create a quiet, pedestrian-friendly Valley Street to connect the neighborhood to South Lake Union Park;

- Support the City's economic development and livability goals for South Lake Union.

We sometimes don't agree with Nick Licata, but this time the feisty councilman seems to have a real good idea and he has some good arguments to back it up.

The Mercer corridor has long been identified as a mega project that need to be done, but the specific solutions have always been non-existent or fuzzy. Now this one shows up.

Licata says the project is already mushrooming in cost, from $119 million in mid-2007 to $200 million now, noting "construction has not even started, although the mayor is planning to begin construction by the second quarter next year."

So where will this $200 million and counting money come from in the disastrous economy that we are facing?

No one knows. Licata says the city administration's strategy is in violation of the city auditor's recommendation "to identify secured funding sources" before the city starts a project.

It would not make things better but even if it did, would spending this much money on one project be fair to the rest of the city, he wonders.

You can be sure "Lone Wolf" Licata is getting heavy fire from the mayor's office via Seattle Transportation Director Grace Crunican.

"It is completely the wrong time (for Licata) to raise this issue now," she told the Seattle P.I. "It is a very good transportation project that will improve access to a range of places; the overall flow will be much better."

No it won't, we think.

We also laud State Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson, who represents Ballard and is a member of the House Transportation Committee. She said she would work to see that "not a cent" is in the state budget for the project as it is now.

It costs too much, we have no money for the work and it would make Mercer a bigger mess than it is now.

Now, ladies and gentlemen of the Council, we have this Viaduct problem our readers are more interest in, so how about paying a bit of attention to us for a change.

- Jack Mayne