Residents of West Seattle would be best advised to support local businesses and forget about going downtown on any but the most important trips because it soon may become too expensive and take far too long to go there.

As we all know, the Sword of Damocles hangs over our heads because the governor said she will order her Washington State Department of Transportation to rip down the Alaskan Way Viaduct in 2012, less than four years from today.

The squabbling and studies and lobbying continue unabated. There are those who say a bored tunnel is best and damned the cost because best is best. Others want the entire 50-year-old viaduct retrofitted, strengthened to last another 20-plus years and hope some magic formula will whisk away the replacement problem then.

Still other say rip the thing down and use only surface streets and hang the inconvenience, what we have dubbed the Let Them Eat Cake theory of transportation.

In between are cut and cover tunnels that combine a roadway with broad esplanades and shopping malls with parks over the whizzing vehicles.

The real problem remains, no matter which alternative is finally decided upon on high: How to pay for whatever? You can be sure that we will eventually be faced with city and state officials presenting us with a big bill, in the multi-billions.

There was created (for those who just returned from a South Seas desert island) an Alaskan Way Viaduct Stakeholders Committee, a collection of leaders from around the city, to study the alternatives. Of course, the state is the whiphand here because Highway 99 is a state highway and the state gets to decide whatever is done. The decision, in some minds, has already been made by the political leaders that it should be a tunnel (Imagine: "The Gregory J. Nickels Alaskan Way Tunnel").

Last week, after some delays to fiddle with computer models, came the first shot over the bow.

It will take twice as long to drive downtown from our homes in West Seattle to downtown. What is more, it will also take twice as long to get downtown by bus - no mention of the Water Taxi in the study.

The bad news: "The results showed driving times from West Seattle to nearly double, taking 13 minutes to commute downtown today, and 20 to 25 minutes under the proposed scenarios. Driving through the no-build baseline would take 30 minutes."

When you eventually do get downtown, parking will be so expensive that only those who still have an SUV will have enough spendable income to afford parking downtown. We expect, in time, there will pay parking kiosks for bicycles so we can afford the budget whipped up by our mayor and virtually rubberstamped by our City Council.

"Today, drivers from the Junction take the viaduct directly to First Avenue and Seneca Street," writes Miller. "In the future, all eight scenarios eliminate ramps at Seneca and Columbia streets. The simulation included the extra time drivers spent getting to First and Seneca, through Pioneer Square, from the King Street exits from the new southern half of the viaduct."

Transit won't help, either, says Miller's report:

"Transit will also take longer than it does today, 21 versus 25 minutes, even with Metro's new RapidRide route from West Seattle and a dedicated lane on the new south half of the viaduct. The traffic model showed drivers shifting to transit as the time to take the bus became close to the time to drive."

In this economically challenged time, we urge people to remember and support businesses here in West Seattle, because they say it is not far off when it will take too long and cost too much to go downtown to buy those presents or to buy the necessities. Shop locally, or in line, because our city is becoming like some of those insurance companies and banks, to big to fail, so we will be asked to continue the bailout with ever more tax dollars.

- Jack Mayne

jmayne@robinsonnews.com