No and Hell No -- Seattle votes down tunnel and viaduct rebuilding

Image from The Stranger.

See "Viaduct? Tunnel? Voters say no and no ," and the Danny Westneat column, "Time to try a surface solution ," both from the Seattle Times. Westneat references a column from January, "A thousand ways to fix viaduct." It recounts a similar Embarcadero-like experience, people dealt with it...

From the article:

When the downtown Seattle bus tunnel closed for two years of construction, transit bosses were braced for gridlock.

"There was a lot of concern it was going to be a disaster, with buses jamming the streets and traffic backed up all over the place," says Jim Jacobson, deputy manager of Metro, which runs the buses. People were so worried buses would be at a standstill that the city chose to ban cars from Third Avenue, the street above the tunnel, during rush hours.

Then people fretted that cars would hopelessly clog the other streets. So Jacobson says they did "a thousand little things" to compensate — such as moving bus stops farther apart and eliminating some parking to aid traffic flow.

Fifteen months ago, the tunnel closed. A funny thing happened: Most commuters have been getting through downtown faster than ever. That's right: faster. Buses are traversing almost every downtown street quicker without the tunnel. In some cases, dramatically so.

Metro has logged car and bus travel times before and after closing the tunnel. Car speeds stayed about the same. (They were expected to slow.) But buses, carrying more riders, surprisingly are faster on all streets except First Avenue.

Westneat's column from today states:

You voters are wise. None of the above was the sensible choice here. If someone offers you two lame options, you don't have to play along. In fact, you become complicit in their lameness if you do.

I think we need a stronger initiative and referendum process in DC...

Also see:
-- No and Hell No from The Stranger
-- Hell No! These Aren't The Only Options We Have from Washblog
-- the website No Elevated
-- and today's editorial, "A roadway merge sign from voters" from the Seattle Times.

Ballot image from Washblog.