AWV: The Reignman Option

I love the AWV, but it is a safety hazard and needs to come down. I prefer the Alaskan Way Boulevard solution, or, as critics say, the "do-nothing" solution. The reasons are many and require thinking about this transportation problem with a wider view than just simply Alaskan Way.

We desparately need mass transit in Seattle, for reasons ranging from traffic relief to taking money out of the pockets of big oil companies and the politicians who send Americans to war to protect those pockets. We can start doing this by RESTRICTING car capacity in our city. Alaskan Way is a good place to start. By building a 4-lane surface boulevard we can accomodate vital business traffic serving industrial areas served by Hwy 99. However, single occupancy cars will be less likely to use the thoroughfare as it will take longer and be less comfortable with the presence of truck traffic. This is a GOOD thing! Where will all those cars go? The problem will fix itself through economic forces. Cars that used to travel viaduct route will find another way, and if not, then those cars will disappear as drivers begin to look to alternatives to cars. For sure, they will wish they had that monorail which would have served the same corridor.

The surface boulevard would only cost a fraction of the $4+ billion (before crappy financing and cost overruns) while helping the long term traffic and environmental health of the city. Those $4 billion would be better spend on mass transit rather than car capacity. I don't want to add any more smog to the Puget Sound air and therefore think we should stop providing for car capacity. The future is fast, efficient, mass transit and we need to prioritize it now.