AWV: "Congestion is our friend"

The viaduct thing is really heating up. Here are the facts: Nickels doesn't have the money to build a tunnel. He's short $1billion. And they've cut it back so much that it's now a tunnel from Jackson to Pike, rising up out of the ground with 8 roaring lanes below beautiful Victor Steinbreuck Park. The rebuild option would be 50% bigger and with opaque side walls obscuring the view.

Now-looky--here, I don't think the tunnel is a bad idea, but seeing how they've already cut it back and they still don't have the money, it's got "Big Dig" disaster written all over it. Remember how Seattle excels in screwing up billion dollar projects. Ahem, Monorail.

I heard an interesting thing on the radio recently. An urban planner from Vancouver was being interviewed on NPR about the miracle of that city's achievement. He was asked why Vancouver doesn't have a freeway running through it, to which he responded, "congestion is our friend." Vancouver made a conscious decision to NOT build freeways because, and they've known this since the 1960's, increasing car capacity INCREASES CONGESTION because it facilitates SPRAWL. Instead of concentrating their congestion along freeways they have distributed traffic more evenly across their street grid.

Seattle has a great opportunity to do this as Alaskan Way, 1st, 2nd, Elliot, and Dexter have plenty of unused capacity. As well, an Alaskan Way Boulevard would still provide the SAME access into and out of downtown, and a through trip would take just a few minutes more.

Vancouver is the best city on the West Coast. We have much to learn from them. Let's build a boulevard for $200 million and move on to building mass transit.