The political difficulty with the viaduct tear-down approach

It immediately becomes a Left - Right argument. The tear-down opposition is coming out of the wood-work (though I wonder how many even live in Seattle) but their vitriol is well-illustrated here: Viaduct Madness. The antis want to make handling the viaduct corridor a litmus test for their own bizarre form of political correctness.

As any reader of this blog will know I am dubious that the tear-it-down approach would provide sufficient capacity on the west side of Seattle. But I'd like to see some fair studies -- and of course the real-world experiment which any replacement will require -- before I make up my mind for sure. But the transportation and economics experts at the site to which I link above all know exactly what will happen and are anxious to spend billions on their own hunch. So much for conservatism.