Finally

The PI's got the right idea if not the pith: Viaduct needs a merging of our minds.

One possibility, one already rejected by the state, is to spend money on a retrofit. This solution -- a temporary fix -- would buy Seattle time to come up with a better long-term answer. The governor, in her December finding, said this would not be a "wise investment" because it would cost 80 to 90 percent of a new structure. Frankly, I don't buy those numbers. I'd send the estimator back to the drawing board and say try again. The Seattle Art Museum has already proven you can build a seawall replacement for significantly less than what experts have projected. Tell the state to try again: Let's apply a frugal cost structure to the project and get a reasonable estimate. The governor's finding also dismissed the retrofit because it "would not provide wider lanes and shoulders to improve safety." But there are other ways to do that: We could reduce speed limits and rethink traffic flows on the current structure. This is not insoluble. If it were up to me, I'd plunge in with the transit, surface option. But the problem is that we as a society are not there yet.

Comments

[Gomez]

I'm still appalled at the all-out propoganda blitz in this week's Stranger, even though it shouldn't surprise me. I know their work involves some degree of sacrifice of journalistic integrity, but this week's issue just falls right over the line into propaganda, with paragraphs of blatant lies and made up facts to boot.

They cannot call themselves journalists anyone, not after that cover story filth posing as journalism.

[David Sucher]

What i find astonishing is the naivte of Eli Sanders and Josh Feit (maybe it's just that they are young and inexperienced) in believing that it's even politically possible (much less wise in any broader sense) to simply tear the Viaduct down cold turkey. I thought they would seize Peter Sherwin's "Repair & Prepare" and run with it as a brilliant and realistic compromise. But they are actually against it! Comical.

[Gomez]

Aesthetics, David. They're obsessed with aesthetics.