City Comforts, the blog

Does that include being arrested in peaceful non-violent civil disobedience?

Maybe so. And he wouldn't be alone.

Here's the headline which prompts such thinking: Steinbrueck to "stop at nothing" to stop new viaduct. Bold words.

And I am not at all surprised at this twist and have been predicting it; the issue of a new Viaduct — the Rebuild — is explosive. I believe that Steinbrueck is making no idle threat. He is quite committed; I have a strong sense that he would be willing to be arrested in peaceful non-violent civil disobedience. Chaining oneself to a bulldozer and so forth. Such discord is a very real threat to the Democratic hegemony in Washington State because it makes many of the elected Democrats look like blundering incompetents — which unfortunately is all too true; it also has troubling implications for the Presidential election in '08.

Conversely, some sort of "Repair & Prepare" would satisfy Steinbrueck, his fans and allies, and also save the bacon of Governor Chris Gregoire, Speaker Frank Chopp and other electeds who will be happy to be out of a jam and will throw their support to Peter in his future endeavors. It is the grand compromise which will save the day.

Peter will be Mayor if he can pull this compromise off. And I think he has a very strong hand. Just about every other Democrat (a few such as Chopp, Dickerson, Somers, Licata excepted) have been dream-walking. They need help. Repair & Prepare is the route out of the mess and Peter Steinbrueck is a civic figure of sufficient stature around which a coalition can gather.

More from Laurie Olin

Benjamin Hemric has left, as usual, some awfuly interesting comments on a previous post about Brooklyn Yards so I went back to re-read the initial article from the New York Observer and it's worse than I had remembered. Laurie Olin thinks that "space on streets is actually useless space."

Mr. Olin, who is also a professor of landscape architecture and regional planning at the University of Pennsylvania, was brought onto the Atlantic Yards project by Mr. Gehry about four or five months into the design process. (The two had worked together in Los Angeles and London.) By that point, Mr. Olin said, the design already called for demapping a one-block length of Pacific Street and melting the two adjoining blocks together into a “superblock”—the type of mid-20th-century urban planning widely used in housing projects, but since discredited by Jane Jacobs and a whole school of so-called urbanists. They have argued that superblocks discourage the type of street life that makes places like the West Village so successful.

Mr. Ratner, however, needs that street bed in order to increase the open space on the project. Along with streets that will be demapped to make way for the arena, he will gain about 2.7 acres, according to The Observer’s calculations based on the environmental-impact statement.
 
And that is important: Right now, the site’s immediate neighborhood has 0.36 acres of parkland for every 1,000 people. Once Atlantic Yards gets built, that ratio will increase to 0.39 acres—but only after those street beds are included, according to calculations based on the final environmental-impact statement. Battery Park City has 2.5 acres per 1,000 residents, while the overall city ratio is 1.5 acres per 1,000 residents.
 
“I am not in a position to say how much quantum is needed to pay for the project or give a reasonable return to investors,” Mr. Olin said. But he did toy at one point with reinstating the street. He also considered turning the street into a circular drive, like the roads in Stuyvesant Town. Neither worked. As for the taboos against superblocks and the tower-in-park design: “I think those are both clichés, and I think that we are using 1960’s language,” Mr. Olin told The Observer.
 
“If I put a street through here, I have less space for people and I have more cars,” he continued. “When people say ‘superblock’— what’s wrong with what this is? Because I don’t see how adding one car in here is going to make it a better space. I think space on streets is actually useless space.”
 
Mr. Olin said that Forest City will put restaurants, cafes, a daycare center and a community center on the ground floors of buildings that will face the central mall that runs through the development. And all those residents that opponents are worried about moving in? Well, they’ll just make the whole place livelier.

With his attitude about streets and malls and odd views of how streetfront retail works, I can see why the residents who live near Brooklyn Yards are concerned.

Serious baseball fans might like this poster

Major League Ballparks — Four Generations of Evolution:

Show me an example

Laurie Olin is designing a "superblock" (combining several blocks into one and doing away with the streets) in his site plan for the Atlantic Yards redevelopment in Brooklyn. He claims it will create "city." I doubt it.

One way he could convince skeptics is to offer an example of a superblock (anywhere relevant) which works to create a really interesting urban neighborhood.

•••

Btw, I ask my question with a degree of sincerity. I have never seen a superblock design/development where I would want to live. So I am pretty sure that Olin cannot meet my challenge. But that doesn't mean an urbane superblock doesn't exist, somewhere. But existing in someone's mind is irrelevant. I work from examples, from immediate and tangible sensation; I don't work in theory but in practice. Can anyone offer an example of an interesting walkable comfortable neighborhood which has even one superblock? Honestly, does one exist anywhere? If not, it would seem that Mr. Olin is seeking to create something for which there are no models, which is a sure way to failure when it comes to human settlement.

Meanwhile, back in the real world,

beyond the room of mirrors which is Seattle and its Viaduct, there are Automated Parking Garages:

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.

The better to control the discussion?

Frustration plagues discussion of viaduct options

And community leadership - including media such as the Stranger (I wouldn't even mention the local radio/TV as they are with only a few exce[tions a total joke) -- has only itself too blame.

But what interests me is why the questions were screened:

Questions to speakers were announced anonymously from white notecards and were not in short supply.

To prevent the "Repair & Prepare" option from being discussed.

In the nick of time

"Repair & Prepare" makes it on to the civic agenda. Peter Sherwin writes in the Seattle Times: Let's repair the viaduct and prepare for its removal.

...we should repair the viaduct and prepare surface and transit alternatives for a future without that waterfront highway.

New elections for office holders?

NO! and HELL NO! likely to win big.

None of the above.

That's what Democratic Party activists around Seattle are recommending in the upcoming advisory election on replacing the earthquake-damaged Alaskan Way Viaduct.

Neither a new viaduct nor a tunnel has received a "yes" vote in Democratic district organization meetings over the last week. In different ways, the groups — ranging from the 46th District in northeast Seattle to the 34th in southwest Seattle — have turned thumbs down to both ballot options.

Some political observers see the results as an indication that voters will reject both ballot options in the all-mail election

And I believe that the issue is so big and the loss (a double "NO!") will be so decisive that in a parliamentary system the government would fall and have to call new elections. That won't happen here, of course. But Seattle's elected officials are about to suffer a crushing loss of credibility and prestige. A political leader may be disliked and even detested and survive. But when he or she becomes an object of humor too then there is an even more serious problem for their ability to govern.

What does it mean? I don't know and I don't think anyone has a feel for it. But if I were an office-holder in Seattle I would be trying to distance myself from the whole Viaduct imbroglio, unless I was able to shift credibly to a reasonable solution such as "Repair & Prepare."

To sum it up -- still accurate today, even more so

A friend wrote and asked if all the politicos have their heads buried in the sand when it comes to the Viaduct.

Every politician in the State -- even Frank Chopp, I have to say with sadness, who is otherwise doing heroic work killing the Tunnel monster -- seems to be blind to the obvious.

• The Tunnel died because there was no money.
• The Rebuild will die because there is intense opposition which Gregoire et al will not find worth bucking.
• The "naked"* Surface/Transit will not gain enough support because it will be perceived as too vast & risky an "intervention" (as the architects put such things) -- which it is.
• Because of political exhaustion, other options (such as the Cable Stay bridge) which might have been truly viable, will never be fairly assessed.
• Repair & Prepare will be "the last man standing."

* By "naked" I mean the approach suggested a few days ago on KUOW in which we tear down the Viaduct and "just see what happens." Such a "plan" is bizarre and irresponsible and will in fact act to scare people away from whatever merits the Surface/Transit may have.

Wanting to believe

I'd endorse No! & Hell No! except for this statement (below) which is THE "convenient lie" at the heart of the political problem:

"NoAndHellNo.org acknowledges that the existing Alaskan Way Viaduct is dangerously unstable, and must come down sooner as opposed to later."

One of the reasons we are in this mess is because the media and many individuals have been so ready to accept the convenient lie that "the Viaduct cannot be Repaired." That's what they have wanted to believe in order to further their own particular agenda such as Tunnel or Surface/Transit.

Eventually we will get to Repairing the Viaduct (maybe with Preparation for tearing it down if and when future infrastructure allows it) but it will have been a long, painful and needless battle.

Yes the media has responsibility

I left this Comment on Backlash.

"The real point that the politicos miss is that Sound Transit, makes no plans for DECADES for anyone west of Highway 99. Until they and the appointed politicos can understand that, there will be pissed off people from Shoreline to Burien."

That's a good point, Coffman. And it's significant that the so-called political writers at the Stranger (and other local media, too, I'd have to admit) totally ignore such dynamics.

One of the things which has emerged very clearly from the Viaduct debacle is that The Stranger and other media are incompetent at getting the story at anything but the most superficial, child-like level.

The media's sheep-like acceptance of the convenient lie (that the Viaduct cannot be Repaired and the Seawall is on its last legs) is at the heart of our current problem. It should be embarassing to The Stranger; the even greater tragedy is that it doesn't see that it should be offering mea culpas but in fact is proud of its "advocacy journalism."

With such "journalists" like these folks it no wonder that the public is so ill-informed that there is a danger that it will vote for the monstrous Rebuild (because it doesn't understand that there are alternatives.) I blogged a while ago that if we get the Rebuild then Stranger employees like Barnett and Feit and Savage will have a share of the responsibility. It's still true.

Now don't get me wrong: these folks are probably very nice at a personal level. But media has more responsiblities than only making money. The Stranger should simply remove the words "news" from its masthead and replace it with "pure bias untempered by reality."

Some people are still in denial

...the issue seems to be heading toward a resolution....

We are
• by no means close to a resolution of the Viaduct dispute;
• the resolution will be slow & painful in coming;
• the controversy will bite the Democrats;
• unless the politicians suddenly wake up, which they show no sign of doing.

I agree

One of the side effects of watching our political leaders hem and haw over the viaduct replacement strategy has been a realization that they're totally ineffectual. This isn't a groundbreaking realization but to see it play out so plainly has been stunning.

More here.

We have fun

Princess Caroline comments:

David Sucher, Jensen Intercepter, etc., have you seen this:

http://www.ausaid.gov.au/hottopics/topic.cfm?ID=3967_1806_7933_9250_2604

It sure blows away WSDOT's Elliott Bay depth concerns, and I would subsequently posit tower heights.

I wonder who is driving the research at WSDOT or what company they are using who they are using to the research. They are way behind from a technical standpoint. Perhaps we should ask for help from the Austrailian and Vietnamese governments to build a cable stayed bay bridge for us....sooner or later someone is going to have to call B.S. on WSDOT.

I respond:

Thanks, Princess Caroline, for the reference to that bridge is in Vietnam.

I found this sentence which might be relevant: "The bridge is a world class structure that overcame significant technical problems such as the need for piling up to 100 meters deep."

If the reference is to be read as pilings "in water up to 100 meters deep" then indeed some might be under the impression that this sentence is significant. But it is not, for reasons I will explain.

One hundred meters is about 330 feet. The maximum depth of Elliott Bay (along the path suggested by WSDOT for a Bay Bridge) is about 170 feet.

HOWEVER, the way meters and feet are measured in Vietnam and in Washington State is completley different. So references to what works in Vietnam (as engineered by AUSTRALIANS!) is simply not germane to Seattle. A meter in Vietnam and a meter in Seattle is not the same because of the different political contexts. What can be engineered in Vietnam is simply irrelevant to our situation in Seattle.

It's a good try, however, and I admire your pluck. But just remember: We in Seattle are unique. We have unique conditions. We have unique laws of physics. This is God's country where we do everything for the children. Things which work every other place in the world will simply NOT work here.

A good question

A commenter to this post on another blog asks:

Why can't we just shut down the viaduct for a month and watch and see that all the traffic WILL find another way to go. And then everyone will realize, hey, we actually can just make better roads downtown, and it'll all be great!

My response:

Shutting down the Viaduct for a month or so is an appealing proposal — I suggested it on this blog last spring.

But it wouldn't be fair to S/T. So much of the possible success of S/T would depend on the creation of an infrastructure of Transit & other street improvements. Without that infrastructure in place you wouldn't get a fair test.

(And btw I say this as one quite dubious of S/T. But unlike some reporters at The Stranger — kin to the Bush White House — who would prefer to ignore inconvenient truths, I like intellectual rigor.)

Social memory is essential to wise governance

Vote No on tunnel, Vote No on Rebuild

The facts of the matter are that the viaduct is only falling from the last earthquake in a short section of the viaduct at Yesler Way. This could be fixed by replacing a small section at that location. This section of the viaduct was the only part of the whole structure that was severely damaged by an intense gasoline fire in 1970. The fire was caused by a loaded gasoline truck-trailer, which hit the east column of the viaduct southbound on the lower deck. The fire was so intense that it burn damaged all the high voltage cables serving downtown that were located directly below that roadway. The driver of the truck fell asleep and hit that column. The resulting fire from the burning gasoline weakened all the reinforced concrete there.

It's not even a backlash

It's a frontlash.. The Governor is going to back off the Rebuild she is not such a fool as to risk her job over something for which there are reasonable alternatives.

•••

The great brilliance and appeal of the Surface option is that no one really knows what it is. It's a blank slate into which everyone who cares about cities can pour their emotion and idealism. At this point it is not a plan or program but simply a goal.

But just as the Tunnel fell because of its own internal contradictions, and as the Rebuild as well will fail because of its own internal contradictions, so too will the "naked" Surface/Transit.

There must be a substantial interim period during which the infrastructure (which might allow the Viaduct to be removed) can be developed. Removing the Viaduct is a reasonable goal; you just can't it do by waving your hands and repeating "transit."

The Surface/Transit Letter

The "naked" Surface option, no matter some vague interest among some politicians, can not gain enough political traction to be implemented unless there is agreement that we need a fairly long-term period in which the Viaduct is Repaired and the infrastructure Prepared.

The Rebuild will never happen. I have explained why extensively on this blog. The intense anti-Rebuild uproar I hear now (and with which I heartily agree) simply confirms my opinion.

The "Repair & Prepare" will be the last man standing and a compromise -- albeit grudging, as are most compromises -- which can be accepted by all parties.

I know that Peter Steinbrueck supports such an approach and I wish he would discuss it more often.

It is tragic that the Governor's office doesn't seem to be listening.

My Five Favorite American "Buildings"

But actually she is not interested in buildings but in very large-scale sculpture.

Repair & Prepare

Peter Steinbrueck says.

And Tunnel Lite isn't any better, according to Steinbreuck. "I accept the tunnel is dead. That's fine with me." A better option would be to retrofit the old viaduct and improve surface traffic and public transportation to reduce demand on the viaduct, he said. (italics added)

Doing it without sufficient preparatiion is risky and foolish

Could streets be the answer?.

Long talked about, but never given a political chance, the idea of just tearing down the viaduct and making improvements to streets and transit is gaining momentum.

And for good reason. It will take a years — a decade at least? — to establish the infrastructure sufficient to justify tearing down the Viaduct. As an interim measure, we should Repair the Viaduct.

Buying into the "convenient lie" could get us the Monstrous Rebuild

"Governor to Endorse New, Larger Viaduct." So says Erica Barnett.

Erica, if we get a Rebuild, you will be partly to blame.

You (and others) were taken in by the "convenient lie" that the Viaduct could not be Repaired. Worse, you were so in love with the so-called but non-existent Surface/Transit option that you couldn't consider other options such as the cable-stayed bridge.

Partly as a function of lack of critical media scrutiny, the range of options which WSDOT fairly examined was limited to the Unaffordable (Tunnel) and the Monstrous (Rebuild.)

But now you still have the opportunity to redeem yourself by supporting the Steinbrueck & Sherwin option of "Repair & Prepare."

Just follow the money...

...and consider how much the WSDOT has spent on studying a Tunnel.

Accusations by Seattle officials Monday that the state is biased against a tunnel option for replacing the Alaskan Way Viaduct are "ludicrous," Gov. Chris Gregoire said.

When a Governor starts talking in public with words like "ludicrous" and about members of the same party, you know there is a problem.

This is what happens when you start with "Garbage In"

Indeed, the Political campaign heats up over viaduct and the ground is shifting:

The Downtown Seattle Association is strongly pro-tunnel. But that group will probably concentrate its election efforts on stopping a rebuild rather than promoting a tunnel, said its policy director, John Taylor.

"This is a watershed election because if voters choose an elevated highway, that's what will be built," Taylor said. "At this point we want to make it clear that it's most important that we are adamantly opposed to a new elevated highway."(italics added)

Tunnel-supporters might have considered the politics when they bought into the convenient lie that the Viaduct had to be "Replaced" and could not be Repaired. That was the threshold mistake and it allowed the stalking-horse Rebuild to be the only option offered to the voters in order to make the Tunnel look good.

If you start with a convenient lie and don't honestly consider all the alternatives (witness Iraq) then you get a mess.

Consciously "fibbing" or merely pathetically misininformed?

In any case an awful lot of people want to overlook the inconvenient truth that the Viaduct can be Repaired.

I was about to settle down to “The David Goldstein Show” on Newsradio 710-KIRO when I heard the host start the discussion of the Viaduct with something like "And we all know that the Viaduct must be Replaced..."

I turned off the radio. I don't have the patience to litsen to conversation aimed at demolition and which plays games with the facts to achieve that goal. The claim that the Viaduct must be replaced is a convenient lie foisted on the public. The inconvenient truth for supporters of both the Tunnel and the Surface options is that the Viaduct could be Repaired (or that their are other options such as a cable-stayed bridge.)

Goldy's parroting of this fiction reminded me of the blinders with which supporters of the Iraq War (in 2002-3) refused to consder any option besides war (such as vastly increased inspections; think about that one for a moment.) Bush's supporters wanted War; the supporters of the Surface option want Demolition. They start with a legitimate goal in mind -- respectively, improving the world by stopping a tyrant's control of WMDs or improving Seattle's waterfront -- but they contort reality and the facts to achieve their goal. In fact the Viaduct can be Repaired (and such Repair btw is the only route to serious considerion of the Surface option. The Surface option can only be achieved by Repairing it first.)

Garbage In, Garbage Out. That's the political process in Seattle and Goldy is taking part. Now I don't know if Goldy truely believes that the Viaduct must be Replaced because it cannot be Repaired, or whether he is conscious of the choice of Repair but chooses to overlook it. I prefer the former as he seems like a nice-enough guy with good intentions. But the result is the same — a public process aimed at a public work based on bad information and pre-conceived results. If Democrats can't do better than that...

A Pure Viaduct Blog

No New Viaduct.

Deluded indeed

The surface/transit option is only gaining popularity among deluded bloggers.

Consider the Surface option from another perspective: imagine that you are an elected official. You have a traffic artery which is well-used and works even if admittedly imperfect, even "ugly." Frenzied young people urge yopu tear it down because cars are so passe. So you are going to take the political risk of tearing it down to see if they and your traffic consultants are correct? i.e. that you can get by without it? What’s the benefit? That Goldy and Erica will praise you? (Until they get pissed at you for some other reason?)

You have to risk your political future on the “studies” and “research” of traffic engineers who have no stake in your own future. Many elected officials may be venal and unimaginative, but they are not so stupid as to commit political suicide. As Josh Feit pointed out, the supporters of the Surface option are mostly young people who don’t vote and don’t pay property-taxes. That’s not a political constiuency which gets you re-elected. The political risk of the naked Surface option is just too great.

Now if you combine the Repair with the Prepare to tear it down when the transit infrastructure is in place, you have a viable alternative. But tearing it down cold-turkey is a joke.

Commonsense from the Washington State Speaker of the House

Interview with Frank Chopp

Interesting experiment

The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: A Kirkland cafe with no prices.

With its blood-red walls and black leather sofas, Kirkland's Terra Bite Lounge looks like any other coffee shop — until you get to the menu. There are no prices listed. Terra Bite doesn't have them.

You read that right: No prices. Customers pay what and when they like, or not at all — it makes no difference to the cafe employees, who are instructed not to peek when people put money in the metal lock box.

Call me grumpy

The heavyweight fight for the waterfront.

Licata, who stands with Chopp on calling for a new elevated freeway, contends that he and Chopp represent "grumpy Seattle," which he says is the city's silent majority.

I'm not happy with the Rebuild either — luckily I think that once it becomes the preferred alternative its own internal contradictions will become obvious and its political impossibility will be clear — but at least Chopp and Licata are showing some real leadership & commonsense in trying to stop the Tunnel disaster.

•••

But overall it's a fascinating article except for your uncritical acceptance of

"Engineers say the viaduct must be replaced soon..."

Not all engineers. The reporters are 'assuming facts not in evidence' i.e. that the viaduct cannot be Repaired. WSDOT's own consultant (and others) says different.

The heart of our current political problem is that WSDOT played along with the Mayor in creating the public perception that the Viaduct can't be Repaired. Now they (and we) are reaping the whirlwind.

Peter Steinbrueck has an astute compromise which is politically realistic. He says:

"I'm not opposed to fixing up the viaduct in the short term, while we figure out a better long term sustainable solution to dealing with the traffic. I absolutely can't see spending a ton of money on a short term fix. Rather, just do the minimum, and invest heavily in surface and transit improvements ( Ron Sims ' 49 little things, and Danny Westneat 's 1000) that would ease off the demand for using the viaduct."

My conjecture: Tunnel will not happen. Nor will the Rebuild. The only realistic compromise is something like (as Peter Sherwin put it to me)

"Let's Repair it for now - and work for a city that can live without it."

But first, are they?

Should Journalists Correct Their Errors?.

That's the question I have for four local journalists*, Knute Berger, Susan Paynter, Steve Scher, and Danny Westneat.

The threshold question is whether these folks are "journalists."

I think of them more as "media personalities" since none of the go out and gather any facts. We all have opinions. What we need from the mass media is fact-gathering, which may include reporting press releases. We need them to to go out and gather the facts, not opine on them, which is what any of us can do. Do any of these folks actually generate new information? Or merely get well-paid to share their own feelings?