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.

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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."

Comments

[Wells]

Who has read a definitive perspective on how the surface + transit option can lead to the sort of development (ie New Urbanism) espoused by its adherents who admit that over-dependence upon automobiles and the long-distance transport via globalization is unsustainable?

The planning philosophy which supports maintaining the traffic capacity of SR-99 stubbornly refuses to admit its fatal flaw - that economies which require long-distance travel and transport never stop growing. All the most degrading aspects of our modern industrial economy are spiraling out of control, reaking havoc, while its planners answer only to those who profit profligately from its ruinous inequities.