Some great comments at Crosscut

McGinn stirs the embers with his 'trust' insult to Gregoire 

Prediction: a generation after opening the thing, our children will ask "What WERE they thinking?"

One of the most tragic things about "the Viaduct" situation as a whole is the lack of imagination to examine options. Imagine for example that we were a declining empire, in serious trouble with overseas entanglements, a nation divided by profound cultural outlooks to the point that the nation is governable only by inertia. Imagine that we in Washington _absolutely_ had to maintain north/south mobility through the core city of the region but could "only" spend, say, $500 million. 

In a heartbeat we would simply repair the existing Viaduct. 

What prevents us from considering repairing it seriously  -- (no, I don't believe that WSDOT has thought enough about it) -- because few can imagine that the Viaduct could actually be an improvement and positively benefit Seattle as a piece of urban design. But they are wrong.

Consider something like the Parisian Viaduc des Arts.

http://europeforvisitors.com/paris/articles/viaduc-des-arts.htm

The model is obvious; please just go check out the link or Google it.

Brewster has already correctly sung the praises of New York City's High Line.

Frank Chopp has been going in the right direction -- the Choppaduct --  and I have been waiting for him to further the idea. (I suspect he is going to wait until the decisive moment comes along when we have exhausted ourselves.)

So far we have failed with our conventional, richer-than-we-think-we-are, timidities. The deep-bore tunnel solution chosen for us by the "serious people," like my friend erstwhile environmentalist Richard Conlin, is to simply spend spend spend. 

So I agree with JM Rolls, and staybailey as well -- "still time to do the right thing."