This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.
The Seattle PI today endorses a NO-NO vote on the viaduct:
The message behind this no-no vote might be lost on Gregoire, Nickels and Chopp, who each appear immovable on the issue, and have abdicated their duty to lead. We’d like to send them back to the table to study carefully, and without prejudice, all possibilities, including a surface-plus-transit option. In the meantime, the state is responsible for safety on the current viaduct. Perhaps it ought to retrofit the thing while decisions are being made so that we don’t risk it crumbling over our heads or beneath our wheels.
The Stranger concurs:
Instead of spending our limited transportation tax dollars on more concrete for cars, we should be doing what cities across the country, from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to San Francisco, to Portland, Oregon, to Chattanooga, Tennessee, are doing, with universally positive results: tear the viaduct down, implement all the surface-street improvements we’re going to be doing anyway during the 9 to 12 years the viaduct will be closed for construction, and see if we can get by without it permanently.
And that seems to be the nut of it: if we have to close the corridor for a decade anyway, we may as well close it for a few years and see what happens.