TBM Breakthrough
TBM Breakthrough, photo by flickr user Fríða mín

87 Replies to “News Round Up: Tunnel Madness”

      3. For a day or a lifetime….neither which I would want to even have my worst enemy go through…..I fondly call it Brothel for over fifteen years to date, and am glad I know longer have to go out there….

  2. Both of the proposals by the UW students are examples of extremely poor modernist architecture. I feel ill. The Station design is just a rehash of recent British and Irish modernist development, just on a larger scale. The Healthy Living concept is absurd, but if you need a story to get you to a design, I guess. It is less offensive than The Station, mainly because it is more reserved and has a nicer public realm. But, on the whole, it’s still terrible. I can only pray that these students mature and that this stuff never sees the light of day in Seattle. God help us…

    (Sorry for the highly negative post, but I can’t hold back.)

    1. Amen to that. Those boxes are so demeaning, boring and ugly. The HealthyLiving concept (laughable name) wants to create instant-urbanity through gimmicks. Livability means getting away from that bunker/greenhouse architecture. By now they should know how urbane architecture works or doesn’t work. Those proposals are not a good testament to their education.

  3. Regarding the Daily Beast article about I-405 congestion, where is the NE 14th St. exit? My sense is that I-405 is flowing much betther after the widening projects. On the other hand, I don’t drive it too often, and never at rush hour.

    The Bellevue Braids project should make it even better once it’s finished. But not this weekend…

    1. I think they are simply referring to when 405 passes 14th. I have unfortunately had to drive on 405 the past couple weeks due to my job and I’m headed northbound but the southbound traffic still looks pretty bad. Usually backed up onto 90.

  4. Did anything ever come of Martin’s Ranier Valley proposal? Did anyone from Metro ever see it? Having spent some time on the weekends in the RV lately, I’ve experienced some of the inadequacies of RV service.

    To the numerous benefits outlined in his post, I would add that abolishing the 7 in favor of the 9 local (or rerouting the 7 to Broadway, whatever you wanna call it) would be extremely conducive to two future restructurings that are in the cards, namely the abolition of the 49 once U-Link starts service (because the 7 is currently part-time through-routed with the 49), and the rerouting of the 9 and the 60 to 12th Ave once the First Hill Streecar starts, which the McGinster wants for 12th Ave in Capitol Hill, and the the First Hill people would probably take as a consolation prize in lieu of their preferred FHSC alignment.

    Given that there’s no major transit packages on the agenda in the next few years, I feel like this is the kind of fairly-revenue-neutral improvement that transit activists can realistically go in to bat for. Anyone have any though thoughts on this?

  5. I like the concept of a “Travel Time Tax” in the list of worst traffic:
    “I405: Rush hour travel time tax on worst corridor: 183%”

    My issue with “Congestion Pricing” is that it sets up a dilemma whereby it is suddenly in the interest of the taxing body to not fix problems.

    For example, why would you fix highways to make them faster if it meant less people paying for Good2Go passes?

    The people who design roads would be “bought off” by the people who want to make personal transit as difficult to use as possible so they could sell expensive “infrastructure” and cumbersome mass transit when all it would take are some simple design changes to the highways.

    This has already happened in my opinion.

    1. Has it occurred to you that when traffic moves faster, more people pass through a given section of road, thus paying the toll?

      1. Ka-ching. Yep. Toll road operators pretty much always have an incentive to improve the quality of service their road provides.

        Congestion pricing has been used to mean other things. In the Seattle context, people seem to basically use it to mean toll roads with tolls adjusted according to time of day. That’s not what it means in London, where it basically means converting the narrow downtown streets, where there wasn’t room for bus lanes, into bus/toll roads. The scheme had numerous benefits, but the primary and original one, if you read the documents, is that it made all the buses run on time.

  7. Brightwater tunnel causes sinkhole [again]

    Someone tell me why this didn’t follow the Slough like the sewer from Redmond? Or even along the Burke Gilman ROW. Then they’d only be 30′ underground when things go haywire instead of 300′. I like how the DBT contractors get an extra $20M if they don’t colapse any buildings. If they do… no soup for you.

  8. It shouldn’t really come as a surprise to anyone outside of this Blog that McGinn’s numbers are so bad. The Seattle Times is even speculating at this point that McGinn may not even desire a second term and that his single minded work against the tunnel may or may or not be fulfilled by the time of the next election in 2013.

    McGinn’s central problem is that he is a divider and not an uniter, content seemingly to represent the interests of a far left wing agenda, every bit as alien to some of us who care about Seattle as the views of his polar opposite, Tim Eyman.

    For those of us who are Dylan fans, Eyman represents more the Highway 61 Revisited view of a maverick expostulating views from outside the circle of chaos (albeit with idiotic views as far as Eyman is concerned)and from outside of the Seattle city limits, whilst McGinn represents more the Blonde on Blonde perspective of chaos from within those same city limits. Just as a calmer view prevailed for Dylan when he withdrew from both perspectives and released John Wesley Harding as his next album after Blonde on Blonde, so some of us are looking for thoughtful and engaged leadership, respectful of division and sensitive to the flow of life, but yet more with the view to building consensus.

    Some of us look to thoughtful and engaged leadership from our elected representatives – representatives who can step back and look at the broader picture and not stay focused on just one issue. We also respect the fact that in a representative democracy, these guys are here to lead or not lead and that elections exist to approve or disprove their records. It doesn’t help to second guess them at every turn. Seattle has broader needs than just arguing over the tunnel right now and yet McGinn is focusing all of his leadership energy on this one topic which is not what Seattle needs or wants from him or from any of its other leaders.

    Personally, I hope that we can move on with the tunnel project with or without all of this disruptive chaos of referenda and votes which in all likelihood won’t achieve too much. I also hope that we can get new leadership in 2013 which is not as divisive or focused on a one track agenda. I am sure that McGinn is doing some good somewhere in City Hall but any good is completely lost in the chaos of his other more divisive agenda.

    The mayor would do well at this point to focus more on hastening the First Hill Streetcar project which seems to be stalled somewhere as far as anyone has booked any breaking ground event. He could also work on the Beacon Hill Park project with the Mountains to Sound Greenway. Maybe he could help us define an approach towards saving the Kalakala or telling us about the work being done at King Street Station. He could weigh in on more train service in and out of King Street Station – just some ideas that could be worth him being engaged in. These are just a few suggestions on the environmental/transportation side of things.

    1. +1. Just wish this tunnel fight would go away and die. BTW, over the New Year, STB asked who we’d like to see interviewed this year, and I would like to renominate Constantine and Conlin. I’m far more interested in what either of them has to say than McGinn.

      1. Yes, agreed – the STB is not seemingly that interested in the views of either and yet both are pro-transit. I wish they’d interview Greg Nickels too.

    2. If you think that McGinn is “far left wing,” you might need to readjust your perspective.

      1. He is reasonably far to the left, but more importantly, plays so well into the caricature of an overweening greenie-lefty gadfly that people who would be ambivalent or persuadable to his ideas end up hating him.

    3. McGinn is a terrible mayor. He rode a wave of young voters from the ’08 election because he spent most of his campaign time in bars and The Stranger had an unhealthy obsession with him. He needs to go.

      Seattle is a fickle city. I still can’t believe Nickels was so universally disliked… and for what? Because he didn’t adequately prepare the city for a once in a lifetime snow storm? Bah.

    4. How can people just ignore the cost overrun issue and say it’s all about needed car capacity or a vibrant waterfront? McGinn is doing the fiscally prudent thing. The city has only a limited amount of tax money now and in the future, and it has to prioritize how it spends it. A large contribution to the tunnel may be politically necessary in order to keep peace with the rest of the state, but not an open-ended commitment as the overrun provision is. If the state wants to build a tunnel, let it line up the financing first and take the responsibility for cost overruns.

  9. If I were president this would be my energy plan:

    Raise the gas tax $1 dollar per year until we meet our goals. Turkey pays 8 to 10 a gallon all the time.

    Part of the reason people still buy SUV’s is the hope gas prices will go down, this would give them clarity on what future gas prices would be. Suddenly local farmers and manufacturing would flourish. Newt tells us gas would be $2.5 a gallon if only we did more drilling here, I can’t believe he gets away with saying such nonsense.

    vote for me… :)

    1. You might have to raise gas more than that even to get people to drive less:
      http://www.tnr.com/blog/the-study/86044/americans-arent-going-stop-buying-gas

      According to research by UC Davis’s Jonathan Hughes, Christopher Knittel and Daniel Sperling, Americans are now less responsive to increases in gas prices. In the late 1970s, a ten percent rise in the cost of gas would lead to about a three percent decline in the amount of gas consumed. In the early 2000s, on the other hand, gas prices would have to rise about 60 percent to provoke a similar decline in gas consumption. The researchers theorized that this might be because spending on gas is now a smaller fraction of total monthly income or because cars get better mileage now, meaning that cutting back on driving saves less gas than it would have in the 1970s. But either way, their research suggests that even if gas prices go higher, we’re unlikely to see Americans buying substantially less gas.

      1. People will be driving less, and people are driving less, according to studies which actually study that. This study pretty much only shows that with cars getting better mileage means, driving less doesn’t reduce gas usage as much as it used to (which makes sense if you think about it).

        There also seem to be inflection points in usage; it’s far from a linear relationship. The natural movement in prices of gas due to Peak Oil is already hitting thpse inflection points, but it would certain not hurt to hit them sooner. All this is academic as DC is gridlocked away from doing anything useful by a combination of will-never-compromise Republicans and bipartisanship-obsessed Democrats.

    1. Oh boy, another half-baked idea. Just a “gimme gimme gimme” vote for some engineering money. Why bother with the other agency actually doing the same thing.

      I see this simply as a monkey wrench against the tunnel

  11. The $4/gallon gas is an interesting topic. First of all, from the article linked to above:

    “And as our state average nears that $4.00 per gallon mark, it’s a luxury Saari said he can no longer afford.

    “I’ll try to work from home, file share on the computer so I don’t have to drive,” he said.”

    This is the future of commuting: non-commuting, or working from home. This has been starting to happen over the past couple of years even with relatively low gas prices, and it is only going to accelerate. A friend of mine who works for Boeing started telecommuting one day per week a few months ago, before gas prices really started taking off. He used to drive to work 5 days a week. And the government is starting to encourage telework now, for government workers. So, this is something that is just starting to become popular and has huge potential for growth, and for taking cars off the roads.

    I don’t expect gas to stay at $4/gallon for long (I have not paid that much yet, anyway). I believe it will come back down to below $3/gallon. Of course, the difficult question is when will it come back down, and nobody can predict that. But, I’m surprised that nobody here has commented on the impact $4/gallon gas has on the operating cost comparison between diesel buses and electric trolley buses. I get the feeling Metro is going to continue using electric trolley buses anyway, but $4/gallon diesel makes electric trolleys look even better.

    The last time gas reached $4/gallon I remember reading stories about people converting their cars to run on natural gas. And that was before the discovery of huge amounts of natural gas in the U.S. Natural gas sells for about the equivalent of $1.50/gallon gasoline. So, if gas does stay around $4/gallon or higher for more than the few months it stayed there in 2008, I predict we will start reading stories about a lot of people converting their cars to natural gas.

    It only costs around $3,000 to convert a 4-cylinder car to natural gas, and with gasoline at $4/gallon, you would save about 10 cents/mile, so it would take only around 30,000 miles of driving to pay for the conversion. After that, you save about $100 every 1,000 miles you drive.

    Of course, $4 gas will encourage a lot of fleets (trucks, buses, taxis, etc.) to convert to natural gas, also.

    1. A friend of mine who works for Boeing started telecommuting one day per week.

      And what does he do the other four days per week?

      3. Is there some point you are attempting to make, Bruce? Or, you just enjoy posting inane little comments?

      5. Oftentimes, Boeing only lets its people telecommute one day per week. Others can do so more frequently. Most people here telecommute as often as their work requirements and their manager allow.

      6. I quit my former full-time telework job and found a job because working remotely was frustrating due to latency on the VPN with the software we had to use, plus I lacked the continuous stimulation and sharing ideas with my colleagues in person and on whiteboards. I have a friend who teleworks because his wife has a job that requires her to live in a rural area where there are no jobs for him for a few years. He hates it, and they’re moving back to the city as soon as possible.

        One day a week telecommuting can work for lots of people. Full time for years? Not so many, and certainly not as well in my experience. For those many, many trips that have to happen, pretty much anything other than a car uses much less gas and causes essentially no congestion. That’s why I live where I do, and I believe plenty of other young, skilled people feel the same way.

    2. Think about this, though, Norman. Suppose you do have your fleets of full-time telecommuters. If they’re not commuting, most of them will be unable to justify the expense of owning a car any more. If they don’t own a car any more, how will they get to leisure activities, special meetings, etc.? Either there will be a massive additional demand for taxis, including taxis driving VERY long distances, or (more likely) a massive demand for bus and rail service….

      1. Because, let’s face it, most of these telecommuters aren’t going to WANT to live lives of rural isolation, and aren’t going to want to waste fortunes on cars. They’ll end up moving near or into downtown and wanting to be within walking distance of, at least, a train which will take them to the entertainment district or to their friends’ houses. (Yes, some of them will live in apartments directly upstairs from commercial districts and within walking distance of their friends, but that will probably not be true for everyone — especially once a city gets large enough and one’s friends can’t possibly all live within walking distance.)

      2. I will also point out that the non-clumpy, evenly distributed nature of the trip demand among non-commuters can be satisfied more easily, more economically than the peak commuter demand can be. Of course, to be more efficient than taxis, it requires sufficient clustering that there is sufficient demand for all-day good service, but it’s been shown that that *will* happen after enough people start clustering densely in walkable communities.

        In other words, Norman’s everyone-will-telecommute scenario first generates a bunch of clustered, urban, walkable communities, and then generates all-day demand for frequent passenger rail service between them.

      3. That’s absurd. Of course they will have cars, and can easily afford them, since they save so much money by not commuting. Telecommuting saves lots of money — it does not cost money. Everyone I know has a car, and I know people who telecommute full-time, and people who walk to work, and people who are retired, and they all have cars. That is not a real-world scenario you describe, but just something you dreamed up.

        You really saying I should pay taxes to subsidize people going to “leisure activities”? You must be joking. They can pay for their own transportation. If they don’t own a car, they can certainly pay the full cost of whatever transportation they think is better than driving.

    3. You don’t need to beat up Norman about one person telecommuting and whether he does it one day a week or five days a week. Telecommuting is increasing, period. But it’s not about to take over most jobs, at least not in the foreseeable future. It started with employees wanting a shorter commute or the ability to look after children while working. Then employers discovered it had some benefits for them: the ability to keep work happening during snow days, happier employees, etc.

      Along with telecommuting there’s neighborhood offices and co-working spaces, where people from different companies or self-employed go to a shared office near their homes. That’s increasing too.

      As more people work at or near home, they’ll need to make more short daytime trips for appointments and the like, particularly if they can do their work in the evening. So they could use more transit in their neighborhood.

  12. Who cares? The point is that he has cut his commuting miles by 20%, saving money, and using less gas. This is a win-win-win for all concerned.

    And teleworking is only going to become more and more common. Eventually, cutting back on gas consumption through telecommuting and alternative fuels will cause the price of gasoline to come back down.

    1. Maybe he considers telecommuting to be an inferior substitute for being present in the office? Perhaps he feels it would be harder to sustain the professional relationships and day-to-day communications with colleagues that are essential to productive work if he seldom spent time with them in person?

      1. “Since 1995, IBM has saved nearly $2.9 billion on office space needs by allowing forty percent of its employees to work from home.”

        I love how other high-tech companies justify having massive campuses and commuting impacts pooh-pooh the power of ubiquitous communications so they can enjoy free sodas at countless face-to-face meetings

      2. Maybe not. But what difference does it make? Telecommuting saves money, reduces gas consumption, and reduces traffic.

        The fact is that more and more companies are allowing telecommuting, and more and more people are telecommuting all the time.

        You deny that? Are you saying that telecommuting is not becoming more and more common? Or, are you just not saying anything at all?

      3. Norman, you only use telecommuting as a reason to not invest in transit, so why should anyone care what you say about it? John Niles has been pulling the same thing for the last thirty years, it’s not a new red herring. Everyone knows you’re an anti-transit troll, so why do you act so surprised when no one takes your comments seriously?

      4. Quite a lot of difference, both for the individual and for the country in the aggregate, if it results in lower productivity from, and earnings for its most productive workers.

        To me, this is a specific example of why transportation (in all modes) is a public good that has been subsidized (in all modes) because personal interaction has value even when other means of interaction exist.

      5. Where is there any evidence that telework results in lower productivity?

        Certainly from a cost-effectiveness point of view, it lowers the cost for both the company and the employee, which obviously is good for the individual and the country as a whole. Lower cost = higher productivity.

      6. Which brings us back to my initial question, namely that if your friend can telecommute, why does he not do so more? Perhaps he is more productive in the office and that the drive is worth it to him, four days a week?

      7. I don’t know why he doesn’t telecommute every day, and I don’t care. That is irrelevant. Until a few months ago, he didn’t telecommute ever. He went from telecommuting 0 days per week to telecommuting 1 day per week. This is an increase in telecommuting, no?

        As I said, telecommuting is becoming more and more common, at an accelerating pace.

        This brings me back to my question that you did not answer: do you deny that more and more people are teleworking all the time?

        If you don’t deny this, why do you think telework is continually becoming more and more popular?

      8. I’ve agreed with you in prior discussions that the current trend in telecommuting is up. However, this year’s Link boardings will almost certainly indicate an upward trend compared to last year, but that will not extend indefinitely into the future until Link has 100% modeshare.

        In addition to the large percentage of jobs that cannot be done through telecommuting, I am asking whether telecommuting may be inferior in some respects to commuting, thus limiting its usage in those cases where it is possible, and imposing net personal and social costs when it is used. Perhaps your friend’s choice to continue commuting is evidence for the affirmative answer to that question.

      9. My friend’s increase in telecommuting from 0 days per year to about 50 days per year is evidence that it is working for him and for his company.

        Likewise the large increase nationally in the number of people who telework is evidence that telework is effective and gaining in popularity.

        And telework saves money for both the employee and employer and costs taxpayers nothing, while reducing gas consumption and decreasing traffic congestion.

        What’s not to like?

        Telework is the future.

      10. More precisely, it means that he prefers to telecommute one day a week versus zero days a week. It also means that prefers to commute four days a week versus telecommute two, three, four or five days per week.

      11. It also means he prefers to take transit zero times per week. Perhaps because taking transit wastes so much of his time?

      13. Telework costs taxpayers nothing, and takes vehicles off the roads while reducing oil consumption. Win-win-win. Vastly superior to stupidly expensive transit.

      14. Telework costs taxpayers nothing

        Really, where did thisgrant money come from? The entire internet was derived from the 100% government funded ARPANET. Nobody rides for free.

  13. If anyone says that a route can’t be electrified because there is no place to turn around….

  14. And Bruce, why don’t you try answering this question: why are more and more people teleworking all the time? Perhaps it is evidence that telework improves productivity, reduces costs and saves everyone money?

    1. Norman, I can see where you are coming from. Teleworking is great, it saves gas, money, time, etc. I think what Bruce is getting at here is that as great as teleworking can be, there still is no substitute for face-to-face interaction, especially in the workplace with coworkers. I also have learned from my experiences as a student that it takes a very diligent person to be able to work at home with all the distractions available. I hope you and Bruce can one day see eye to eye on this.

    1. And the 70-80,000 trips that will be displaced from the viaduct even with the tunnel won’t cause Carmageddon?

      If they want a “Yes” vote on the tunnel referendum and a “No” vote on the initiative, I suggest they hurry up and come up with financing mechanisms for the transit portion of the tunnel plan.

    2. Shouldn’t be much of a problem for long, because I read online that soon everyone will be reducing costs and increasing productivity by telecommuting.

  16. An actual transit-related note; I saw a CT Double Tall operating in downtown today on route 415. Pretty damn cool. First one I’ve seen in revenue service. Can’t wait to jump on one and sit in the picture window seats on the top floor.

      1. I don’t think these buses are meant to hold many standing passengers because they’re on long express routes.

      3. So, total capacity of about 97, with 3 more seats than a Link light rail car. And only 42 feet long. Supposedly do well in snow. They are suppoosed to be about 11% more energy-efficient than hybrid articulated buses. Is Metro considering these double-tall buses? I guess they are fairly expensive, but higher capacity and more fuel-efficient. Might be a good idea for some Metro routes.

    1. I wish. Seems like Seattle-Vancouver and Seattle-Portland would be lucrative corridors for them.

  18. Protect Seattle Now is leading us straight towards Viaduct Rebuild. As much as I would like Surface/Transit to happen, its not going to. It doesnt have anywhere near the popular or political support necessary.

    So if the tunnel is thwarted, its almost certain there will be a viaduct rebuild, which is far worse IMO.

    1. That’s my greatest fear. PSN seems to be operating under the assumption that if we shoot down the tunnel we will get surface and transit. This is not the case. Instead we will get whatever table scraps the state deigns to throw us, which could be surface/no transit or a rebuild — the worst of all.

    2. A viaduct would be a great result. Why does anyone want tens of thousands of more vehicles per day on surface streets and I-5? Can you explain to me how that would be a good thing? As Dow Constantine himself said yesterday: buses can’t move through gridlock. So, why would anyone want that to happen?

    3. Is a viaduct rebuild really far worse? I don’t think so. In my opinion the worst part of the viaduct is the noise it produces. The sound actually comes from the noise from southbound cars bouncing off the upper deck and being sent down to the street/waterfront below. This could be greatly remediated with better pavement and the placement of sound absorbers below the upper deck. Other than that, I never really thought of the viaduct as a hideous blight.

      Besides, Alaskan Way is to be turned into a major blvd once the tunnel is built which will be just as loud as the current viaduct, only this time it will be pedestrian level. It’ll be harder to cross than it is now. And knowing WSDOT and the Port of Seattle, the entire thing will be f***ed up anyway. These guys are not going to listen to the ‘new urbanists’… When have they ever?

      1. The fact that Norman thinks it’s a brilliant idea should give anyone pause. Also, given that you’ve advocated demolishing two city blocks because lots of sketchy people hang out near 3rd & Pike suggests that neither of you are engines of rational thought.

        You are simply wrong about the noise from the surface street. Compare 2nd Ave to the Viaduct today — far quieter. The more I’ve been forced to look at this pointless fight, the more I like the tunnel. If cross-town traffic has a fast bypass, waterfront advocates are in a much better position to ask for lower speed limits and more crossings on the rebuilt Alaskan way.

      2. I was being highly facetious about demolishing city blocks on Pine street, I guess that didn’t come across as obvious as I thought. Sorry if I offended you, but I stand by my opinion that 3rd and Pine needs a lot of work – more than a transit mall on 3rd could ever fix.

        As for the noise from a surface street, I think all designs from WSDOT have resembled much more like Aurora than 2nd Avenue. And I don’t think we can convince WSDOT much of anything in terms of change on this design.

      3. If you stand on a sidewalk on the waterfront now, and there is a bus or truck on the surface Alaskan Way, the noise from that bus or truck easily drowns out the noise from the viaduct. You will be closer to the vehicles on surface Alaskan Way than you are to vehicles on the viaduct. There will be a whole lot more vehicles on surface Alaskan Way without the viaduct than there are now.

        And, the noise from a new viaduct would be much less than from the current viaduct, as barman explains.

  19. If the argument is between rail and BRT, Norman chooses BRT.

    BRT and normal bus service, then normal bus service.

    Normal bus service and threadbare social-service transit, then the latter.

    Threadbare service and no service, then no service.

    Telecommuting will save us all. Police, nurses, doctors, teachers, firemen, EMTs, construction workers, factory workers, truckers, waitresses, cooks, clerks, all of these professions will be able to telecommute all the time inside of six months. Sounder, Mariner, and Seahawk players will soon be telecommuting as well.

    Also highway spending is not actual spending, and is most definitely not subsidized.

    1. Highway spending is funded by motorists, therefore it is not subsidized. If transit were funded solely by fares, then it would not be subsidized, either. Of course, fares pay only a very small percentage of the total cost of transit in our are (and zero of the cost of the roads buses use), so transit is almost totally paid for with subsidies. Is this really complicated?

      Telecommuting will take more people out of cars than transit. In fact, outside of NYC, more people telework than commute by transit in the U.S. right now. Where do people get the simple-minded idea that telecommuting has to work for everyone, or it is not a good idea? Can constuction workers take transit to work with their tools? lol

      Telecommuting opens up roads for those who have to commute, so they don’t have to fight traffic, without costing taxpayers anything. How can anyone with any sense be opposed to that? Obviously, telework is a great thing, and it is the future of commuting.

      2. In WA state highways are paid for by taxes and fees on motorists and motor vehicles, as I have proved several times.

  20. Governor Gregoire’s press conference yesterday was awesome!!! She rarely gets fired up but what I have noticed with our governor is that when she does, she is on fire. Reminded me listening to it on the Seattle Channel of Mrs. Thatcher in the UK when in full flight and flow.

    When Governor Gregoire gets mad, it is a sight to behold and her handling of the issue yesterday was superb and right on message with both facts and direction.

    2. She can perform when it’s irrelevant. She should have fought harder for our state in the past. It was an otherwise miracle that she won in 2008. I know she wasn’t given a great economy for her state, but still, she’s another crap Obama-like administrator when it comes down to it. I wish she’d go back to lawyering. On this, she’s dead wrong.

    3. you liked it because she told you what you wanted to hear, Tim. She’s sold transit down the river for years.

Comments are closed.