Sightline Takes The Low Road
NEW is history, say the policy pundits at Cascadia Scorecard. Call us the Sightline Institute instead. (Someone's been busy in the art department turning wonky into wowzers! Ha ha! No, seriously, the site looks hot.)
We mention them because of this recent, wonktacular post -- in which they spend a good deal of time talking about Alaskan Way Viaduct-less traffic -- and argue, "Why spend billions of dollars to fix a problem that that city's already solved?"
As George Lakoff would note, much of the discussion about "what to do about the Viaduct" is happening in the wrong frame. No matter what you propose, there's a ghostly viaduct hovering about, in phrases like "replacement capacity." Yet the issue is traffic, not the actual structure, and rush hour traffic in particular. The structure carries 105,000 daily trips, but according to Clark Williams-Derry, it's only during rush hour that that traffic can find no other outlet:
With no viaduct, peak-hour travel demand will increase by somewhere between 6,100 and 7,200 trips. (Note, this is a somewhat conservative estimate -- I'm assuming that some former viaduct trips will "disappear"--i.e., move to other times or destinations--because they'll take too long; but I'm not assuming the same for trips already on the surface streets.)
Their argument is that the city has to deal with these peak traffic demands sans viaduct corridor for (as the Seattle Times reports) "18 to 42 months." That's what we in the real world like to call 1.5 to 3.5 years (and it's planned that the corridor will be only partly functional for 5 to 6 years, as construction is finished up).
The city has plans to optimize surface street usage, but Williams-Derry thinks that only increased transit (which is in the air lately) can really hope to deal with the problem by taking cars off the streets. So, is this a golden opportunity for Seattle after all -- a push down not a car-less road, but certainly one with less cars? And if so, could we not continue in that direction, adding transit capacity as needed?
This kind of discussion reminds us of listening to Jaime Lerner talk about the need for a scenario. On the one hand, you have the tunnel or bigger viaduct. That's the "surrender to our car overlords" scenario -- it's about feeling disempowered: WSDOT won't give us money unless we build it. We can't do without our cars. Traffic is bad enough as it is.
On the other, there's a vision of Seattle as an urban center, building upon the realization that there is no sustainable growth scenario for a city whose population is dependent on cars. It's a vision of a whole city connected by transit (instead of bisected by freeways and highways).
We don't mean to caricature the former position; we just don't know of major infrastructural investments on behalf of car traffic that don't lead to more major infrastructural investments on behalf of car traffic. We're also a little tired of the people who "can't" get out of their cars controlling discussions of an entire city's future. Maybe they can't -- but they don't have to, if others are willing and able to drive less.
Plenty of other people have given up cars completely, many are cutting down on driving, and more would, given transit that met their transportation needs. Why? Because Seattle is their city, and they're willing to pitch in to make life better here. And life is demonstrably better both out of gridlock and out of debt.
(Photo: the Embarcadero, San Francisco's hideous 4-lane waterfront boulevard.)
