Holy crap are we not getting enough sleep. We woke up this morning and did battle with the dueling alarms we have to set to enforce our five hours of shut eye, slugged ourselves to the bus stop, inched our way downtown to the soothing sounds of Don Edwards and then experienced our first radical optical illusion since a beach rave and a handful of mushrooms five years ago. We peered into a newsbox and the letters of the Seattle Times headline picked themselves up from whatever arrangement they were in and realigned to read "Viaduct fight: Could streets be the answer?"

It wasn't just the headline, either. The whole article makes it seem like replacing the Viaduct with surface-level roads might actually be a reasonable thing to do. In fact, it almost reads like replacing the Viaduct with surface+transit is a done deal:

The state DOT says it is not studying surface proposals.

"I would say emphatically no," said David Dye, the agency's urban-corridors administrator. "We're taking our lead from the statements of legislative leadership and the governor's office. We're focusing on working on the elevated design."

Well, not that part, actually. The rest, though. They talk to Sims and Cary Moon of the People's Waterfront Coalition and go a long way towards espousing the view that Seattlest has had for a while: The Viaduct 2.0 and Tunnel 2.0 will pound each other into submission until good old surface runs in and steals the prize. While the Times warns that the fallout from a Viaduct fight might be surface streets on the waterfront, the P-I says funding for other transportation projects will likely lose. You lose this one, P-I. Bor-ing.

Image courtesty of philomythus.