Surface + Whatever the Fraggle Rock It Takes

The cold wind of actual necessity is blowing up Seattle's skirt. Much like our childhood erector-set constructions, the Viaduct has a certain amount of "give" in it (though hopefully not due to the same reason: our dislike of tightening every single nut on things we were just going to take apart anyway), but the news last week that it has sunk 5 inches at its saggiest point has bells going off because 6 inches is the magic number when it's an emergency. Aaooogah!

If the Viaduct cooperates (i.e., doesn't fall down beforehand), this fall we'll spend $5 million on emergency strength-o-sizing. We have the technology to make it better, stronger: more steel rods. (Is there anything steel rods can't do?)

The Seattle Times just ran an opinion piece from a UW professor (emeritus) of architecture and urban design, advocating that we retrofit the hell out of the structure, but wiser heads (hah, just a joke because we're going to mention the Weekly) are thinking outside the concrete megastructure and planning for a surface-street future. Seely argues that a mosquito fleet is the West Seattle solution -- so do others, who think the foot-ferry's golden age is here at last.

Our point is this: the Viaduct deadlock has primarily been due to the refusal of people to consider the full range of options available to us. Our glorious Seattle exceptionalism has come into play to explain why we can't do a single thing different than we do now -- oh, and total capacity must be maintained by a single mode of transportation or it's not, you know, realistic.

Like soylent green, traffic is people. Cars don't go anywhere unless people think they need to get in them. A mosquito fleet is a good idea, but there have got to be at least 10 more good ideas out there no one's talking about yet.