There are 14 weeks until Election Day, which is great because there are only 14 issues in our state's gubernatorial race (15 if you count Eastern Washington's concerns). Each week we'll be taking an in-depth, and we predict award-winning, look at where Governor Christine Gregoire and Just Dino Rossi stand. This Week: The Alaskan Way Viaduct. Rossi—That waterfront tunnel no one liked. Gregoire—She will decide by December 2006, the voters will decide, an elevated replacement,......

"Alaskan Way" by Slightly North, the official photographer of the Viaduct With the Ballard Denny's landmark status is-it-or-isn't-it debacle still fresh on our mind, comes the latest chapter in Seattle's ever-exciting "What Constitutes an Historic Landmark?" debate. According to local historian Art Skolnik, the death-trap we formally call the Alaskan Way Viaduct should be declared and preserved as an historic landmark. Skolnik contends that the viaduct should not only be preserved, but we should just......

The aptly titled, "Empty Viaduct?" by Seattlest Flickr Contributor slightlynorth The Alaskan Way Viaduct is closed for its semi-annual inspection this weekend. The viaduct will be closed from 6am to 6pm on Saturday and Sunday. The Battery Street Tunnel will be closed all weekend to traffic. The semi-annual inspections check for that settling Dan was talking about earlier this week and the cracks we all pretend aren't there when we speed down the viaduct, fearing......

Glory be! Is this the year all our wishes come true? It wasn't but yesterday that we asked whether a decision would be made on the Viaduct this year. Well, Chris McGann of the P-I asked Governor Christine Gregoire about it. And look!"It's coming down in 2012. I'm taking it down. That's the timeline. I'm not going to fudge on it. And if we don't have some alternative by then, boy are we going to......

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......

Okay, Okay, so we cribbed basically this entire entry from Historylink --but only because it is such a great site. However, so that we don't feel too plagiarific, Seattlest has run the original essay through the the value-adding machinery in the back of the office (right near the alley where we all go out to smoke). Needless to say, we cribbed all of the following photos from UW Special Collections Division's assortment of awesome......

The Viaduct is closing this weekend for a semi-annual inspection, which we like to imagine as Mayor Nickels walking up to and attempting to shake a support column. Thumbs-up, DOT, looks like we're set for another year or until such time as a replacement tunnel is funded! While the official inspecting is going on, there is an opportunity for some private citizen-types to get a close-up look at the Viaduct decks. The Alaskan Way......

-"The Viaduct replacement tunnel will cost nearly a billion more than you thought," says Department of Transportation. "No it won't," replies the mayor. -Seattle City Councilman Richard Conlin has a new plan for the city's garbage. Actually, under the Zero Waste Strategy, there will be no garbage to get rid of. -Zillow made some changes to their site today, and now instead of Zillow telling you how much your house is worth, you tell......

If you look at this post sometime outside business hours YouTube should have its traffic down to a managable size and actually be able to serve up a video. Right now you're screwed and there's going to be a big blank space under this. If there had been a video there instead of a big blank space you'd have just seen a purportedly funny video advocating for the preservation of Big Ugly Things. The Viaduct,......

The Viaduct chalker we've mentioned in the past is still at it. This picture was taken a week ago, but we're down there a lot and are constantly coming across new wisdoms. Actually this person is definitely not the same writer we photographed in the past so maybe the mayor's office has a whole clandestine Ministry of Chalk Propoganda going? Wonder what that crossed out portion was going to say... Image courtesy of Dawn......

The Viaduct's closing this weekend for repairs and we should keep it closed. We're never going to decide anything while traffic is flowing freely because the problem isn't apparent enough. The Viaduct isn't safe. We're going to replace it with a tunnel or a bigger viaduct or maybe nothing at all, but we'll vote on that for the first time at the end of 2007 and who knows how long it'll be after that. We'll......

It's rained for 22 straight days which seems pretty excessive to us, but we were really dry last winter so maybe our perspective is just skewed. Mud slides are happening and home owners are getting their first looks at puddles in the basement. Generally, it sucks. Anyway, other media outlets have been broadcasting the fact that we might meet or exceed the historical high for consecutive days of rainfall which is 33. Seems to Seattlest......

The gas tax bobbed and weaved its way through our state legislature and was signed by Governor Gregoire last week to the great cheer of many, despite our current gas prices. Others aren't so sure a 33% tax increase on gasoline is such a good idea. The Viaduct needs money badly, as does 405 and 520. Our transportation infrastructure is crumbling around us, but certainly drivers shouldn't have to contribute to maintaining the roads and......