A new viaduct is completely off the table

Despite voters' clear and overwhelming rejection of the elevated option, some elected officials aren't ready to give up supporting a new viaduct:

[Senate Majority Leader] Lisa Brown said the vote appears to definitively shut the door on a tunnel, but she wasn't ready to rule out an elevated highway. She said it's still an option, given that the vote appears to be closer.

Actually, the vote definitely shuts the door on both options no matter what Olympia says. A 55% vote against a viaduct is not close. But that was nothing compared to what Nick Licata said:

Seattle City Council President Nick Licata, who supports rebuilding the viaduct, called the 44.5 percent vote "a pretty solid base for elevated."

"It will definitely keep it alive," he said. "I think that Olympia will have to moderate its stance, taking into account some design elements, seeing if they can make it less bulky, less noisy, and seeing how much open space they can create on the waterfront."

That's just pure nonsense:

A less bulky viaduct? A less noisy viaduct? Oh, yeah, that's gonna happen, Nick. The state's gonna look at the vote and decide to build us one of those slim 'n trim elevated viaducts we've heard so much about.

Nick? The rebuild lost. Badly. Says State Senator Ed Murray: "A loss is a loss. Legislators who lose 55 to 45 don't get to be legislators." Viaducts that lose 55 to 45 don't get to be rebuilt.

...Would someone with some sense - someone who opposes the rebuild, like the majority of Seattle voters - please run against Licata?

The people of Seattle have spoken: a significant majority opposes building a freeway on the waterfront, whether it's underground or suspended in the air resting on concrete supports.

As Danny Westneat says, the time has come for surface+transit:

What a resounding "no" means is: Try something else. And almost every public official who can't agree on an elevated or a tunnel happens to have the same backup plan: a surface boulevard.

It has been ignored. Traffic engineers have been whispering for years that it might work. It's also probably the cheapest. Yet everyone has been so hellbent to get their way that the obvious compromise plan has wallowed in obscurity.

Thanks to the electorate, both a tunnel and a new viaduct are completely off the table. It's time for the Olympia vs. Seattle fight to be over and done with. Elected officials, especially the Governor and Mayor Nickels, should respect the will of the voters, forget about mega projects, and start working to put together a meaningful surface+transit plan.