Seattle decisively votes to bless construction of deep-bore tunnel for State Route 99

The State of Wash­ing­ton’s project to replace the aging, crum­bling Alaskan Way Viaduct has just received its final polit­i­cal green light.

After endur­ing sev­er­al months of debates, forums, and adver­tise­ments, Seat­tle vot­ers have resound­ing­ly cho­sen to bless the con­struc­tion of a deep bore tun­nel under down­town. Ear­ly returns indi­cate a land­slide vic­to­ry for Let’s Move For­ward, the pro-tun­nel cam­paign, which is com­mand­ing almost 60% of the vote.

The news was almost imme­di­ate­ly wel­comed by Gov­er­nor Chris Gre­goire, who has been defend­ing the state’s deci­sion to move for­ward with the tun­nel for months.

“Seat­tle vot­ers sent a mes­sage loud and clear with this vote – enough is enough,” the gov­er­nor said in a statement.

“After ten years of debate, hun­dreds of pub­lic meet­ings and tech­ni­cal stud­ies, and thou­sands of pub­lic com­ments, it is time to move for­ward with­out delay.”

“We are com­mit­ted to this part­ner­ship and will con­tin­ue to work with the pub­lic, the city of Seat­tle, King Coun­ty, Port of Seat­tle, the con­trac­tors and many oth­ers to ensure that we com­plete the tun­nel on time and on bud­get,” the gov­er­nor added.

The lop­sided returns seemed to catch the anti-tun­nel cam­paign, Pro­tect Seat­tle Now, off-guard. As of 10:30 PM, NPI had yet to receive an offi­cial state­ment from the cam­paign com­ment­ing on the results via e‑mail.

The cam­paign has, how­ev­er, have admit­ted defeat to reporters who are at its par­ty. (The scene there has been described as sub­dued, and I don’t doubt that’s the case).  Seat­tle May­or Mike McGinn, whose sup­port­ers helped engi­neer the ref­er­en­dum, was not at the Havana tonight, but his ally on the city coun­cil, Mike O’Brien, was, along with many of McGin­n’s own staff.

O’Brien, at least, was gra­cious in defeat, acknowl­edg­ing that vot­ers had spo­ken deci­sive­ly and that the project now need­ed to go forward.

For his part, McGinn issued a terse state­ment moments ago which sim­ply read,  “I worked to give the pub­lic a direct vote on the tun­nel. The pub­lic said move ahead with the tun­nel, and that’s what we’re going to do.”

Actu­al­ly, McGinn did more than attempt to give his con­stituents a chance to weigh in: he tried to per­suade Seat­tle to join him in con­demn­ing the project so he would have ammu­ni­tion for future bat­tles with the City Coun­cil and region­al leaders.

But the vote he and his sup­port­ers engi­neered has backfired.

Instead of giv­ing him the polit­i­cal cov­er he want­ed to con­tin­ue his onslaught against the tun­nel, Seat­tle has blessed the effort to build it.

McGinn and O’Brien have sug­gest­ed for some time that their col­leagues (the eight Seat­tle City Coun­cilmem­bers who sup­port the tun­nel) were out of touch with the peo­ple they rep­re­sent. But now they’re the ones who look out of touch. They staked a lot on this ref­er­en­dum, and they lost big.

It is true that they were out­spent, but that’s not the rea­son they lost (they were very vis­i­ble despite hav­ing less mon­ey). They lost because they mis­read the elec­torate. They cam­paigned con­fi­dent­ly and force­ful­ly, but their enthu­si­asm was more impres­sive than their argu­ments. I wit­nessed this myself when I attend­ed a City­Club forum on Ref­er­en­dum 1 a cou­ple weeks ago.

I felt Mike O’Brien (who spoke for Pro­tect Seat­tle Now) showed more pas­sion in attack­ing the tun­nel than Kate Jon­cas (who spoke for Let’s Move For­ward) did in defend­ing it. On that score, he won. He appeared more adept and sound­ed more pol­ished. But while his ener­gy and pas­sion made him seem like the more effec­tive debater, the points he made just weren’t that compelling.

He tac­it­ly admit­ted that Pro­tect Seat­tle Now was try­ing to use the ref­er­en­dum to start the process of decid­ing what to do with the viaduct all over again. He hurt his own cause by invit­ing his con­stituents to imag­ine anoth­er decade of bick­er­ing over the viaduct at the local, region­al, and state levels.

And he nev­er pre­sent­ed a con­crete alter­na­tive to the deep-bore tun­nel. He failed to answer the ques­tion, If not this, then what?

All he had to offer was a well-rehearsed cri­tique of what the state, the region, and his eight oth­er col­leagues on the city coun­cil have already com­mit­ted to.

I was left think­ing, Why don’t you just direct your ener­gy towards try­ing to improve this project? Get the Leg­is­la­ture to approve the tran­sit fund­ing that’s sup­posed to be in the plan. Hold WSDOT to its promis­es. Look out for city tax­pay­ers. But watch­dog the tun­nel instead of try­ing to kill it. 

For too long, McGinn, O’Brien, and their sup­port­ers have allowed them­selves to be dis­tract­ed from a great many oth­er press­ing issues because they have been so fix­at­ed on try­ing to undo the tun­nel. As a con­se­quence, I sense that many peo­ple view them more as crit­ics than as leaders.

They have an oppor­tu­ni­ty now to reverse this unfair char­ac­ter­i­za­tion by direct­ing their ener­gy towards more fruit­ful endeav­ors… like expand­ing Seat­tle’s street­car net­work, or work­ing on replac­ing the decay­ing water­front seawall.

The tun­nel is ulti­mate­ly the state’s respon­si­bil­i­ty, not the city’s. The city cer­tain­ly must and should be involved. But this project should­n’t have a monop­oly on Seat­tle’s polit­i­cal oxy­gen. The city faces many oth­er prob­lems that it needs its elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives — includ­ing May­or McGinn — to solve. Hope­ful­ly, some of the oth­er prob­lems will now begin to receive more attention.