Move on Seattle
Just when I thought Seattle’s capacity for ditherfests couldn’t be topped by the Alaskan Way tunnel and viaduct issue, along comes the Highway 520 bridge again [“Rethink 520 span? Gregoire says no,” page one, Feb. 2].
Does anyone bother to count the emissions from bumper-to-bumper traffic, when engines idle away and spew pollutants because a major thoroughfare is miserably out-of-date with traffic demands? And I’m really tired of the NIMBYs [not-in-my-back-yard people] who, I’m willing to bet, are not major mass-transit users. They remind me of people who buy property near an airport and then complain about the noise.
The bridge replacement has now been debated for nearly 13 years with umpteen studies done. It’s time for this city to pull its head out of the moss and get on with it.
— John Neitzel, Seattle
Seattle needs fewer highway lanes, cars
I’m a native of Seattle who grew up when the houses were being torn down for I-5 through the heart of he city. Like most people I thought it was a good thing — only 15 minutes to Sea-Tac from North Seattle by car. Boy are those days gone.
I would like to think that kind of shortsighted ignorance is gone too. You can count me in with those who oppose more car lanes for the new incarnation of Highway 520. The last thing Seattle needs is more space for cars, which create more congestion, noise, accidents, air pollution and more oily stormwater to pollute our waters.
When will we stop converting our urban spaces into corridors of obnoxious, unnecessary blights to feed our automobile addiction? The governor and others who want to push ahead with the planned 520 upgrade need to stop, take a deep breath and really think about the future, not about the decision they made a couple years ago. There is always time to make the right decision.
— Mark Quinn, Olympia
Stop ‘Seattle Way’
The so-called “Seattle Way” sucks. I’m writing about planning ad infinitum and ad nauseam to replace the Highway 520 bridge and the Alaskan Way Viaduct. Seattle and the state — with much news coverage and citizen involvement — have been talking about these projects for years and it’s time to get on with the projects.
I’ve worked for more than 25 years in government community relations and communications and I completely appreciate and support the necessity to get significant, meaningful public comment on public — and private — projects. That public involvement must be carried out so it can influence the planning, design, construction and operation of public projects.
But at some point, it must end. And the resulting projects — if proven to be necessary during that same process — must turn from talk into reality.
I believe the case has been made, over and over again, for the need of the two transportation projects I’m writing about. They are essential public projects to enhance mobility of people in our growing region.
— Gary B Larson, Seattle