{"id":150930,"date":"2010-01-12T14:06:29","date_gmt":"2010-01-12T19:06:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/seattletimes.nwsource.com\/html\/northwestvoices\/2010736973_viaducttunnelisnotthesolution.html?syndication=rss"},"modified":"2010-01-12T14:06:29","modified_gmt":"2010-01-12T19:06:29","slug":"viaduct-tunnel-is-not-the-solution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/150930","title":{"rendered":"Viaduct: tunnel is not the solution"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is not an eyesore<\/strong><\/p>\n

I am suggesting that one of the reasons for removing the Seattle viaduct and putting the traffic underground into a tunnel is erroneous [\u201cLet\u2019s move forward on 520, viaduct jobs,\u201d Opinion, Dec. 29]. That reason is the visual eyesore that the viaduct presents.<\/p>\n

I maintain that more people are able to witness the beauty of the Seattle area with the viaduct intact than by diverting traffic underground. I maintain that the sheer volume of people who drive on the viaduct everyday are able to witness such beauty from that unique vantage point, far outweighs the number of people who could see that same beauty from a promenade along the Seattle waterfront. This even takes into the account the number of people in the condos who could enjoy an unobstructed view without the viaduct being in their line of sight.<\/p>\n

I think we are being duped by the wealthy \u2014 and therefore influential people \u2014 into believing that by removing a viaduct along our waterfront, more people will enjoy the beauty that Seattle has to offer. This reasoning just doesn\u2019t seem to take into account the sheer volume and number of people who are seeing our beautiful Seattle area from the vantage point of an elevated viaduct. What a wonderful treat for the common masses.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s rebuild the viaduct. The proposed tunnel is going to benefit a select few and add difficulty for the rest of us who want to commute through the city.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Timothy Wilde, Seattle<\/em><\/p>\n

Light rail cheaper than tunnel<\/strong><\/p>\n

There is a serious funding hypocrisy in this town when it comes to transportation. After votes in which Seattle residents rejected both bridge and tunnel replacements of the Alaskan Way Viaduct \u2014 and new numbers showing that people in the Puget Sound region are driving less \u2014 our politicians still reject the surface-transit options to replace the viaduct.<\/p>\n

The $4 billion that is going to be spent on the tunnel, which does not even meet Washington state road-safety standards and has no exits downtown, is twice as much as was spent on the entire light-rail line in Southeast Seattle \u2014 a line with the capacity of a 12-lane I-5.<\/p>\n

It is also enough money to do all the rail upgrades on the tracks between Seattle and Portland to accommodate 13 trains running each direction taking two and a half hours between the two cities.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s time we understand that road infrastructure requires far more operating subsidies than public transit. In a time when people in our region are driving less, we need to stop spending ridiculous amounts of money on wasteful projects like the tunnel.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Chetan Chandrashekhar, Seattle<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is not an eyesore I am suggesting that one of the reasons for removing the Seattle viaduct and putting the traffic underground into a tunnel is erroneous [\u201cLet\u2019s move forward on 520, viaduct jobs,\u201d Opinion, Dec. 29]. That reason is the visual eyesore that the viaduct presents. I maintain that more people are able […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-150930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150930\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}