ALLIED ARTS :: WATERFRONT

The Governor Threatens our Waterfront!
URGENT! Governor Gregoire and the Legislature are threatening to deface our waterfront with another viaduct!

The Governor has said that creating a great waterfront as Seattle’s front porch is not a worthy investment and Seattleites must endure a bigger viaduct for another 50-100 years – or longer.

The only way to change the Governor’s mind is to win at the ballot box. On March 13th, Seattle’s voters can send a clear message to the Governor that we will not accept another viaduct. Voters can tell her that we want a great waterfront in which a tunnel handles through traffic, surface streets accommodate local trips and transit carries people efficiently.

You can do more than cast your vote. We’re asking you to make a difference by supporting Allied Arts’ Waterfront For All Campaign. Your contribution will help us run a grassroots get-out-the-vote and public education campaign.

This will be a confusing ballot for many people. We need to spread the word that there are two important votes that Seattle citizens need to make:

-NO on the Viaduct
-YES on the Surface-Tunnel Hybrid

Both questions will be on the March 13th ballot.

Many people don’t know much about the newly proposed Surface-Tunnel Hybrid. The Hybrid Tunnel works because it provides a blank canvas for the waterfront…for parks, promenades and great open-space, much like the new Olympic Sculpture Park.

There will be 13 blocks of opened waterfront from King Street in Pioneer Square to Pine Street near the Aquarium. A lid over the highway from Pine up to Lenora at Steinbrueck Park will reconnect the Pike Place Market to the waterfront with one of the world’s greatest views and promenades. And the new open waterfront will provide endless opportunities to remake Waterfront Park, the Concert Piers and ferry terminal – all into great places for people of all walks of life to enjoy.

The new Surface-Tunnel Hybrid offers other attributes:

Many of Allied Arts’ friends and supporters such as the People’s Waterfront Coalition and the Sierra Club have been inspired by the “Surface & Transit” proposal. They saw a chance to enhance Seattle’s mass transit, to help us care for the waterfront environment and to create public green spaces.

The disappointing news for surface-only advocates is simply that the Governor and the Legislature made it illegal. They passed laws that tally capacity of the viaduct replacement by counting cars that speed through the corridor rather than counting people transported through. The end result: the Surface & Transit option – with its lower vehicle capacity – hits a dead end.

Clearly, these Olympian political maneuvers by a Legislature led by Frank Chopp & Helen Sommers are not thoughtful policy. WSDOT should have been charged with creating a plan that moves “people and freight,” not “cars and trucks.”

The good news for Surface & Transit advocates is that the new Surface-Tunnel Hybrid incorporates many of their suggestions. The People’s Waterfront Coalition should be congratulated for its work of getting new transit and better roadway connections incorporated into the Surface-Tunnel Hybrid.

There will be a temptation for some environmentalists to vote no on both ballot questions – against a new viaduct and against the Surface-Hybrid tunnel – "to send a message" to a car-dominated Olympia.

We advise against this "Ralph Nader" approach. The March 13 vote is our opportunity to send a united message to our elected leaders in Seattle and Olympia that a new viaduct is unacceptable and that people in Seattle see the value of a great waterfront. The Surface-Tunnel Hybrid allows us to say YES to the Waterfront, YES to moving people and freight in a rational way, and YES to leveraging this project to improve air and water quality in Puget Sound.

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