(Thanks to West Seattle Blog for sharing their video.)
Saying public safety demands it, Mayor Mike McGinn announced yesterday that he intends to speed up replacement of the seawall, and will use a ballot measure to ask for a $250 million 30-year bond. The bond would increase property taxes by 12 cents per $1,000 of assessed property value.
Over half of the seawall that holds back Alaskan Way is compromised, and the rest of it is not in confidence-inspiring condition either: a section of sidewalk collapsed in May 2009, trapping a man.
The seawall was built over time between 1916 and 1936 so that freight could get right to the piers for loading and unloading. Gribble-infested timber platforms act as–less and less–as an anchor for the steel and concrete atop them. Another timber platform, buried thirteen feet deep and about sixty feet wide, holds the fill dirt and material that was dumped to create a level surface. Any significant earthquake would cause the seawall to fail catastrophically, and likely bring down the Viaduct with it.
In fact, it is probably not a good idea to have crowds of people jump up and down on it at the same time. Yet, as with the Viaduct itself, the danger to public safety it represents has not resulted in much nonverbal action. At the outset, it seemed to make sense that the seawall, which was in worse condition than the sagging Viaduct, could be replaced along with the Viaduct, in a year or two.
Nine years of debate later, things have changed. The Alaskan Way Viaduct and Seawall Replacement project is on shaky financial ground, since no one can be found willing to take responsibility for overruns if the cost exceeds $2.4 billion. People are understandably eager to get started on something, especially if it leads to an exciting new waterfront.
The only people who seem perturbed by McGinn’s proposal are the Seattle City Council, who were ruffled at having heard about it with the rest of the hoi polloi. From Publicola’s report, they also seem upset at the idea that things might be done more quickly. The Seattle Times account agrees: “Councilmember Sally Clark also expressed concern about how McGinn devised the sea-wall plan, given that many interest groups would want to weigh in on design.”
I can’t help but think that if there’s a threat to public safety–and there undeniably is–let’s have that drive the timeline, rather than “interests groups” who apparently want longer than two years to “weigh in.” The overheated prognostications of les petits Talleyrands of the Publicola comment section aside–where McGinn simultaneously is conspiring to build and not build the seawall for reasons understood only by an insider such as the commenter–there’s plenty of bracing cold water behind haste in fixing the seawall.