Mayor McGinn Calls for Viaduct Closure in 2012

Mayor McGinn has created such a negative impression with some sectors of the public that they would stay firmly seated if he shouted “Fire!” in a theater. Maybe throw on an extra sweater.

So when McGinn suggested to KUOW that maybe we should return to the Governor’s stated plan in 2008–to close the Viaduct in 2012, replacement or no–a predictable chorus has emerged from people who’d gladly be buried alive under tons of rubble if it meant they could oppose everything the Mayor says.

For example, a West Seattle Blog commenter says:

Unbelievable. Let’s not let mince words here Mayor McGinn. You are blatantly using the tragedy in Japan to promote your anti-tunnel campaign. Do you sleep well at night? You are using the deaths of thousands and images of destruction fresh in all of our minds a world away to push your obstructionist agenda.

In my earlier argument for closing the Viaduct in 2012, I mentioned that the move is neither pro- nor anti-tunnel. Nothing about the tunnel construction, per se, relies on their being a standing Viaduct–that the tunnel plan calls for the Viaduct to come down in 2016 is driven by economics.

Ron Paananen, who leads the viaduct-replacement project for WSDOT told the Seattle Times: “We recognize it’s vulnerable. We’ve tried to balance safety with protecting the economy of the city, too.”

The City Council’s Tom Rasmussen said closing the Viaduct early would create “total gridlock.” He’s right and he’s wrong. Total gridlock doesn’t persist, because drivers make choices. Let’s listen to what someone who studies traffic for a living says.

A spokesman for INRIX, a Kirkland traffic-data company, told the Times that a year’s advance warning would reduce demand even before closure: “If you go measure the system a year from now, you would not find 110,000 trips. You will find something like 80,000.” I would argue that, with almost 20 percent under- and un-employment since Viaduct traffic was surveyed, we are already well beneath 100,000 trips per day.

Again, there’s no denying that closing the Viaduct would be a major disruption. But we have a responsibility to public safety, and that outweighs purely economic concerns. When Paananen says we face the same risk we faced Thursday, before Japan’s mega-quake, he’s absolutely right–and that risk is catastrophic.