Seattle's 'Big Ugly' tangled in politics

SEATTLE -- When Mayor Greg Nickels uses the phrase "the Big Ugly," he is referring to the 2.2-mile-long Alaskan Way Viaduct, the aging, earthquake-vulnerable elevated expressway that separates much of downtown Seattle from Elliott Bay, one of the city's iconic natural features.

But the Big Ugly also is an apt characterization of the political debacle unfolding here over whether -- and how -- the 54-year-old concrete roadway should be replaced.

On an all-mail advisory ballot that many voters here complain is confusing -- not to mention "a sham and a fiasco," as City Councilor Peter Steinbrueck puts it, or "meaningless," in the view of State House Speaker Frank Chopp -- Seattleites are supposed to weigh in with a yes or no on two measures.

One would replace the viaduct with a tunnel. It would be a visionary reclamation of Seattle's somewhat neglected waterfront, according to proponents, and a Boston Big Dig-style construction nightmare, according to opponents. The other measure would replace the viaduct with a new elevated expressway.

Nickels, backed by former governors, mayors, and business leaders, is campaigning hard for a "yes" vote on the tunnel.

"Tear down this wall," he said of the raised expressway recently , as he was echoing the famous Reagan-to-Gorbachev challenge about the Berlin Wall.

Nickels has been pushing the tunnel idea even though state transportation planners last month rejected the design as unsafe and far more expensive than its $3.4 billion price tag.

Some local leaders are pressing for the new expressway. Others favor a cheaper retrofit of the existing structure.

And still others are pushing the so-called "no-no" option (or "no and hell, no," in the words of the Stranger, an alternative weekly here), a sort of "if you don't build it, they won't come" approach to traffic.

Ballots went out two weeks ago and must be postmarked by Tuesday to be counted.

No one truly expects voters to have the final word on the subject, and many leaders seem dug in to their position regardless of how the vote comes out -- raising the prospect of years of litigation and prompting Joni Balter, a Seattle Times editorial columnist, to label the mess "Dysfunction Junction."

Still, the advisory ballot gives Seattleites a chance to offer general vision for the waterfront, a mishmash of port facilities, tourist shops, a ferry terminal, and cruise ship slips. It is hardly the city's most attractive feature, and it is cut off visually and sonically from the famed Pike Place Market and the rest of downtown by the viaduct and its whoosh of traffic.

Council member Steinbrueck, an architect, says he will fight a new viaduct to his dying day, whereas Chopp, a Seattle Democrat, has basically said a tunnel will get built only over (or, perhaps, under) his dead body.

Many non-Seattle lawmakers agree with Chopp, portraying the tunnel as a wasteful bauble -- and a dangerous one.

The state Transportation Department said the tunnel would have "serious operational and safety problems" because it would be narrow and the shoulders would be used as exit lanes during rush hours, which could cause accidents and tie-ups.

"It makes absolutely no sense to replace an unsafe viaduct with an unsafe tunnel," said state Senator Mary Margaret Haugen, a Democrat who heads the Transportation Committee.