Seattle should follow the example Portland set by replacing a riverfront highway and proposed new freeway with transit, writes Floyd McKay, who covered the city in the 1970s:
The challenge for Seattle is to take a giant leap of faith — as Portland did when it reversed those two huge highway projects — and commit to a future that is not asphalt-driven.
He correctly notes that spending billions of dollars to boost car capacity along Seattle’s waterfront makes little sense because the true challenge is moving more people and freight. Meanwhile the region’s larger bottleneck is the 520 freeway bridge.
Comments
2 responses to “Seattle can learn from Portland on viaduct”
Floyd was one of my Journalism prof when I went to Western.
His editorial makes perfect sense to me. The tunnel can be build with the least amount of impact because the viaduct could be left up and taken down after the tunnel is complete.
The more I read and think about it, the tunnel, while it cost more is the right choice. I wished I still lived in Seattle so I could vote for the tunnel option.
The trick is how to pay for it. Nick Licata was quoted as saying that the average Seattle family can afford a rebuild but not a tunnel. How do we get past that?