One measure of the frustration with Seattle’s political process: put together a party with the explicit purpose of speeding things up and plenty of people will come. The trick, of course, is focusing the energy after the party ends.

It was no different Tuesday night at the launch party for Friends of Seattle, a year-old group that promotes development policies in the city. True, there was plenty of energy from a crowd of maybe 300 business and political types, but I left wondering if the group can keep the momentum.

The highlight was a speech by Councilman Peter Steinbrueck, focusing on adding transit and removing the waterfront viaduct freeway to help cut pollution. He started asking how many people walked or took the bus to the party. Many hands went up. How many lived nearby? Almost none. He noted the obvious: “Seattle is the most car-dependant city on the West Coast.” But beyond removing the viaduct freeway, there were few concrete policy proposals.

Yet others were less convinced, which was surprising at a party for a group that has made preventing a viaduct rebuild its first issue. Several people said they came to the party because they received an evite but weren’t sure about what Friends of Seattle stands for. One woman said she couldn’t see how Seattle could possibly survive without the viaduct.

Movements can start with platitudes, only to fizzle when it comes to finding a way to pay for big ideas or convince people to change their way of life. The party showed that frustration with the city’s status quo; the group that can focus that energy has its work cut out for it.

Two things stand out about the latest The Seattle Times coverage of the political maneuvering on how to replace Seattle’s viaduct freeway:

Most surprising, you can almost sense the voice of the reporters in the story. Maybe it’s the influence of David Postman’s blog at the paper, but the tone allowed the reporters to explain some of the motivations at work without citing a source for each. I’d argue allowing the reporters’ expertise to come through the story is exactly what could keep people reading the state’s largest paper.

The other striking detail is the presumption of City Council President Nick Licata (who insists on a new elevated freeway) that he represents “grumpy Seattle,” which he claims forms a silent majority. If grumpy is defined as opposition to investment in long-term causes, that’s not true (see recent voter approval for higher property taxes). It seems that most of the city’s newcomers and people under the age of 40 are here because of the future. People want a more liveable city — made possible through improvements like an accessible waterfront — not to turn the clock back to the freeway-happy 1960s.

If replacing Seattle’s viaduct freeway with a tunnel will create a more valuable waterfront, why are taxpayers being asked to foot the bill at all?

The state has offered to pay most of the $2.8 billion to build a new elevated freeway. It’s tempting to think that tolls and a charge on nearby property would cover the extra $1 billion or so for a tunnel. Unfortunately, several reports suggest that’s unlikely.

Property assessments wouldn’t work because too few building sites are directly affected, according to this analysis in the Seattle P-I:

With many parcels already built out — and protections afforded by the Pioneer Square
Historic District — fewer than two dozen sites adjacent to the route appear likely
candidates for redevelopment today, according to the city’s rough guess of what property
owners might do.

A new viaduct would be a disaster for the region that would last for a century, yet there’s no sign of regional support for more funding. Concern that the city could live without the car capacity and that the money could be better spent helps the case for a package of transit and street improvements.

This hasn’t kept Mayor Greg Nickels from counting on a grab-bag of funding, including an assessment on land near the viaduct that supposedly would generate about $250 million — the limit without drastically eliminating future open space along the waterfront.

Still, removing the viaduct would have economic benefits, likely spread across the region. At least two reports found benefits totaling several billion dollars. Opponents say the figures are inflated and don’t recognize that anything but a rebuild is a luxury the city can’t afford. So far there’s almost no support outside the city for having the region pay for a tunnel, even though the region would benefit.

It took two hours and five minutes to go the 12 miles from Redmond to Seattle on 520 Wednesday evening. Apparently a single stalled car was the culprit, making me 45 minutes late for a 6:30 appointment and providing another reminder why the region needs comprehensive transportation fixes.

I was angry at everyone. At the drivers who weave between lanes trying to save a car length. At the guy in front of me who repeatedly let cars cut. At the cop who stopped a full lane of traffic around the stalled pickup. And at myself for entertaining the thought that maybe running out of gas or having a car that stalls should be punishable with heavy fine or death.

Of course, I’m at fault for putting myself in that position, for choosing to live in Seattle and work in Redmond. You could argue that people like me should live near work. Perhaps this area should devolve into a medieval state where we rarely travel more than a few miles.

Incentives to shape behavior should be part of the answer. Yet our city would fragment if traffic meant people in one corner hardly mixed with those in another, a la Jakarta or Delhi. That’s why we need a combination of steps to keep the area moving and make a more sustainable community: zoning for density, congestion pricing to smooth demand, and a series of transit that provides an alternative to gridlock.