From this week's issue of The Economist of London. "Tunnel vision"
The spectacle of the bulky, dark-haired Mr Nickels mud-wrestling with the diminutive, honey-haired Ms Gregoire has not been edifying. "These people are going to go down as some of the worst urban leaders in America," comments Bryan Jones, an expert on public policy at the University of Washington. At present Ms Gregoire is coming off worse. Now in her third year in office after an election so tight that it had to be decided in court, she had gained respect as an effective legislative manager. But her ambitious education and health-care plans have disappeared in the viaduct's shadow. And the bitterness of the fight is expected to sour debate over future projects in and around Seattle, including the need to replace a vital floating bridge that carries traffic to the city's eastern suburbs.Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at February 26, 2007 01:21 PM | Email This
The real laughing stock are the voters that keep electing these clowns.
Posted by: MJC on February 26, 2007 01:51 PMIt makes one stupid.
Posted by: JCM on February 26, 2007 02:31 PMBesides, David Mathews has assured us that it's all a catastophe and a calamity, anyway. Except in Florida. Between hurricanes.
And I thought Al Gore and Leonardo DiCaprio made a cute couple. Ellen Degenerate and Rosie O'Donnell: not so much.
Posted by: Rey Smith on February 26, 2007 02:32 PM$30 BILLON in new taxes for tunnels, floating bridges, rail (lite or regular) or maybe an elevated freeway (lite or regular). And, they want to cut a few thousand parking spaces.
Hail King County...the Workers Paradise.
Posted by: Diogenes on February 26, 2007 02:53 PMLOL!!! We already knew, Mr. Jones.
Posted by: Michele on February 26, 2007 04:02 PMThe local political leaders around here are total losers when it comes to transportation planning. That is why we need an accountable RTC of the kind SB 5803 would provide.
For G*d's sake, call off the RTID and ST2 disaster-in-waiting scheduled for eight months from now! Talk about not ready for prime time . . ..
These bozos (Nickels, Sims, Haugen, Clibborn, everybody on Sound Transit's staff) need a time out. The Economist is spot on - deal with the SR 520 funding and design FIRST. The vanity train project enlargement can wait.
If the viaduct dust-up has proven anything, it is that political leaders that hang out in Seattle can not plan transportation infrastructure projects in a responsible manner.
And the local daily rags are depressingly incapable of writing about any of this. Notice the full page color ads ST ran last week pimping ST2? ST buys great press in this town. There has not been a single solid story on ST's finances in three years in either daily. $$$$ from ST pays the Seattle MSM organs to look far, far away.
Posted by: Frank Black on February 26, 2007 05:18 PMAh, them good old days. Hookers up and down Pike Street. Police on the take. Anna Louise Strong. Albert Rossellini. Dave Beck. Later on back room deals with a railroad to dump land for a do(o)med stadium.
Yep, them was the good old days. Yep, them damn outsiders caused all the problems here. And them outsiders don't drive no good neither.
I recall one of the proponents saying "..Seattle doesn't want to be a world class city" On his way out of town.
Nickels' tunnel is our only hope to regain respectability.
BTW: What happened to Nickels saying a vote on the viaduct would be a waste of money, and if the state wanted a vote the state would have pay?
Posted by: huskyduw on February 26, 2007 06:52 PMClearly we are excessively shitting in our hometown nest.
Posted by: Lordsman on February 26, 2007 10:44 PMNickels, not unjustifiably, believes acts his administrations take to be above legal bounds. For that reason his transportation planning is designed to serve whom the Court has said are his only bosses: special interests that make massive campaign contributions.
The Supreme Court recently and repeatedly disregarded citizens' meritorious legal claims. To dismiss property owners' claims, the Court went so far as to invent spurious assertions for its opinions. By failing to vindicate citizens' rights, the Court became a primary instigator of our extant dysfunctional transportation governance systems.
The Court could, and should, remedy this wrong. At a small cost to the offending entity, every single politician in this State could be set back on the right track. Peoples' rights matter and they should be considered in future transportation planning. In contrast, if the Court allows this boil on our community to continue festering, the factotums will be impelled to maintain their anti-citizen bent.