Reality-BasedTM Political Numbers from Nicholas Beaudrot
Electoral Math
Reality-BasedTM Political Numbers from Nicholas Beaudrot
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I know, I know, the world is just dying to know what I think of local transportation issues.
Seriously, this is important stuff. Being stuck in traffic is just wasted time, which has tremendous direct economic costs, in addition to reducing the effective fuel effeciency of our driving habits.
Seattle's Alaskan Way Viaduct, which was a state-of-the-art road when completed in 1953, suffered severe damage in the 2001 Nisqually earthquake and must be replaced. It must be removed or replaced; the question is how. Mayor Greg Nickels, together with a coalition of downtown businesses, land owners, and art/public space enthusiasts, have pushed for a three-lanes-on-each-side tunnel to replace its capacity, at a cost of roughly $4.2 billion. The state government, which is footing a large portion of the bill, would prefer a $2.8 billion replacement. Current committed funds stand at $2.4 billion. This means that to pay for the replacement plan, we must come up with $400 million, or roughly $41/year per adult Seattle resident for the next 20 years, while the full tunnel would have cost $187 per taxpayer per year. The Mayor's "tunnel lite" counterproposal, a $3.4 billion four-lane tunel plus surface street improvements, would have amounted to $100 a year per person.
There are strong arguments for the tunnel, which would give the city an opportunity to develop public space downtown—something you can always use more of, especially if the city wants to attract parents—but, you can only raise taxes and fees on the public so high. Viaduct funding may crowd out the ability to raise revenue for other priorities, most notably, schools, which are the number one amenity that Mom and Dad look for. For comparison's sake, if Seattle were to take the difference between the replacement proposal and the "tunnel heavy" proposal and devote all that revenue to schools, it would raise around $67 millon—enough for a 13.7% increase in the school district's operating budget.
This being Seattle, the public has been asked to vote on the subject, in a very bizarre way. Not that I know much about transportation policy. Question one is, "should we replace the viaduct with a new viaduct, yes/no", while question two is, "should we replace the viaduct with a new tunnel, yes/no". What happens if both proposals come up yes? Or both propsals come up no? It doesn't matter, the vote is just an advisory vote and doesn't have any legal or budgetary impact. Awesome.
But wait! It gets better! The State DOT has published a report saying that the "tunnel lite" proposal, which is on the ballot, is basically unacceptable. Double Awesome. But, the ballots are printed, so we'll probably get to vote on the tunnel anyway. TRIPLE Awesome.
At this point, I think I am rooting for both proposals to go down in flames, with the hope that strong no votes for both will send the state & city a back to the drawing board, and return to the public with a new proposal when they have their ducks in a row. Either that, or for Robert Moses to rise from his grave and tell us how it is.
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updated by Nicholas Beaudrot on 09:10 14 February 2007
