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The slogan "Waterfront for people, not cars" seems to imply that downtown interests want to remove waterfront businesses (aquarium and ferries, too?) and replace them with their grassy park as if Puget Sound was just a front-porch pond.
I ask, what is next: "Waterfront for people, not ships"?
I am a Seattle taxpayer, and I have never felt that the [Alaskan Way] Viaduct separated the city from the waterfront. I certainly would feel that way if the viaduct was demolished and a surface-only option used the footprint, or if tunnel-trenching and -staging devastated the existing thriving waterfront for nine or so years.
Taking the No. 54/55 bus to downtown from West Settle or driving visitors from Sea-Tac [International Airport] to downtown along state Route 99 provides a spectacular view of Puget Sound, the Olympic Mountains, an active seaport and even an architecturally interesting downtown cityscape - unmatched by few, if any, cities in this country.
In case you need a clue, other cities are envious of us. Why take this view away from the common folk? More than 500,000 people live within Seattle city limits. Probably less than 50,000 live downtown and far fewer have the viaduct blocking any view whatsoever.
Removing our spectacular viaduct view and increasing taxes for years to do so is a rotten deal for $500,000-plus.
If the mayor can find a couple of billion dollars in local revenue for his tunnel without first getting a public vote, why not use those dollars to meet our street-maintenance backlog, retrofit the elevated [viaduct] structure and do a proper seawall?
If he really doesn't have the money, it appears that much better control of the purse strings is needed if Proposition 1 passes so he cannot use any of it for [a] tunnel.
Why the insistence on removing the viaduct rather than improving both [the] viaduct and [the] waterfront? To showcase our area for the 1962 World's Fair, Seattle did not dig the Space Trench, but rather erected the Space Needle!
Harvey Friedman
Phinney Ridge
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