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Seattle's decision-making process has become the butt of jokes nation-wide as others poke fun at us for having too many studies, engaging in wishy-washy decision making, and sometimes, garnering lawsuits along the way. Critics say we would move faster if we didn't have so many hearings, studies, or opportunities for public comment — sort of a benign dictatorship with less democracy.
Mayor Greg Nickels, an admirer of Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley's machine politics, is said to admire Daley's strong-mayor decision-making style. There is little question he is following in Daley's footsteps.
More deliberate decision making certainly has its pros and cons. Those in a hurry always argue that the cost of projects rises while we fiddle around trying to decide. The credit card generation seems less patient, often saying, "Just do it and swipe my card."
On the other hand, Seattle has avoided some major boondoggles by having given more study and thought to large civic projects. There once was a plan to incinerate our garbage, the resulting air pollution be damned. The public resisted and opted for a recycling program that ultimately became a model for the entire nation.
We also, finally, rejected the monorail, albeit only after it was revealed that the financing was so flawed that the system of paying for it simply wouldn't work. In some ways it was little more than the classic ponzi scheme.
Currently the Viaduct and the 520 Bridge are the hot decisions to make — or not make. Both are big-ticket items with environmentalists, financiers, and big and small companies vocalizing that commerce and freight should be considered on an equal basis with commuters.
Seattle citizens, the County Council, Executive Ron Sims, Seattle City Council, Seattle's Mayor Nickels, Gov. Chris Gregoire, along with dozens of agencies, non-profits, special interest groups, the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT), and of course the Legislature are in hot debate about what should replace the aging Viaduct and the 520 Bridge.
The tough part is that it's very difficult to make good decisions without good information. In the case of the Viaduct, it's a special challenge because it's more about power and politics than it is about cost and engineering. Much of the information supplied to decision makers is, and has been, questionable at best. Every interest group has shaped the data to make its favored alternative look best, and they have ultimately tainted the clarity of the process.
For example, we rely heavily on WSDOT for supplying cost estimates. We tend to forget that this is the same agency which, until Boston's Big Dig, held the national record for the largest cost overrun in the nation for the stretch of I-90 going across the lake and through Mercer Island. We won't even consider that they screwed up and sank a floating bridge. This is also the same agency whose engineers designed the existing Viaduct without considering earthquake vulnerability even though geologists supplied ample evidence that earthquakes must be considered in design. This is the same agency responsible for designing the very earthquake vulnerable western approach to the existing 520 floating bridge that it now, in televised animation, says will fall in a quake. WSDOT was also responsible for the maintenance and replacement of our state ferry fleet, some now found to have been unseaworthy.
It seems reasonable to question whether the advice WSDOT is giving decision-makers might be confirmed by engineers from international firms who won't be involved in bids for the resulting work and might render a more neutral opinion. That may have begun to happen in the case of the argument for the deep tunnel alternative.
An example of how mushy information is delivered, is a recent presentation to the Puget Sound Regional Council (PSRC). Council members heard a report from a study group that insisted that most traffic was headed toward downtown Seattle and was primarily commuters. If the regional council were to make a decision based on this so-called study, they might have been badly misled.
First, there is no simple tool or instrument available that can measure where people are going or why. WSDOT can, and does count large truck trailers, but they don't count pick-up trucks, vans, light delivery trucks or even passenger cars that are dedicated to regional commerce. It simply isn't feasible. There are estimates that both the Viaduct and I-5 carry more commercial traffic through Seattle to destinations both north and south of central Seattle than have central Seattle as a destination. Seattle's Mayor would like to believe that Seattle is the center of all economic activity in the Puget Sound Basin, but that is a perception that is no longer reality.
There is ample reason to question whether the local political process we use to make mega-project decisions works as well as it should. But can we change the process?
We hear that Obama wants his cabinet and advisors to challenge his thinking, so every idea can be thoroughly debated and maybe vetted of unintended consequences. This is not a new idea. Thomas Jefferson tried it, and it has been said that Dwight Eisenhower insisted his staff bring experts on the opposite sides of an issue and debate the issue during cabinet meetings before final decisions were made.
Imagine what would happen in Seattle if our City Council, instead of listening only to mayor's advisors, theoretical planners, department heads, PSRC, WSDOT, or vested interests, were to sponsor debates with representatives of opposing ideas.
Currently, citizens get a whole two minutes at hearings to express challenges to documents the city puts out that are measured by the pound. Why not allow some neutral party, such as the League of Women Voters, to select serious critics of a proposed policy to debate with city spokespersons?
Instead of hearing only hours of two-minutes speeches, both the public and the City Council could also hear point and counterpoint arguments. Put it on television. There would be the opportunity to challenge data and rationale and question the full details of what might be unintended consequences of a decision. As it now exists, our City Council hears mayor's staff or the occasional expert that staff has hired to promote a civic plan, but it is rare indeed that our City Council will invite to their offices or subcommittee meetings known opponents to a plan they are considering.
Maybe it's passe to be reminded of old slogans like "haste makes waste," but when it comes to building things that we will need to use for the next half century, it seems reasonable to make every attempt to make the best possible decision. Sure, it's reasonable to set a time limit to make decisions, but it's also folly to dismiss those who might have a different opinion than those who will either profit or benefit from a concept that has been made on faulty analysis.
Without credible challenges to "group think" public policy decisions, we may well exceed Boston's record for boondoggle spending on their "Big Dig." Our leadership appears to believe that our capacity to be in debt is infinite. Heck, maybe we should give our third graders the power to decide. It is they who will be paying for it.
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Comments:
Posted Wed, Jan 14, 7:50 a.m. Inappropriate
After many communications with the City Council I just don't understand why they wouldn't want to have some debate. Richard Conlin has these little quotes about democracy and such. Every Email I send gets a canned response enforcing whatever view that council member has. The only thing I can figure out is, the Bush style of taking a position and stick with it no matter what. This seems to now be the current example of Leadership. I've quit hoping our representatives will do something productive, I just hope to minimize the damage they create.
Posted Wed, Jan 14, 8:13 a.m. Inappropriate
mr. kammerer starts off bemoaning the seattle molasses way of reaching decisions and ends up asking for even more molasses, and in some of the dreariest, most ill edited prose [and that is saying something!] to appear in the dull Crosscut.
Posted Wed, Jan 14, 8:54 a.m. Inappropriate
.
"Mayor Greg Nickels, an admirer of Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley's machine politics...Seattle citizens, the County Council, Executive Ron Sims, Seattle City Council, Seattle's Mayor Nickels, Gov. Chris Gregoire, along with dozens of agencies..."
Guess what almost everyone mentioned has in common? They are all members of the same political party. So long as Seattle, and the State of Washington, remains under the control of a single party and its entrenched bureaucracy, we fit the classic definition of insanity.
Posted Wed, Jan 14, 9:04 a.m. Inappropriate
What I don't get is why they even bother to have us vote on this stuff--twice on the Monorail and once on the viaduct--if they're just going to make the decision among themselves, anyway? It is laughable that Seattle, with such an undeserved reputation for being progressive, is really run by an oligarchy.
Posted Wed, Jan 14, 9:17 a.m. Inappropriate
A missive by an unelected "leader" in the community empowered by what democratic process? And a piece peppered with misleading, anti government, observations? Journalism? I think not.
Our governmental systems are naturally flawed. Past planning mistakes have certainly been made. But to highlight decades old problems while ignoring current successes is, again, not journalism.
And for those of you not privy to the drudgery of public involvement, there was ample debate and public vetting of the details produced but not only the public agencies involved in the Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement project but by the private sector consultants hired to review the work.
Anti government rants may make for good reading but they do little to help forge good public policy.
Posted Wed, Jan 14, 10:43 a.m. Inappropriate
I don't know the full circumstances about the I90 cost overruns, but earthquake science has advanced a lot since the 50s and 60s, so I don't think it is fair to blame WSDOT for what we know now about the vulnerability of certain structures to earthquakes.
The fundamental problem with the viaduct replacement is: there's no good solution. Every option has huge downsides for at least one constituent group, if not more.
For example, the Port is talking about coming up with $300 Million, more than the $200 Million they were originally talking about. Well having to come up with $30 MM for 10 years would significantly decrease their flexibility to make investments. They would probably be maxed out on property tax collections.
This does not excuse using faulty data or ignoring certain costs. But that's an ancillary problem: the core one is the reality that some groups, even groups that are paying a lot, are going to get less value from a tunnel than from the current viaduct.
Posted Wed, Jan 14, 11:29 a.m. Inappropriate
"...there is no simple tool or instrument available that can measure where people are going or why."
All you would need to do to evaluate whether commuters, commercial traffic, and others on the viaduct are accessing downtown is to meter the ramps at Battery Street, Western Avenue, Elliott Avenue, Seneca Street, Columbia Street, and First Avenue South. ...or stand there and count.
I use them all more often than I travel from Greenwood to the airport or West Seattle.
Consider what impact drivers who refuse to pay a toll, like me, will have on surface streets not just downtown, but elsewhere on our way to I-5, through Queen Anne, Belltown, and South Lake Union.
Assuming we go forward with a deep bore tunnel, the first place we should collect additional necessary funds from is out of property taxes on increased waterfront property values. Next from tourism revenues.
Posted Wed, Jan 14, 1:20 p.m. Inappropriate
"Why not allow some neutral party, such as the League of Women Voters, to select serious critics of a proposed policy to debate with city spokespersons?"
Debates would help. But to be valuable they would need a very informed as well as neutral moderator. Otherwise, critics of one policy choice who are likely to be proponents of another choice will get away with subjective and plausible sounding nonsense. Even in debates hosted by the LWV.
Example: The proponents of the surface street alternative tied up the decision for a long time by alleging that through traffic would either go away or move to the freeway and downtown streets with no negative impacts, a contention they argued through several debates. They had no data to support this claim, and clearly their motive was to create congestion that would force people out of their cars and onto public transit.
And there is even very little anecdotal evidence to support this outcome. Just the reverse. One can simple look at the endemic I-5 peak-period traffic congestion and ask why people don't park their cars and climb onto Sound Transit buses that run in the HOV lane and move just as fast if not faster than the vehicles in the other lanes. They don't because the drivers weigh the overall costs and benefits (time and money) of the alternative and come up with more net benefits from driving, often to multiple destinations on their way to and from work. And, of course, if they are driving a commercial vehicle they don't have a choice.
So the debates should first be designed to weed out fact from fiction, and then get on to the serious alternatives and their competing costs and benefits. Which might include debaters beyond the city for a project like the viaduct that has regional and even statewide significance.
Posted Wed, Jan 14, 2:52 p.m. Inappropriate
We have a process already, written in large part by Tunnel proponents.
'They', however, are ignoring that process and engaging in typical bully consensus politics in order to get more out of a shrinking transportation pie?
Perhaps instead of the citizens of this State ponying up another 400 million for this project, we instead cut the funding to Seattle by exactly the amount it would take to balance the budget? After, all if you ask for special favors you are setting a principle that will allow the taking of that same amount from you, no?
I smell the end of the career for all three of these politicians IF, the citizens of Seattle and King County stand up against them. FWIW, I do think you will have the rest of the State behind you.
Posted Wed, Jan 14, 8:58 p.m. Inappropriate
I think the record will reflect there were no cost over-runs on I-90. The original state engineering estimate for the project included a range that included an estimate of the costs of delay. The record will show that the state was within what it promised.
But the record will also show that the two floating bridges sank and the first Narrows bridge crashed into the Sound. Nobody who was in charge for those dismal failures is in charge any more. My sense is that the current class of leadership at state transportation are determined not to make similar mistakes and they've done a credible job of turning the corner on that score.
I don't understand the point of this piece. It appears to bash a process and seek more. We have not been short of real meaty debates on the Viaduct. I do agree that real data on this topic has not been widely available even though it exists. I think the reason for that is fear by meek bureaucrats of doing anything when a decision by political leaders is pending. They all owe it to us all now.
I suspect the data will demonstrate that the state out=dealed the Mayor (a leader who makes everything a deal-making game, unfortunately), who lost his power in the negotiation when the deep bore didn't involve property the city controls that the Viaduct sits on today.
It is the deep bore, not the tunnel concept, that fundamentally changed the city's bargaining position. The Mayor wound up with few cards. This fact will haunt the City for decades. It still is not clear that the capacity created by the deep bore is necessary to keep the city moving well.
The state highway guys and girls love capacity though, and know nothing about other ways. (Or if they do know, don't care because their life revolves around highway capacity). So they feel safe in spending all our state money there - and leaving the city to fend for itself, which is stupid on many levels. And they love not having to deal with the city on the existing right of way.
In the end, it is no doubt worth it to the people of the city, because the waterfront will be better. The entire city will function better. Downtown will attract more commerce and housing, relieving neighborhoods like Ballard of the obligation to take more density while still being able to get to a job downtown with a reasonable commute on a bus or in a car.
Posted Wed, Jan 14, 9:05 p.m. Inappropriate
Excellent points in your last paragraph, Jan. This proposal is by far the best viaduct replacement solution, even if it does send the 1950s elevated replacement thinkers sprawling and it adds more actual auto capacity to the surface solution than its anti-car supporters would prefer. A compromise always makes somebody unhappy. Deal with it, process-lovers.