Thanks for the article.

The article's discussion of the deep bore tunnel is rigorous in acknowledging only one position on the tunnel, and attributing any dissent to a noisy minority of hostage-takers.

How can there be trust without listening? The first step seems to be to acknowledge that some people legitimately have concerns about whether to proceed with the project.

I would suggest that a legitimate process occurred years ago, called the stakeholder process, and its decision was to take down the Viaduct, do surface/transit/I-5, and think about doing a deep bore tunnel in the future if there was funding for it.

That's not accurate about the stakeholder process. The first recommendation, driven by the transportation staffs, was to build a new Viaduct or do surface/transit, as the only two proposals that met the financial constraints. An uproar ensued, in which the majority of stakeholders prevailed in moving the bored tunnel into the preferred position. Once Gov. Gregoire came to that view, she and others convinced Mayor Nickels to switch from surface to tunnel. The stakeholders were never empowered to take a formal position, but it's clear to most that the majority came around to the tunnel, once financial questions were (seemingly) answered.

60% is "a surprisingly large majority" and 40% is a "noisy minority"? Really? I'd say 60% is a majority, certainly, but not necessarily "surprisingly large," while 40% is nearly 1/2 of voters. I would like less bias.

What's surprising to me is that in an article about Seattle and trust, the writer made no mention of those two imposing monuments to the wisdom of distrust, the stadiums. We didn't want them, voted against them, and yet there they squat. And we must pay and pay and pay. They would be just the latest of example of very good reasons not to trust our elected and appointed officials, who seem to remember the voters only when seeking election/reelection and who, the rest of the time, appear more likely to pander to those who will be paying them once they're out of office.

I agree distrust is expensive, but I think trusting in this civic context would be a lot more expensive. Who knows what politicians and officials would be dreaming up and wasting our money on if we gave them free rein? I'm not willing to find out.

mspat: Yours is revisionist history. The vote for the football stadium was in favor.

Wsdot and DBT proponents can't be trusted on the DBT because their presentation materials are vague and critically important concerns are left unanswered. SDOT can't be trusted because Mercer West and the current design for Alaskan Way are likewise terrible engineering.

The lengthy process is entirely due to questionable designwork. The bored tunnel ABSOLUTELY WILL destabilize hundreds of downtown building foundations AND redirect traffic away from suitably commercial Elliott/Western through pedestrian-oriented Queen Anne & Lk Union neighborhoods. The environmental impact is devastating. The risks are catastrophic. Abject failure is easily predictable.

Dishonest highway builders deflect blame away from themselves onto "The Seattle Way" to conceal the fact that the lengthy process is another of their ways to kill public participation.

Trust is not the reason it took so long to decide to dig a tunnel on the waterfront. The problem is that there are competing visions for the future of Seattle. On one side you have folks like myself who see a future that has fewer cars due to rising costs of energy. (the energy equivalent of a car is 7,000 people power) Thus with fewer cars, the less of a need for infrastructure to support them, which implies building something that works reasonably for the near future and the long term future.

Then there is a competing view that technology will solve the energy problem and we'll all have electric cars or whatever, and thus a tunnel which serves the near future best will also serve the farther future as well.

Since it isn't clear which vision is "the truth" and we are arguing about over $2Billion dollars (which just so happens to be the current shortfall in the state budget) it makes sense that we would spend some time to try and get it right through a process which would allow all sides to be heard and a semblence of democracy to make a decision.

It was never about whether we trusted the parties to tell the "truth" it's that each group has it's own version of it. From the need, to the actual costs of the options.

If traffic light co-ordination requires trust, no wonder Seattle has a speed deficit.

Democracy is way too messy and slow. Maybe Reverend Tony is right, we just don't have time for this kind of crap anymore. It's simple. What America needs is a dictator we can TRUST. Absolute Power + Trust = Speed. Hey, give the Republicans enough time, I'm sure they will finally come up with a candidate who has all the Right Stuff. What with the possibility of genetic engineering and such (no embryos, of course), I'm thinking some combination of Ranger Rick's intellect and Newt's good looks might do the trick.

The rhino in the room continues to be the colossal effort that went into avoiding an honest, heads up tunnel or elevated vote. It certainly wasn’t about trying to achieve the best transportation solution for the region…a fact that will become painfully apparent in the near future.

I wish Mr. Brewster would finish the story he started with his article from March 2009. It’s turned out to be remarkably accurate.

http://crosscut.com/blog/crosscut/18899/When-Chopp-speaks%2C-parse-it-closely/

"Trust but verify" would be a better axiom. Woe is the rich man who trusts his accountant and lawyer but does not verify that trust is not misplaced. Greed & Lust are some of the human conditions that we see that makes trust so fragile.

Me thinks the rhino in the room is the state's looming lower tax revenues for the next decade. Given that we will have significantly less money to spend, are we going to spend it on things that give us value and reduce our future costs?

I've read the article three (3) times, trying to figure out how the headline equating trust with speed and the rest of the article actually fit together. "More speed = more trust" - yes or no? Or "more trust if there's more speed" - yes or no?

I'm not sure this is the right statement. There seem to be plenty of times when more speed occurs because project proponents have something to hide about the project, or hidden conflicts of interest they want to keep hidden.

I think more trust comes from the following:
1. accountability at a personal level, where if the proposal turns out to be wrong, there are negative consequences.

2. honest, straightforward responses that acknowledge risks, unknowns, downsides and advantages of other proposals, with plans in place to deal with the unwished-for if they happen

3. ongoing keeping of commitments

All of these are unfortunately not very common. With the example of the viaduct: is there anyone who thinks the shortfall of bus funding that was announced "just after" the vote was not known in advance? And has whatever plans there are for dealing with surface congestion and increased crowding in Pioneer Square from vehicles passing through to get to downtown actually been well-vetted?

I would abbreviate the closing line:

Reality: the absence of trust is what’s truly dangerous.

the end should be:

I would abbreviate the closing line:

Reality: the absence of trust is what’s truly dangerous.

to this:

Reality: is what’s truly dangerous.

Why? because over and over, reality is what proves to undercut the grandiose projections and promises. Reality is what actually leads to distrust.

Does anyone want to bet on how many water mains we'll see broken by the tunnel boring machines under downtown Seattle, as we see today with the light rail boring machine on Capitol Hill?

@David Brewster -

My understanding is that the stakeholder process was predicated on Gregoire's insistence that the viaduct be removed in 2012 for public safety reasons. So I don't see how the outcome of the stakeholder process can be the viaduct standing until a deep bore tunnel is serviceable.

Wouldn't it be more correct to say that Gregoire changed her mind and decided to invalidate the stakeholder process which had just been completed?

You are asking me to trust the Discovery/Cascadia Institute? These are the right-wing, religious extremist nut sacks who brought us "intelligent design". The do not believe in the scientific method.

Their latest scheme is the deep bore tunnel. This is a plan that is worse than doing nothing, as pointed out in the EIS. They were able to ram this through with a combination of back room politicking, Spreading FUD about the "Seattle Process", "Mayor McSchwinn", and the rallying cry of "Just Do Something".

The Discovery/Cascadia Institute's plan to fix our transportation problems: a four lane tunnel to nowhere and synchronize the traffic lights. Wow, that is thinking big.

mspat: If 40% is nearly half, what is 60% nearly half too? The populace of Seattle never ceases to amaze, we elect Mr Schell, Mr Nickels, Mr McGinn, a true succession of wingnut far, far left liberals - which hey, I just happen to be just about as far left as them. These gentlemen know one thing and one thing only. Spend all the tax money available on their pet projects then cry babys shoes to the voters for nonsense like roads, aid cars, fire protection, police, schools. Think its any different with the far right, it is. They don't want to raise taxes, they want to put a fee on everything and borrow the rest. Wake up people its the same as it ever was. Mr McGinn didn't want the tunnel at the start of his administration, said he would bend to the people then proceeded to fight the tunnel every inch of the way. I wanted a tunnel, but only in Seattle do we tear down a 6 lane raised highway and build a 4 lane tunnel. Who really believes we will all commute by non-existent mass transit? We have Metro, all they do is tell us how many routes they will add, then spend the money on wages instead. The only good things this city has ever done were the 1962 World's Fair, Safeco and C-Link fields. At least we got something fun and beautiful for our money. Let em build, don't let em have a second for pet projects.
Bob.cat1

On another subject. I am really weary of the utter disrespect we show for human beings in this country. The President isn't Obama, the Governor isn't Gregoire, the Mayor isn't McGinn. I may not care for the politics of a person, but I will refer to them with civility. Why? because like it or not, a majority of folks who chose to vote elected them to be their representative. These folks have titles because they earned them. If we can't or won't refer to them by their title followed by their name. We should use Mr/Mrs/Ms/Miss. Showing a lack of civility is showing a lack o class, it is a disease, it will spread like a wildfire, and it will burn everything.

Folks. Reality is a concept or a theory not a fact. Your reality and my reality are most likely very different. Its like saying intelligent design or evolution are known facts, they are not. They are concepts, truisms, theories. Is mathematics a fact or a theory? Is relativity a fact or a theory? Be careful of your facts, they may run afoul of my theories.

Trust may indeed breed speed, but speed does not necessarily breed trust. Success breeds trust, and success is a gradual thing.

I would suggest that the reason for our slow process and lack of trust is our education level. Find a community with half as many college degrees and I would bet that it displays a higher level of trust in their leaders.

I would also bet that you are a bit skeptical of this glib assessment of our local zeitgeist. That's to be expected.

Allow me to be tiresome on the subject: the tunnel is a lousy solution to the problem of the doomed Viaduct. It was selected because the other alternatives were even worse.

The words trust don't really belong in government. As GaryP said above, 'trust but verify'. Washington politics more than lacking trust, seems to be lacking the notion of honesty and transparency. Transparency breeds trust but most of the major setbacks on major projects was due to lack of transparency.

Let's not forget the lessons of the recently departed monorail agency who used trust to guilt and deceive the city of Seattle into a monorail mess that cost taxpayers $200 million.

As this article from Rick Anderson in July, 2005 says, right after Joel Horn and Tom Weeks left the agency over July 4th weekend in 2005:

No longer under the controlling hand of the man in charge of the public agency and its secrets, Seattle's monorail fantasy ride has suddenly been derailed by the truth.

http://www.seattleweekly.com/content/printVersion/166190/

There's absolutely nothing wrong with the Seattle process except the people in government positions who think their job is to deceive the public.

I thought that there would be no more discussion of the tunnel, since it's essentially being built. However, Seattle processing continues even when the process is settled.

The negative impact on our ability to negotiate around and through downtown when the viaduct is gone will ensure that the discussion of the tunnel will go on for a long time.

I think that the "process" behind this aberration would also qualify for a segment on 60 minutes.

The article said

"Because contiguous jurisdictions, such as Tukwila, Seattle, Edmonds, Mukilteo, and Everett won’t share their logarithms for traffic signal operation with others. "

I think that the author meant to write "algorithms" not "logarithms" here.

The solution is simple. Just vote out every city council member, and set term limits to 1 term.

So much for an independent on-line media source: Crosscut writers (as a group) were "invited" to a lecture sponsored by the Discovery Institute.

I could be wrong, but it seems to me the issue isn't trust so much as laziness or lack of resources for small matters like coordinating traffic lights, and for big matters like transportation and economic systems, it's more the fact that we live in a time of great change in which citizens have legitimate differences in opinion about which investments are wise and which direction is best. Hoping for shortcuts in deciding the big matters strikes me as unwise... a little circumspection is a good thing.