Print
Email
Film enthusiasts will remember the classic World War II films entitled Why We Fight, giving both our military forces and civilians reasons to defend home and hearth against Nazi and Japanese aggression.
A present day local version, providing reasons to make a fresh start in 2010 with a new mayor and city council, exists in the video of last Monday's Seattle City Council action taken before its regularly scheduled budget hearing. It greased the way for $9 million in spending from the 2010 budget for design and planning for the so-called Mercer West segment of Mayor Greg Nickels' proposed Mercer Corridor Project, which has been a prime subject of debate in the current mayoral race.
Roll the first reel, please.
Council budget chair Jean Godden, a steadfast supporter of Nickels' version of the Mercer Project, announced that the normal budget hearing would be delayed a bit while a hearing took place on the Mercer West project. She said this was in line with a provision, passed in 1999, requiring such a hearing before allocating the first $5 million of a large capital project. Most council members — and the many citizens waiting to testify on other aspects of the budget — were unfamiliar with the provision.
Godden then conceded that e-mail notice of the Mercer West hearing had only been made earlier that day. Many stakeholders in the issue have been vocal in recent months but, formal notice not having been disseminated via the usual channels, only four people in the chamber were prepared to address the matter.
Kirk Robbins of the Queen Anne Community Council protested that it was inappropriate to squeeze the Mercer West hearing into the wider budget hearings. The present estimated cost of the Mercer West Project is $100 million, but this was an estimate based only on 5 percent engineering so no one knows the full projected cost. Robbins called for a separate, additional hearing to be held solely on Mercer West, with all involved parties able to participate and comment. The other three speakers, associated with Vulcan Inc.'s development plans in the area, all supported allocation of the $9 million. Unlike others, they had received advance notice of the session.
Nickels, his Department of Transportation, Vulcan, and council supporters Jan Drago and Godden all argue that the Mercer West Project is a necessary adjunct to the planned deep-bore tunnel to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct. That issue is in doubt. Critics point out that initial Mercer West plans were devised more than seven years ago, when a deep-bore tunnel was not a serious option under discussion.
That is not the major principle at issue here, however. The overall Mercer Project will need to be considered early in 2010 by a Mayor Mallahan or Mayor McGinn and a Seattle City Council with at least two new members. The Mercer West segment will receive consideration within that changed political context. Moreover, with a $72 million shortfall in this year's city budget, the price tags of the two Mercer segments threaten to overwhelm other public priorities. I would think that not even the initial $9 million in planning monies should be allocated for a project that should be judged on a first-principles basis by our new mayor and council several weeks from now.
Like what you just read? Support high quality local journalism by becoming a member of Crosscut.com today!
Twitter
Facebook
RSS Feeds
Comments:
Posted Fri, Oct 30, 2:11 p.m. Inappropriate
http://www.seattle.gov/transportation/docs/MercerCorridorProgramOct2008.pdf
I can't believe SDOT is honestly considering turning Mercer into a freight corridor through Lower Queen Anne. Mercer Way off Elliott is 2-lane high-density residential street with barely room for sidewalks. Mercer through Lower Queen Anne should not be turned into a thru-corridor. City Hall is keeping this one quiet. Mustn't let the public know what's coming down the pike. It might affect their fiasco Deep-bore tunnel plans.
Posted Fri, Oct 30, 2:11 p.m. Inappropriate
It's not implausible that the alterations to Republican and Harrison Streets are integral to the tunnel scheme but the proponents of the Mercer Project certainly have not been forthcoming about the design. I have been unable to find anything but a written description of (what I believe is called) "Mercer West".
Posted Fri, Oct 30, 10:50 p.m. Inappropriate
It is easy to trash the Mercer project, but the fact is that it will serve an area of the city that will be entirely redeveloped at a very high density. We need to invest in infrastructure, or we can kiss the future goodbye.
Posted Sun, Nov 1, 10:20 a.m. Inappropriate
Interesting comments. I suspect many following this issue are not "trashing" the Mercer Project---I certainly am not--- but, instead, questioning its prospective public costs (against its benefits) and whether taxpayers are paying too large a share of the cost of a project primarily designed to conform to a private developer's plans. No credible study has yet demonstrated that the Mercer Project, as now constituted, would reduce traffic congestion in the affected area. In fact, it would increase it. Both our new mayor and a reconstituted council need to take a fresh look at the entire project early in 2010.