Don't ax the retrofit so fast

With a slight pause for details to an advisory committee, the state's department of transportation has said the Alaskan Way Viaduct must be torn down and replaced. It is not cost effective to fix it so it lasts another 25 years, says an independent project manager advising the state.

Now wait a minute, fellows. Retrofitting the viaduct comes up in every public meeting, is continually mentioned in letters to this newspaper, is mentioned on talk shows about the venerable highway with a view, and is discussed all the time by engineers who have worked on and with the structure for the past 60 years.

The Alaskan Way Viaduct Stakeholder Advisory Committee is just that, interested and informed people who have concerns about the future of the viaduct. Several objected to the axing of the rebuild scheme.

Ballard's Mary Hurley said 18 of 22 people at an open house spoke of fixing the present structure.

Vlad Oustimovitch said, "In West Seattle, the retrofit comes up constantly. To exclude it like this is not going to garner any public support."

Tayloe Washburn, representing the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce, made his opinion clear. "You will need to show your work to explain how you reached your decision."

For one thing, said Dave Dye, the deputy director of the state transportation department, it would cost "80 percent to 90 percent" of the amount for a brand new viaduct. Seismic standards are five times more stringent than they were when the viaduct was built.

It very well may be the right thing to dump repairing the old viaduct, but parts of it are being rebuilt as we write this and those repairs have stopped the sinking of the roadway so something is working properly. But advisors are skeptical.

"It's a bad investment of public funds," said the transportation deputy director. "Hundreds of millions of dollars won't extend the viaduct past its remaining 25-year life."

To this, a representative of the Seattle Marine Business Coalition said he was flabbergasted and eliminating the retrofit "without any hard data whatsoever is very, very concerning."

We agree wholeheartedly.

The people need more than a few minutes of talk at an advisory committee meeting. We have to be absolutely convinced that the decision is right before we agree on a tunnel, a surface roadway or a replacement aerial structure - none of which will provide the same vehicle capacity as the current viaduct.

Remember, we pay your salaries and we pay for the bill to replace or fix this thing. Grand pronouncements by "experts" need to be grounded in facts that the voters understand and accept.

- Jack Mayne

No felons are coming

This newspaper still does not endorse any site for a new city jail. We don't know enough yet and we want the public to get all the information before a decision is made.

However, shouting and making flat wrong statements will not accomplish anything except scaring people.

A large measure of pyrotechnics was displayed last week at a South Park meeting about two nearby tentative locations for the city's new jail. Some things were scary but not true.

The major one was what if the jail is built for the misdemeanor inmates and then King County comes along and dumps a bunch of hardened felons into the scene. Neighbors would rightly be angry and worried about being a near neighbor to a dangerous hoard of whackos cruising the streets.

Not going to happen, people, no matter what. As the city's Web site says under frequently asked questions about a jail, no felons can be put in a city lockup.

"By state law, the county remains responsible for housing felony suspects and offenders," the site says. "The city would not have any responsibility for housing felons in its municipal jail."

That said it is true that some of the misdemeanor criminals that would be released are not always nice people to have around. We need to know more about how the city will control this problem before we agree to have a jail in the neighborhood of Highland Park, White Center or South Park.

But please folks, stay calm. These decisions take a lot of time; let's use that time to find out if the city's plan is rational and if there cannot be other solutions.

- Jack Mayne