In August, King County will apply again for stimulus funding. This time the county has done its homework, and Mike McGinn’s new city administration has gotten with the program. It’s joined the county, state, Port of Seattle, Transportation Improvement Board, and Puget Sound Regional Council in pledging a total of $95 million of the $131 million required. Though that hardly makes approval a slam dunk, it should encourage the feds, who like to see local unanimity first and then give the last share to see projects through.
With luck, and federal approval, the new bridge could be built by 2014, perhaps late 2013. If so, there will be jubilation down on the Duwamish. But Diana Toledo, another candidate for the same county council seat, won’t be impressed. The whole saga demonstrates a “typical lack of accountability at King County,” says Toledo, a disillusioned ex-manager–turned–whistle-blower in the county’s troubled licensing and animal control programs. “They wait till somebody pushes them to do something, till the last minute, so they can get the credit for fixing an emergency. If they did it straight off they wouldn’t get any credit. The best analogy is BP—people knew it was a problem waiting to blow up.”
For Toledo and for Fahey, the bridge debacle also represents what she calls “an issue of social justice”: Is it conceivable that, say, the Magnolia or Mercer Island Bridge would be allowed to crumble away till it’s unusable? Then again, South Park’s ordeal may be an omen for more affluent communities. King County owns about 150 bridges, many of them aged and worn. Seattle has upgraded its major drawbridges, but much of its other infrastructure, from potholed streets to a failing seawall, is in sad shape. Mayor McGinn has been tussling with the state and city council over what had been settled plans to replace the 520 bridge and Alaskan Way Viaduct. Then there’s Interstate 5, also coming up for major repairs. The South Park Bridge follies are just a warm-up for infrastructure crises to come.
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Published: August 2010
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