This story was originally posted at 3:00 today.


[caption id="attachment_14539" align="alignleft" width="225" caption="The project area"][/caption]

Mayoral candidate Mike McGinn's plan to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct with a surface street and transit improvements would eliminate a proposed underpass where the south end of the viaduct currently stands. The underpass is supposed to carry freight coming to and from the Port of Seattle to the railyard on the east side of the current viaduct.

Even some surface/transit proponents, including original surface/transit proselytic Cary Moon, see merit in the freight-mobility project, which is a major priority for industrial businesses and the Port of Seattle for any viaduct replacement. "Getting trucks across that roadway was really important to the Port," Moon says.

McGinn says that without a new waterfront highway, there will be no need for a new underpass for trucks. He says freight can get across his proposed surface street on a regular surface roadway with a stoplight.

"The industrial folks all believe that having a tunnel spewing cars out into the industrial zone is good for them. I can't figure out why they think that," McGinn says. If the city and state build a tunnel with no exits downtown, "traffic around the stadiums is going to be worse," he says.

Not surprisingly, industrial businesses disagree. Dave Gering, executive director of the Manufacturing and Industrial Council, says he would be "stunned if we would be in favor of giving up any of these improvements, because we had to fight like hell to get them funded."

"I understand philosophically where Mike is coming from, and his philosophical opposition to road projects and vehicles, but in the real world it doesn't work that way. ...  I sometimes wonder if we aren't dealing with a cookie cutter approach to this stuff that is based on philosophical beliefs that have nothing to do with the reality of this [industrial] community."