Today's Elway Poll, which revealed that a majority of Seattle voters support a vote on the deep-bore tunnel, also showed little voter support for the surface/transit option---just 21 percent said they'd support a surface option, compared to 38 percent who said they'd support a new or repaired viaduct, and 35 percent who said they supported the tunnel.

Interestingly, those numbers have barely budged from a poll of 681 registered voters conducted for PubliCola exactly one year ago. In that poll, 21 percent supported surface/transit, 35 percent supported the tunnel, and 36 percent supported a rebuilt viaduct.

Unlike the Elway poll, which has come under fire from surface/transit supporters for referring to surface/transit, somewhat misleadingly, as "new and improved surface streets" and including viaduct repairs (which the state and city don't consider feasible) along with the viaduct rebuild, PubliCola's poll asked explicitly about a surface option with improvements to transit and I-5 and a rebuilt viaduct (with no repair option). Even with those differences, the two polls yielded almost identical results.

That suggests that voters haven't budged since a year ago in their preferred viaduct replacement options. And it suggests further that---contrary to what surface/transit supporters like Slog argue---tunnel proponents' loud opposition to surface/transit since McGinn was elected---hasn't changed voter opinion one bit.