News
Pro-Tunnel Campaign: City Consultant Report Contradicts Prior Conclusions on Tunnel
Let's Move Forward, the campaign fighting a ballot measure that would overturn three agreements between the city and state on the deep-bore tunnel, argued today that a consultant's widely circulated report concluding that the downtown deep-bore tunnel will have even worse than anticipated impacts on traffic in the center city—impacts that will require the city to improve surface streets, transit, and pedestrian connections---contradicts the consultant's previous conclusion that the surface/transit alternative would result in gridlock.
In a statement today, Let's Move Forward notes that "during a briefing before the City Council in January, Nelson/Nygaard Consulting Associates, the same consultants who authored the draft report released yesterday, testified that the Mayor’s surface street proposal would have much greater impact on the number of cars traveling downtown."
The group goes on to quote from several emails it apparently obtained through a public records request, in which Seattle Department of Transportation director Peter Hahn apparently asks Nelson/Nygaard principal Tim Payne for more information about the traffic diversion that would result from the surface/transit/I-5 option, writing, "This has to be cleared up because absent any further clarification it appears that the answer can be reduced to ‘if you think the tunnel tolling diversion is bad, the surface option is twice as bad.’”
Reached by phone this afternoon, Payne said he had not seen the Let's Move Forward press release and would "defer comment until I talk to my client," SDOT. SDOT spokesman Rick Sheridan also had not seen the press release but said he would get back to PubliCola with a response tomorrow.
In another email, this one to mayoral staffer Ethan Raup and city council member Mike O'Brien, Hahn wrote that he was asking the Nelson/Nygaard team "to explain this more thoroughly and avoid the facile conclusion that surface option is twice as bad as the worst diversion case. However…SDOT staff explained that there was going to be more traffic on city streets with the surface option – it’s not like I-5 and huge transit were going to make it all disappear.”
In a statement today, Let's Move Forward notes that "during a briefing before the City Council in January, Nelson/Nygaard Consulting Associates, the same consultants who authored the draft report released yesterday, testified that the Mayor’s surface street proposal would have much greater impact on the number of cars traveling downtown."
The group goes on to quote from several emails it apparently obtained through a public records request, in which Seattle Department of Transportation director Peter Hahn apparently asks Nelson/Nygaard principal Tim Payne for more information about the traffic diversion that would result from the surface/transit/I-5 option, writing, "This has to be cleared up because absent any further clarification it appears that the answer can be reduced to ‘if you think the tunnel tolling diversion is bad, the surface option is twice as bad.’”
Reached by phone this afternoon, Payne said he had not seen the Let's Move Forward press release and would "defer comment until I talk to my client," SDOT. SDOT spokesman Rick Sheridan also had not seen the press release but said he would get back to PubliCola with a response tomorrow.
In another email, this one to mayoral staffer Ethan Raup and city council member Mike O'Brien, Hahn wrote that he was asking the Nelson/Nygaard team "to explain this more thoroughly and avoid the facile conclusion that surface option is twice as bad as the worst diversion case. However…SDOT staff explained that there was going to be more traffic on city streets with the surface option – it’s not like I-5 and huge transit were going to make it all disappear.”
