Hominid Views

This morning I joined Andrew and friends from the Northwest Progressive Institute in a Viaduct Hazard Demonstration.

It was fun, kind of. I mean, I’m more comfortable sitting at the computer in my pjs, sipping coffee at that time of day, but it was cool to do something outside of that box. There was a nice showing of the media at the event (read Andrew’s account for details).

Our crowd began to gather about 9:30 a.m. under the 1st Street northbound on-ramp to the Alaska Way viaduct. At some point, somebody looked up and said, “hey, look at all those cracks.” So I grabbed this picture:

Frankly, I am not qualified to judge whether these cracks are a bad sign, or whether they reflect normal, superficial changes with age. But, the engineers who have studied the situation tell us the AWV is in trouble. They tell us it is not cost effective to keep patching this baby up. It must be replaced. The legislature felt that passing the 2005 Transportation Package was critical (they invoked the emergency clause in doing so). They did this because engineers—people who are competent to investigate these things—tell us that hundreds of transportation structures in Washington State need to be repaired, upgraded, or replaced. And the projects cost money.

So, I view these cracks as emblematic of the substandard roads, bridges, guardrails, retaining walls, and ramps all over the state. If I-912 passes, we had better learn to live with more and more cracks and potholes in our highways.

What gets me, though, is that some of the proponents of I-912 seem to think they know better than the engineers. They “know” that WSDOT and the engineering reports are misleading. They want a “better” plan, as if they knew the first frigging thing about the topic. I am not sure why anyone would give credibility to these arm-chair engineer-wannabees.

Actually, many I-912 supporters don’t pretend to be engineers. They are the proponents whose arguments do not arise from such quackery, but instead arise from a pure, simple, and transparent motive: they are sore about Rossi losing.

These folks are certainly entitled to their opinion, but I wish people didn’t have to die over a lost election.