PubliQuestion: Few Voters Support McGinn’s Surface/Transit Option

Woo hoo! Rebuild it!

Not surprising at all. Cary Moon and her organization and other friends of the surface option have been almost totally silent for many months now. How can anyone expext their point of view to poll well when nobody's talking about it any more, and when most of the electorate just doesn't understand it?

Sad, because when it is explained and people do understand the principles behind it, it would poll very well indeed.

Is anybody actually paying the $5 to see the crosstabs and demographics?

Yeah, if people supported it it would poll well. But they don't, and it doesn't. Does it occur to you that the surface option polls so poorly BECAUSE people “understand the principles behind it?”

If McGinn, Cary Moon, or anybody who supported this “option” had ever explained where the “transit” part of it was going to come from, how it was supposed to be financed, and what right of way it would use (DUH! The selfsame surface streets onto which it was going to force the Viaduct traffic), maybe the poll respondents wouldn't be rejecting it.

But they never came up with any of those answers, and it has become apparent that they don't have any. The “principles behind it” are: We're going to make it so miserable for you to drive a car in this town that you'll quit doing it.”

I'm curious to know if the question on the rebuild made clear that it would be significantly larger than the current viaduct? There are a lot of problems with polling this issue; most importantly, the public, even after all of this time, does not understand the intricacies of the project and the various options.

And, as @2 stated, least-well understood is the surface option. It is a very naunced plan. Most knowledgeable surface-option supporters understand that it would not win a popularity contest right now. But, it may very well be the last option standing, so to speak, when the viaduct comes down.

Ivan, you did note, right, that the rebuild “did not get anywhere close to 50%” right?

Most of the electorate doesn't understand the complex concept of tearing down a freeway and putting in a surface road?

Ivan…here are some of the answers you seek:

http://www.peopleswaterfront.org/transportation…

Yes. Most people do not understand the complexities in modern transportation engineering.

For example, it's counter-intuitive to people who are singularly focused on cars to understand that building more lanes actually can increase congestion, rather than relieve it.

For those of you who hope for a sound-bite solution to complex issues, you'll be disappointed. But, more importantly, decrying an option because it doesn't lend easily to that is disingenuous, unless you, too, do not understand the nuances.

Well, you know, Timothy, when you tell somebody that they “don't understand the nuances,” you're telling them that they're stupid and you're smart, and that therefore they should do as you say.

It is hardly a “sound-bite solution” to insist that transit options be in place BEFORE automobile options are lessened. The link that you suggested (The PWC Web site, naturally) does not answer my question of how the transit is to be financed. How is this to happen in a fiscal environment where Metro is cutting service? The answer? It's not.

It's as I said upthread. It's when people DO understand the “principles” behind the PWC position that it loses public approval. People want to get from Point A to Point B as quickly, as cheaply, and as conveniently as possible. I guess that's because they “don't understand the nuances.” I take from what you're saying that they should value “nuance” more than they value their time.

But unfortunately, Tim, all of those people that do not understand the “complexities in modern transportation engineering” do understand how to vote. So you have to speak their—dare I say my—language. So I urge all to learn the complexities of modern political speech and get your point across in a sound bite or the other side will win.

Without a presentation of the actual questions asked and the error rate, it's just about impossible to draw any conclusions from this poll. And not presenting the crosstabs (for free) is just silly.

Hmmm… would have never figured out the article and completely neutral headline was penned by a former campaign staffer for Mayor Nickels.

So the overall touted 21% number for surface transit is trumpeted, while the other two options' results are described: “The remainder of the Seattle electorate splits almost evenly between the rebuild and the deep bore tunnel, with neither generating anything close to 50 percent support.” So… I'm “guessing” around 40% each because the article doesn't bother to mention the polling numbers for all three options plainly.

By the way, should “tearing down the viaduct” really be described as part of “McGinn's preferred option” — replacing the current viaduct is agreed upon by virtually everyone (or was there a retrofit option in this poll?). Interesting word associations and negative connotations used to describe the (present) mayor here — from “tearing” and “killing” to “derailing.” I guess you can take the man out of the campaign, but not the campaign out of the man……..

My general preference is for the surface/transit option. Followed by the tunnel, followed by a retrofit, and rebuild only over my dead body.

I'd rather not waste money on a tunnel, but I want to get the ugly elevated highway off the waterfront even more.

Mmm, yes, let's pretend that McGinn didn't run on this for 4 months. Maybe he is just has poor communication skills.
WTF

If mass transit solutions were competitive the poll would not be needed. Am I in love with my car, or the 90 minutes of time with my family the car provides?

Maybe the city with the books and college degrees is just too stupid to understand the situation, and/or the questions, ya, that's the ticket.

So now that there is polling that suggests that the people think the surface/transit “option” is stupid, the argument is that they are too stupid to know any better?

That, young man, is how you lose elections.

I'm not a republican, however, I don't believe the surface/transit option would be viable without mass transportation, e.g., light rail or monorail, running in the alaskan way viaduct corridor to take the commuter pressure off the surface transportation. There are far too many commuters in that corridor to justify a surface/transit option w/o mass transportation–with the stop lights on the surface option, traffic could potentially be backed up for miles. In the absence of right of way public transportation along the viaduct area, I'd favor a rebuild as a lesser evil over the surface option, and a cheaper one than the tunnel.

Personally, I'm in love with the 90 extra minutes of time with my family that living close to my job provides.

I would add a reminder that the current tunnel proposal is a scaled back version of the one on the ballot in 2007. Mayor McGinn has made the same mistake in using the 2007 vote as an argument against the current proposal. The distinction is important; I voted against the tunnel in 2007 on the grounds that it was too expensive, but support the current tunnel plan.

Interesting that Publicola insists on continuing to lie about the replacement viaduct: “A rebuilt Viaduct – which would be substantially bigger and noisier than the existing structure “

A new viaduct would be far quieter than the existing viaduct. Does Publicola not understand the nuances of the new viaduct, or do they just prefer to lie constantly?

What this poll seems to show is that most Seattle residents are not car-haters, like McGinn and his gang. The vast majority of Seattle residents own cars and use them regularly. And the few who don't drive cars depend heavily on buses, which also require roads (duh).

I would like to thank Publicola for having this poll taken. Maybe it will open a few eyes. And, hopefully, close a prospective tunnel.

How about Seattle does something intelligent for a change: rebuild the viaduct.

I would also add that the reason the tunnel is close to the rebuild is likely because of the argument that people are tired of debating it, and the tunnel has been chosen, supposedly, so going with a new viaduct would delay the process. If voters were told that switching from the tunnel to a new viaduct would not cause any delay, and that a new viaduct would have 50% more capacity and cost less, I suspect the rebuild would come out ahead.

So what is the Surface/transit plan Michael M?

As far as I know the only plan out there is the state's, which was terrible, with stop lights at every intersection. That for a street that had few cross streets crossing it. They even made the south section look a mess, though no one was talking about changing that from the current plan…which is mostly surface.

Bully for you. Not all of us are as fortunate, and thankfully not as smug either.

I'm glad to see this poll. The surface (non) option was never viable for a myriad of reasons, common opinion is in line with common sense. However my bet is that the bored tunnel option would do better against the elevated rebuild if people being polled were given data on construction closure time of different options. The bored tunnel can be built without closing SR99, that is the primary strength of that option. A rebuild would close the entire transportation corridor for at least 5 years, and regardless it would never pass environmental review.

I've gone through too much brain damage over this project already, there really is no better solution that the bored tunnel. It is the logical conclusion.

The surface/transit supporters inability to present a coherent and consistent option to voters isn't my fault, or the state's fault. It is the fault of people who support that option. That includes the PWC, Mike McGinn and Mike O'Brien, among others.

My side has a clear plan. We win.

I'm sorry, but the results of this poll are completely useless. Surface-transit-I5 advocates have never suggested that ST5 would win a plurality in a three-way match up. The virtue of ST5 is that it is everyone's second choice. That is, tunnel fans hate the viaduct more than they love capacity and elevated fans hate the cost of the tunnel more than they love vehicle capacity.

What is needed is a ranked choice question in which respondents report both their first AND their second choice. Without that data, it is entirely possible for this poll to be completely accurate, and yet it still have ST5 beat both elevated and tunnel in head-to-head match-ups. I'm not saying that is what the data would show. I'm simply arguing that the data presented does not show that ST5 is a loser. In fact, it doesn't show anything.

Look, I completely understand that the public does not support the surface/transit option. And yes, I think that is largely because most of them don't understand it. It's not simply a matter of smart/stupid. It's also based on a desire for certain outcomes (car focus/transit focus) and spending sufficient time on understanding the nuances.

Which is why the public should not be building transit via popular referendum.

What have you won?

All this poll and the reporting thereof shows is that the viaduct is a very complicated issue.

The real issue here is not that the Surface option has limited support (most supporters of this option already get this), but the the so-called “done deal” tunnel has such little support.

And, that support will only erode from here as the numbers get real with more complete design and the real deficiencies of the project become better known.

“If voters were told that switching from the tunnel to a new viaduct would not cause any delay, and that a new viaduct would have 50% more capacity and cost less, I suspect the rebuild would come out ahead.”

And if they were told that the surface-transit-I5 option would result in no statistically discernible difference in travel times, zero spillover onto I-5 and zero impact on the regional economy, then support for the surface option would likely shoot up as well.

Professional economic analysis was conducted and showed both of the things were in fact the case.

I would love to see a top two choice scenario Tony, but I think you are completely deluded that the surface option would be the winner. My guess is that it would fade away completely and the bored tunnel would emerge as a clear solution.

“Well, you know, Timothy, when you tell somebody that they 'don't understand the nuances,' you're telling them that they're stupid and you're smart, and that therefore they should do as you say.”

This is simply untrue. I don't have professional mastery of how the inner workings of an automobile function; that's why I go to an auto mechanic. I have a professional mastery of medicine; that's why I go to a doctor. I don't have a professional mastery of aerodynamics; that's why I don't design and build 747s. That doesn't make me stupid. It simply means I haven't invested the years of study and experience necessary to become an expert in those fields.

Transportation engineering, and the related and often under-appreciated field of transportation demand modeling, is at least as complex as auto maintenance, medicine or aerospace. We seem to have no problem accepting that lacking a professional mastery of these fields does not make someone stupid, but somehow, when it comes to transportation, everyone is an expert.

This does not mean that we should not critically evaluate expert opinion, but it is a prerequisite for a productive discussion that the participants to have a basic understanding of what is currently known in the field.

I should phrase it better – the side I prefer wins. And they win the message war. I'd be curious to know if there was a question putting all of the options head to head against similar sets of voters. (400 folks: Tunnel v. Rebuild, 400 Tunnel v. Surface/Transit, 400 Rebuild v. Surface/Transit).

Of course, i do have reservations about this poll. For one, i can't see the crosstabs without giving up money (and I hate giving up money, and am so used to getting crosstabs for free). This was a robo-poll, and I generally am uneasy about robo-polls. And it's not clear how many questions total were asked. At a certain point, people stop really listening, and just hit buttons to shut up the machine and get back to whatever it was they were doing when the call came in. Person to person polling, IMO, does a better job of allowing for longer, more in-depth polls.

Sorry, Tony. Your trip to the auto mechanic is a private issue and not a public one. Ditto your trip to the doctor. Transportation issues are public issues, will be spent with public money, and require buy-in from the public. That's me and that's you.

These decisions will be made by public officials, your paid representatives and mine. That means they are political decisions, and not solely technocratic decisions. Appeals to authority might be valid arguments in some venues, but only somewhat so in this one.

Therefore, if enough people were to also tell Timothy to stick his “nuance” where the sun doesn't shine, the outcome might be different than if we were to leave everything to traffic engineers. And thank goodness!

The public pays the freight, Timothy, and the public will call the tune. Sorry to upset your little elitist applecart.

Your mom.

*zing!*

Publicola staff: Your polls are interesting and all, but you really really *really* need to offer some kind of explanation of how you're handling the obvious, glaring conflicts inherent in the idea of Sandeep conducting and discussing polling in races he may very well become involved in.

Spinning this kind of information is what he does for a living (whether or not he's good at it is a different question). This is at least as big a conflict as the endorsement issue, which you've at least tried to address. Can we please see a policy statement or something at least?

I think people are too smart to believe those lies. In fact, they have already been told those lies.

Funny then that McGinn was elected mayor and not some supporter of the tunnel, isn't it?

I used to be a surface option proponent but as I've learned more about who uses the Viaduct and what the reality of a surface option would look like, I changed my position and now support the tunnel. My number one priority is opening the waterfront. I want public access and a beautiful space that capitalizes on the water. I want a “festival” atmosphere of lively restaurants, art galleries, shops, offices, and yes,apartments. I want a 24/7 space that is lively and engaging. That won't happen with a surface option. Traffic would still whiz by, far closer than Chicago's Lake Shore Drive or the Embarcadero. We also have a working waterfront. We need a way for goods to be transported through our city. We need a conduit for traffic on the western edge of our city. A tunnel satisfies all of those conditions. I LOATHE the idea of rebuilding the Viaduct. While I'm no “war on cars” advocate, a rebuilt Viaduct would be a gross altar to motor vehicles. Glad someone besides the Mayor's office is polling on this– I don't trust anything that comes from the 7th floor.

Ivan…it's not elitist to want things that you recognize the public aren't in a position to understand. You're attempt to turn this into a debate about populism as the best means for transportation planning is misguided.

In response to Fattailed (and others):

Short answer is that I did not conduct the poll, either write it or field it. That was done by EMC, Precision, and Aristotle, as mentioned above.

I did write up the results — after EMC analyzed the crosstabs and briefed us on their expert opinion.

As it happens, I personally prefer the surface-transit option (though I can live with the deep bore). I've liked the surface-transit idea since my time in the KC Exec's office; Ron Sims was the first high-ranking public official to embrace the idea of a surface-transit solution. But Greg Nickels liked the idea too, btw, after the cut-and-cover tunnel was decvisively rejected by Seattle voters in 2007. He pushed for it in negotiations with the state, which strongly opposed (and still does) the idea. Eventually, the city, county and state split their differences and settled on the deep bore as a compromise that they could all live with.

But all of that said, my personal support for a surface-transit solution does not change the fact that it polls poorly among Seattle voters relative to the other two options, and that that fact has obvious implications for the new mayor, given his opposition to the deep bore tunnel and support for surface-transit.

What a bunch of spurious polemic.

Oh please, everyone who had half a brain and even the faintest pulse has known for a long, long time that the so-called “Surface/Transit” option would poll dead last among these 3 options. Why else do you think Jan Drago and the City Council structured the so-called “advisory vote” so dishonestly?

There isn't majority support for any one option but the rebuild still wins by plurality. Imagine what would happen if the powers-that-be and Publicola dared to put retrofitting the AWV in the polling mix – we might just get to that 50%+1…….

Next up at 10 – water wet, sun rises in the east, etc….

If McGinn had any sense of political preservation he would finally start the tunnel project. The surface option lacks the support and Olympia will go ahead and rebuild the viaduct. The only true compromise that will work is the tunnel and its ready to go.

And do you know it will create thousands of jobs with unemployment above 10% what the hell is he thinking. Considering that thousands of construction workers can't find jobs and they are losing their houses, its no wonder that McGinn was booed off the stage at the Labor event.

Because a good point of view takes on a life of its own and hers isn't?

Engineering that requires the user to fundamentally change his or her way of life isn't going to receive anything other than resistance.

Funny is backing off his tunnel position in order to get the votes. The March McGinn would lose to the Novemer one.

I have proposed building a tunnel through the Cascades for a year round transport between Seattle-Tacoma and Spokane. This could be a “chunnel” for High Speed Rail. It would create hundreds of thousands of construction jobs all across the state, not just in 1/4 of mile in Seattle.

Why do Seattle hogs sop up all the money from our state?

Build the Chunnel…not the Tunnel!

Start the project?
It started before he was elected, it will finish after he is un-elected. The entire time he is, and will be a spectator.
The Mayor of Seattle already agreed, too bad McSandbag was a candidate at the time.

I guess it did come across as smug, though I didn't mean it that way. Mainly I'm trying to communicate that there are a lot of living and commute options out there. It's not a matter of an hour of mass transit vs 30 mins in a single-occupant vehicle or whatever.

The tunnel makes the most sense. McGinn and O'Brien both tout electric cars–which is great. But they ignore the other bad thing about cars, they take up space. Even if people drive half as much, another 2 million people will move here over the next 30 years.

The reality is that if Seattle says no to the tunnel, the state will say no way to a $2.8 billion contribution to our waterfront and transit. The state doesn't fund transit and never has.

If I believed that McGinn had the power to get the state to fund transit I might support him from my West Seattle home. But the monorail taught me forever to not believe in dreams not based in reality.

I would posit that charging your readers for access to all of the information necessary to make sense of your story might be one reason that you'll always fight to be recognized as a “real” media organization.

I don't think that you can have it both ways — you can either like a news organization acting in the public's interest, or you can be a pay-per-view local news site. I would imagine that the former will be far more lucrative in the long run than the latter.

wouldn't the viaduct also require the current viaduct to be shut down for a few years while the new one was built? i was under the assumption that the small time without the viaduct that is part of the tunnel plan is one of the draws of said tunnel. then again, it has no access to downtown. seems like the options are pretty much a lose-lose-win (i like the surface-transit plan).

also, maybe i just haven't heard of it, but why hasn't a four lane viaduct been proposed? it would then have the same capacity as this tunnel, have connections downtown, and allay a lot of the fear over the size of the rebuild. i guess i shouldn't say it because it might come true

Selma–People don't have a right to free informaton. That's just silly.

But it would be nice if you would display these results in some sort of graphic form so they are comprehensible to those of us who've had a few too many blows to the head.

I will bitch and whine about the crosstabs forever, because I like crosstabs. I'm a junkie that way.

The big issue here, however, is that there is nothing to indicate the length of the poll (we know it was a robo-poll), and no MOE.

Length matters for robo-polls, because people eventually stop paying close attention (I call it the one minute rule).

MOE is important because…well, who doesn't divulge MOE? Even Fox News gives up MOE for their polls.

Apologies Joshua if I misread your tone. However I think there are a number of factors in one's choice of where to live, and workplace is just one of them. School district, spouse's commute, etc.

Overall I think Mr. Baker's point is sound, if mass transit were a reasonable alternative to commuting by car in terms of time spent getting from point A to point B, it would be more well received.

Cheers,

Tangent

In short, yes…

Most folks seem to think that the proposal is to tear down the Viaduct and just let all the cars currently up there drive around on the Waterfront. Of course, this isn't even close to the proposal, and would not be very practical.

Most folks also naively seem to think that the current Tunnel proposal will take all of the cars currently up in the air and put them underground instead. This is also not even close to the proposal, which will actually only take care of 40-60% of the existing traffic with few plans or funding for taking care of the remaining number.

Well, imagine that… Every supporter of the I-5/Surface/Transit option supports more transit in the corridor and fixes to the existing road capacity to handle such things.

Ummm, those aren't “lies” just because you say they are. You don't have to agree with the conclusions, but qualified folks did actually study these things, you know.

What's with the completely UN-surprising articles lately, guys?

I mean, really… really? We learned earlier that people in city management positions that prefer, if not require, years of experience tend to be older than 45 years. Imagine that.

And now we learn — shocker! — that folks around when the Viaduct was built tend to support building a new Viaduct. And drivers around when miles and miles of roads were built to facilitate a car-based society prefer a tunnel which continues to support that familiar lifestyle.

But wait, let me guess, younger people and folks who did not grow up in Seattle, and who have seen mass transit built elsewhere, support the surface option with more transit.

You don't say! I hope that's a real deal you're getting on this crack-pot polling and research lately…

This is not news, to those of us who knew the so called “referendum” was never designed to give a concise answer or allow us to make a definitive decision. It was designed to drag out the debate.

Unless this poll is conducted as a ranked-choice question, it's not possible to draw conclusions from it. It needs to be re-done properly.