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Nickels Appointed to Transportation Board

City   September 21, 2011 at 3:14 pm Josh Feit

I admit that I tend to see everything through the lens of the Mayor Mike McGinn era, but in my defense, the guy is, well, the mayor.

Today, Transportation Choices Coalition, the nonprofit group that advocates for light rail and bikes and transit alternatives (and seems like it should be an obvious McGinn ally), continues to distance itself from the green mayor.

After failing to take a position on the tunnel (while many other enviro groups came out against the tunnel with McGinn), this afternoon TCC announced that former Mayor Greg Nickels (a big tunnel advocate and now a potential McGinn rival) has joined their board.

Along with the Nickels announcement—kind of a coup for the small organization, by the way—TCC announced three other new board members: King County Executive Dow Constantine’s lobbyist Genesee Adkins (a former TCC lobbyist); University of Washington transportation director Josh Kavanagh; and Vulcan community relations manager Pearl Leung.

Kavanagh fought McGinn to maintain a subsidy for the U-Pass this past legislative session.

I won’t squeeze Adkins or Leung into my McGinn frame, but there’s certainly rivalry, if not tension, between the McGinn and Constantine camps. And Vulcan has a warm relationship with both McGinn and Nickels, though I’d say their affection for Nickels—who advocated for the whole successful South Lake Union upgrade—trumps their alliance with McGinn.

TCC staffer Viet Shelton is currently managing the campaign for the $60 car tab fee, a ballot measure McGinn supports.

If anything, today’s announcement certainly confirms that former mayor Nickels is thinking about getting back into local politics.


  • Trevor

    Vulcan salts so many enviro and housing organizations boards with its staff it’s ridiculous.

  • Trevor

    Also, serving on the board of TCC seems to me to be totally unrelated to the question of whether Nickels will run for office again.

  • Incredibles

    okay so

  • gloomy gus

    Since TCC is a statewide coalition I’ve had the sense they do what they can to keep from getting hidebound or pigeonholed. While it’s true they chose not to choose sides in the “with us or against us” game during the tunnel campaigns, given their responsibilities and goals I don’t count that the failure you do.

  • Clyde

    C’mon! Nickels JOINS the Transportation Board – or, Nickels VOLUNTEERS . But not ‘appointed’.  Your headline made me think he’d been appointed to the Transportation Commission by the Governor – which would have been news.

  • Clyde

    C’mon! Nickels JOINS the Transportation Board – or, Nickels VOLUNTEERS . But not ‘appointed’.  Your headline made me think he’d been appointed to the Transportation Commission by the Governor – which would have been news.

  • redemption song

    Nickels is getting ready to run.  All he needs to do is say “okay, it was really an F!” and he can win.

    mayor. or possibly mayor then congress.  he’s also sort of positioning himself to block on ron sims.  keep his options open. 

    meanwhile TCC had no position on the tunnel?  wow, that’s leadership. 

  • Rob

    Sure Nickels left with the economy and budget teetering on the verge of a collapse. – but can come back as a conquering hero because people (with short memories = electorate) won’t associate cutbacks with his tenure.  He will also get a lot of love from the Seattle Times, DTSA types and the city hall insiders who can’t get over their man crushes on the former mayor.

  • Anonymous

    I’ll never forget the time I sat near hizzoner Nickels at a rail conference plenary in San Francisco, December 2001. He raised his hand and asked the speaker who’d just finished, ”How did you get the locals to go along with pulling down the Embarcadero Freeway?” Nevermind the Embarcadero elevated doesn’t compare well to the Alaskan Way Viaduct, the impression Nickels left was political and best phrased,  ”How does a politician successfully hoodwink the public to go along with what politicians & business cronies want to do?” Nickles WILL be held accountable for the catastrophic deep bore tunnel lunacy and its inextricably connected and likewise disastrous Mercer West and the current design for Alaskan Way. Seattle’s terrible traffic doesn’t just happen. It is designed to be terrible by Nickels’ cronies within transportation & transit planning agencies who serve automobile-related business interests rather than the public.   

  • Just Sayin’

    Nickels could be a viable candidate again if he promised to be the warm, fuzzy guy they elected the first time, part of the Seattle Nice cadre. And not rehire The Shark as his enforcer who made Nickels into a Chicago-style pol, wholely out of tune with the Seattle Way.

  • Johns

    They’re a statewide coalition? Really?

    What have they done, effectively, at the state level?