While most folks around Seattle have shifted their November focus to ST3, there’s another major project that comes up for a vote before that worth noting: The Alaskan Way Elevated Park.
Seattle voters will decided on August 3 whether or not the city builds a one-mile "garden bridge” between Pike Place Market and CenturyLink Field along the path the Alaskan Way Viaduct currently runs.
As the PSBJ reports, the Initiative-123 campaign that backs the elevated park seems to be running into confusion at a few turns along the way.
For six years, the people behind the city's at-grade park along Seattle's central shore have promoted their plan with the "Waterfront for All" slogan.
When rivals took their competing plan for an elevated waterfront park to citizens last year, they called their proposal "A Waterfront for All."
That slogan no longer appears on the I-123 website but there’s also the issue that the elevated park could be confusing to voters with what’s already planned along this route: a 2-mile-long promenade that runs the water’s edge. That at-grade park has the city’s backing and, according to one Friends of Waterfront Seattle board member, overwhelming community support. However, uninformed voters might think the two options are one and the same when they go to the ballots.
Also working against I-123 appears to be the financial side. According to public disclosure statements, No on I-123 had raised just over $225,100 while Yes on I-123 is over $100,000 in debt.
Add to that the fact that wealthy former I-123 backer Martin Selig is now donating to the No cause because the current plan veered so far from the original version and the odds are stacking up against the I-123 proposal.