Utopian vision blurred

After reading Ken Dix’s well-crafted Jan. 29 letter about Spokane’s street planning leading us to become more like Portland, Anthony Gill’s response, “Let Spokane be more,” appeared Feb. 9.

Gill has a utopian vision of Spokane having planned neighborhoods, a sound economy, “fast and frequent transit,” and only a minute added to our commutes. Absent from Gill’s pitch is a response to Mr. Dix’s prediction that our property taxes would double or triple.

Gill’s like-minded thinkers in Seattle completed a light-rail system there in 2009 between downtown and the airport. Anyone who has experienced rush-hour traffic along I-5 recently between downtown and the I-405 interchange can tell you that traffic there is still bad.

Sound Transit also has express buses to take passengers to park-and-rides throughout the region, but this still doesn’t deter a lot of folks from using their cars. To compound the problem, Seattle is trying unsuccessfully to complete an underground tunnel to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct rather than just replacing the viaduct.

This is another example of utopian planning. We can’t even complete a 5-mile stretch of freeway.

Craig Detmer

Spokane