We're taught that redundancies are inefficient. In some cases, redundancies are critical. Take aviation. An important aspect about aircraft is that many components have one or two (or maybe even three!) redundant parts. You don't want your engine to fail at 35,000 feet without a backup. The same is true for transportation. Having choices when your principle route fails (whether it be because of a bridge failure or traffic) is important to ensure the transportation network can continue to function. Bill Virgin teaches us this lesson in today's News Tribune:

Pull out a U.S. highway atlas sometime and look at the East Coast, Midwest and Southeast. Not only are major-market densities greater, there are usually multiple options for getting from one to another. The temporary loss of an interstate may force a longer, roundabout journey but it doesn’t sever the link entirely.

Not so true in Western Washington. The corridors are limited and vulnerable, as the Skagit River bridge collapse and smaller “events” like a jackknifed truck on Interstate 5 in downtown Seattle remind us...

The Puget Sound Gateway – the fancy name for extending state Route 167 interstate-style from Puyallup to the Port of Tacoma, isn’t a north-south alternative, but it opens a connection to a north-south alternative to I-5 that many motorists already use, state routes 167 (the Valley Freeway) and 512. That’s significant not just for getting to the warehouses and distribution centers along that corridor, but for getting to eastern and southwestern Washington and points beyond even faster.

Puyallup mayor Rick Hanson and chamber president Shelly Schlumpf go onto make the case for the importance not only for the completion of SR-167, but also for the Legislature to act now:

Our state is literally at a crossroads with a transportation system that is our lifeblood. Our current roads are crumbling, traffic congestion is worse, freight is getting stuck and transit service is getting cut.

We can either do nothing or we can make a down payment to create and grow jobs and the economy, and more efficiently move people and goods. The situation won’t improve unless our elected officials in Olympia act, this year, in this special session of the Legislature.