Back in August, Seattle's primary election determined that our current mayor, Greg Nickels, wouldn't get another term. He was fairly unpopular for various reasons that I haven't been able to get a good understanding of since I've been here. I think some people felt he was too environmentally-focused, at the expense of other things, like crime. He spent lots of city money on a streetcar line and wanted to require businesses to charge for plastic grocery bags. I'm sure the city's poor response to the snow and ice covered streets last winter didn't help him either. The winners of the primary, Joe Mallahan and Mike McGinn, have been campaigning for the general election for the past few months.

One of the major issues of the mayoral election has been the replacement of the Alaskan Way Viaduct. The Viaduct isn't structurally sound and has needed to be replaced for many years. Things take a while to happen here (you may remember we just got light rail here a few months ago), but as we recently posted about, Mayor Nickels made an agreement with the state to replace the viaduct with a $4.2+ billion tunnel.

Part of McGinn's platform was that, as mayor, he wouldn't let the tunnel be built because of the cost involved and of the potential benefits of alternative plans to the tunnel. Late in the campaign, he backed off a little and said that he'd allow the tunnel to be built, but he'd ask tough questions about it.

On the other side, Mallahan was in favor of the tunnel and part of his platform was that he'd use his business experience to help the city government run more efficiently.

There was a lot more to it than that, of course, and it was a close race. McGinn was more popular with young urbanites, and Mallahan was more popular with older and wealthier folks. Last Tuesday was voting day and it has taken a while to count all the ballots, but it appears that Mike McGinn will be our new mayor.

It will be interesting to see if the tunnel actually does get built and in what direction McGinn will take the city from here.