Taken from Monday’s edition of The Dori Monson Show.

Starting this week, they’re shutting down I-90 so they can replace some expansion joints.

A KING 5 report notes they’ve scheduled the closure while a lot of other things are going on: “This is going to come at a very difficult time for drivers. During these lane closures there’s going to be a Sounders game, a Mariners home stand, and the Bite of Seattle.”

Why would they do this when there are a lot of people on the Eastside who come across for Mariners and Sounders games, probably quite a few come for the Bite? Why would they schedule this when there are all these major events in Seattle? The backup is expected to be gigantic.

Travis Phelps, with the Washington State Department of Transportation, tells our reporter Chris Sullivan that drivers could see 10-mile backups. They are predicting traffic Armageddon.

A lot of people have said: Why don’t they just open up 520 and say no tolls for a week to take the pressure off?

Their official response to our reporter Chris Sullivan was essentially, well we’d lose $1 million in tolling revenues if we just opened up 520 for the week, but we can’t afford that, we’ve got to stay on schedule. This is ironic given that they go billions over budget on other major transportation projects around here, but they can’t lose a million dollars worth of tolls on 520 for the week.

The real reason they’re doing this is because they want every single person in this region eventually to get a Good to Go pass. This relates to a widespread tolling plan for the region that I’ve discussed on the show previously:

About eight years ago, I had a source who leaked to me a master Puget Sound area transportation plan. The plan being circulated at the highest levels of King County was examining widespread tolling throughout the region. The tolling would be not just for new construction projects like the downtown Seattle tunnel and 520 bridge, but widespread tolling.

In fact, one incarnation of the plan, as it was detailed and leaked to me, was tolls on every single road in the region, 24 hours a day.”

That is the goal here. They want to create gridlock so people out of sheer desperation will say, I can’t sit in an hour-long backup, OK I’ll take 520 for a week, I don’t want a Good to Go pass, but I’ll get it just for this one week. Then they’ve got you.

There is no logical reason that you would close down I-90 for the week of a Mariners home stand and a Sounders home game. It makes no sense. They’re not that stupid. In fact, they’re very crafty, in an evil sort of way. This is part of this grand conspiracy to eventually get a transponder on every single car.

Taken from Monday’s edition of The Dori Monson Show.

Related:
What’s your plan? I-90 shutdown could create carpocalypse for Seattle-area commute

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