No one consulted with state’s highest transportation official before Chinese president’s visit

Based on some of the messages I’ve received, the traffic jams caused by Chinese President Xi Jinping have thousands of motorists crying “Xi Whiz! There must be another way!”

Related: Follow President Xi’s motorcade

When Washington Secretary of Transportation Lynn Peterson agreed to come on the air to talk about the tolling plan on I-405 Wednesday morning, I also wanted to find out whether anyone at the state’s Department of Transportation was consulted for suggestions on how to make sure commuters would be inconvenienced as little as possible. The answer shocked me: Nope.

“When any dignitary comes to town, there’s a high amount of security that is related to this, and WSDOT is not a part of any of the scheduling, but we certainly understand the need for high security,” Peterson said. “We encourage folks to figure out another time if they can.”

The state basically had to accept a huge motorcade and 17 mile backups. The only alternative given? Stay home.

“We are dependent on the information provided to us by our partners and we are requested by them to carry out closing down the ramps, when requested by them,” Peterson said.

Everyone wants to be accommodating to a visiting head of state, but I’ve noticed that for this visit, and the Pope’s visit back East, we’re seeing entire cities turned into airport zones.

If the threats are that serious, maybe it’s time to hold these meetings elsewhere. Fix up a hangar at Paine Field. It’s right near the Boeing Everett plant and you can helicopter in the dignitaries and even the Lincoln High School kids from Tacoma. You can protect President Xi from annoying demonstrators and the rest of us can get to work on time.

But that wasn’t even explored.

Seattle’s downtown core is closed down, a freeway system serving 3.4 million people is basically put under martial law, and it was all done without consulting the state’s highest transportation official.