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The state-led waterfront project team has told Seattle it must choose between erection of a new, even wider Alaskan Way Viaduct, or (what's called the “all surface” option) letting city streets absorb a huge stream of trucks and cars that now use the elevated freeway. Some choice.
By ignoring the superior economic, financial, transportation, environmental, and aesthetic benefits of a combined deep-bored tunnel under downtown and a waterfront boulevard for local traffic, the Washington State/King County/Seattle transportation project team has paved the way for a political donnybrook. They should think again.
The reasons are simple. A bored tunnel, surface-transit combination has many supporters and few die-hard detractors. It acknowledges the legitimate environmental and business interests of the alternatives. Unlike a Viaduct replacement, a tunnel can be constructed and opened before the months-long demolition of the existing Viaduct begins, thereby mitigating bad traffic effects. For these reasons, opposition to the tunnel option focuses largely on the mistaken, out-of-date cost estimates of the State Department of Transportation that suppose that any tunnel will be too expensive. Failing to consider up-to-date technology and costs was a serious oversight by the project team.
A new Viaduct would handle the current load of 110,000 vehicles a day and thereby satisfy businesses like Boeing and the Port of Seattle that need to move freight expeditiously. It also would accommodate the travelers who are moving through the west side of the city and not stopping in the downtown. But, generations after other leading cities liberated their waterfronts from multi-story roadways, a new Viaduct would represent the worst throwback to poor design in the history of the city and qualify Seattle for architectural booby-prizes for years to come. Such short sighted, single-purpose transportation thinking would consign the harborfront to blight and economic stagnation. After literally three decades of criticism of the present Viaduct, the region would inexcusably replicate the error for our posterity.
That assumes, of course, that the monstrosity — once chosen — ever got built. Urban design critics and air pollution foes will hate it actively. Federal money, if any were sought, would likely trigger provisions of the President’s Advisory Council on Historic Preservation that apply a standard of “no feasible alternative” to transportation projects. Having once served on that body, I find it hard to see a new Viaduct gaining approval. No elevated highways have passed federal review in such cases since the 1970s. Even before federal action, however, local opponents might well take to the lawsuit route and, then, the initiative process to thwart a new assault on Seattle’s physical future.
However, the all-surface option will fare little better. Of course it would be wonderful progress to get rid of the unsightly Viaduct and open up water vistas. As mitigation, there are some good ways proposed to improve traffic flow on downtown streets and expand transit use. A new lane squeezed out of I-5 would help, and is needed anyhow. But there is no reason to think such mitigation would begin to suffice in soaking up the existing US 99 traffic flow. It would be an ironic environmental “improvement” that resulted in more clogged, polluting traffic tie-ups on the waterfront.
Even before an all-surface outcome is tested in practice, City, County and State will have agitated the already restive business, trade, and labor communities that consider politicians to be insensitive to what is required to make trade and commerce work on a waterfront. And—just to rev up the lawsuit and initiative process with real passion—the many Seattle area people who merely want to get through the downtown bottleneck as quickly as possible are going to be indignant over the prospect of start and stop, cheek by jowl traffic along Alaska Way.
The project team holds out the alternative of a deep bored tunnel as a stand-alone project that could be considered later once a surface option is adopted (if it is). But this is surely a classic case of “kicking the can down the road,” waiting until traffic paralysis occurs and then starting a new project—that will take several years to implement—to cure the mess the transportation whizzes will have just created. Corporations and their clients are not going to wait around patiently for the Seattle region to slowly crawl up the transportation learning curve. They could well be gone, with their money, before the surface-only folly is evident.
It is unfortunate that a bored inland tunnel only gained attention in the last couple of years. Most people think that “tunnel” still refers to a cut and cover trench along the present Viaduct route, as originally proposed some years ago. A bored inland tunnel is a huge improvement over the idea of a trench in every way—cost, aesthetics, environmental impacts, and construction mitigation.
It is also unfortunate that the State DOT is still using out of date estimates for such a facility and seems to have missed the rapid technological strides that have been made in tunneling in recent years. Had they bothered to look only as far as across town to the Sound Transit tunnel through Beacon Hill that is coming in at $300 million—on budget and on time—they would have been forced back to their calculators. They also seem to have slighted the myriad tunnel projects going in elsewhere in the country and world.
Indeed, the project team has yet to talk with the local and international engineers and planners consulted by Discovery Institute’s Cascadia Center. These experts have come up with basic estimates of $1.4 to $1.7 billion for an inland tunnel option that would free the waterfront for reasonable car traffic and transit, while carrying freight, more transit and the current through-passenger cars that use the Viaduct. (Note: the Beacon Hill tunnel cost of $300 million is for one mile. The inland tunnel proposed for the waterfront region would be twice as long and twice as wide.) This is well within the budgets that have been discussed heretofore and has long-range savings that the others can’t touch. A tunnel lasts far longer than a viaduct.
Unlike either option the project team selected to consider further, the bored tunnel alternative would be a prime candidate for federal funding in the 2009-2010 period, lowering local cost burdens even more. Environmental and safety objections would be minimal. The tunnel could recapture and remove car exhaust particulate and keep polluted runoff from entering Puget Sound. It may be counter-intuitive, but a tunnel also would be safer in an earthquake (as the Bart tunnel showed in San Francisco) than a new Viaduct. It would not be affected either by the danger of liquefaction of fill soils that may afflict the waterfront itself during a major quake.
The Alaskan Way Viaduct Stakeholders group that was set up to advise the politicos was not allowed to vote formally this week, but after their long study, 24 of 25 of them made clear informally on Thursday night that they want the bored tunnel and surface boulevard option examined further. That is in the joint economic and environmental interest of the region and therefore, one would think, the political interest of our leaders.
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Comments:
Posted Sat, Dec 13, 9:41 a.m. Inappropriate
I couldn't agree more with you. It will be interesting to see if Nickels and Gregoire have the courage to get behind this plan. As for Sims, who cares - with his support for Hillary Clinton in the primary and his backstabbing of light rail, it's clear that he is out of step.
Posted Sat, Dec 13, 2:27 p.m. Inappropriate
Let me spare you from any further Gasbag prognostications. Here is your solution:
Tunnel, viaduct, who cares. The Viaduct goes to nowhere. Let me explain. It's part of a private freeway to Burien...the best kept secret in Seattle. It serves no other higher purpose.
So here's the solution: FINISH the SR509 link to I-5. Then charge a TOLL to use it during rush hours, morning and night. Throw in the NEW viaduct as part of the toll. That is, make it toll-free for those using the I-5 link, charge everyone else in the morning. Burienites will simply sleep in a few hours.
The I-5/SR509 link would dramatically expand the traffic potential to MANY South-end customers who would gladly pay to use the link. This is all doable now with electronics. Make it...$3.00 to use.
There. In three minutes I have solved your politically intractable problem, gasbag free. You are strange process-driven people. I will go back to my weekend. You're welcome in advance.
SR509
Posted Sun, Dec 14, 7:57 a.m. Inappropriate
Bruce is right about one thing: there will never be another freeway built over Seattle's waterfront.
Let's see the data on the "mess" the surface solution is said to create and and unbiased and well grounded accounting of the estimated costs of the bore.
Posted Sun, Dec 14, 1:25 p.m. Inappropriate
I-5 is already a parking lot, and adding a toll lane to Burien so the residents of the western 1/3 of Seattle have the privilege of getting to their homes and businesses is neither practical or equitable.
Try again.
Posted Sun, Dec 14, 2:01 p.m. Inappropriate
I thought I'd check in on the daily roadlover's news. Yep, complaining we're not throwing another multi-billion dollar subsidy at your love of cars and the ridiculous idea that freeways belong inside of cities. Hey look, you even mentioned the Discovery Institute by name this time (clearly the source of much of your "news").
The fact is, whatever the solution we will have years of no viaduct while the current one is being demolished. How will people get around for those years? Just stop going to work? No - they'll adapt by taking mass transit, finding jobs closer to home, or finding other ways to work. Which is exactly what will happen if we tear it down and just not build a new freeway. Build good transit to West Seattle and down south, make the city more walkable, and the problem simply goes away. Just like San Francisco's Embarcadero.
Posted Sun, Dec 14, 8:29 p.m. Inappropriate
thanks for stopping by matt, your 19th century thinking really works for the next generation of personal vehicles, pollution free and powered by American energy.
you certainly do have the simple, socialist mindset.
Posted Sun, Dec 14, 9:24 p.m. Inappropriate
https://www.seattle.gov/council/attachments/06awv_transportation_factors.pdf
There's a link to a study on the mess it would be to replace the viaduct with a surface street.
Posted Sun, Dec 14, 9:28 p.m. Inappropriate
Summary of key findings from this study:
Summary of Key Findings
The key report findings and facts as they relate to the key City Council issues include:
???????? The transportation analysis that the AWV team completed is adequate to determine that waterfront roadway
traffic levels would not be “pedestrian-friendly” with a Surface alternative (“pedestrian-friendly” generally
provides for facilities and amenities that are designed to prioritize the walking environment over other modesthese
facilities generally have little [20,000 vehicles per day or less] to no traffic). The Surface alternative
would have a demand for the waterfront roadway in the range of at least 40,000 to 50,000 vehicles per day.
???????? The capacity provided by the existing Alaskan Way Viaduct frees up capacity on the surface street system that
would otherwise be consumed by demand from AWV users. This provides flexibility to manage the surface
street system to serve the needs of buses and autos entering downtown on surface streets.
???????? The Alaskan Way Viaduct is used by trucks that service a significant number of trips between areas just north
and just south of downtown. Retaining the surface prohibition of through truck trips in the downtown traffic
control zone (Seattle Municipal Code 11.14.165) would significantly impact the movement of goods with any
surface alternatives. If the new waterfront surface roadway were utilized for trucks, it would conflict with the
goals for a pedestrian-friendly waterfront.
???????? The fact that the Alaskan Way Viaduct connects directly to limited access highways north and south of
downtown makes the Viaduct more of a through-serving corridor than a local route. The regional forecast
indicates growth in the use of the Viaduct by through traffic in the future. The travel forecast shows that
nearly 100% of trips using the downtown grid serve origins and destinations within a mile or so of downtown.
However, well over 50% of trips using the Viaduct serve origins and destinations stretching south to SR-509
and to north of Seattle.
???????? The overall transportation system capacity would change with a Surface alternative—its use for growth,
transit performance, through travel, and local circulation would be altered. The Surface alternative would
change the proportions of who uses the existing roadway facilities which include the surface Alaskan Way.
???????? If capacity were consumed by diverting Alaskan Way Viaduct trips to other routes and modes on the
downtown grid, future decision-makers would have little flexibility in advancing future transportation
solutions that connect to or impact downtown traffic.
???????? In cases where other cities have removed freeways, they have generally been under different conditions than
are present with the Alaskan Way Viaduct - such as the availability of excess capacity on other parallel
roadways. In cities with facilities similar to the Alaskan Way Viaduct (having limited access facilities that
serve regional demand and have a working waterfront) the facility was generally replaced with a similar type
of facility.
???????? Many of the project cost elements are the same with each alternative, with one of the greatest costs being the
cost of money—meaning the financing and escalation costs over the life of the project. Another substantial
cost item is the risk/contingency allocations to address the unknown aspects of each alternative. These two
cost elements combined total over a billion dollars.
Posted Mon, Dec 15, 4:23 p.m. Inappropriate
Mr. Chapman-
If you are so convinced that the deep bore tunnel is the way to do it, raise the additional money, and take responsibility for the cost creep risk and build it.
If it isn't worth those extra monies for Downtown to justify the investment, maybe it isn't the way to go? You think?
That said, there is nothing saying we couldn't build the bore tunnel or a viaduct later. Since the Downtown's original favorite, the seawall tunnel, has now been dropped due credibility problems with original efforts the best place to start is with the surface choice.
Consider also the politics. Environmentalists took a big risk re-submitting ST 2 to the ballot (something I opposed). But they won that risk and the power with it.
Personally, $4 gas is every bit as politically effective as a downtown that requires billions in subsidies to be 'profitiable' for the State.
Or, rather it appears, those you shill for.
Posted Mon, Dec 15, 5:48 p.m. Inappropriate
As to "Tunnel, viaduct, who cares. The Viaduct goes to nowhere. Let me explain. It's part of a private freeway to Burien...the best kept secret in Seattle. It serves no other higher purpose." posted by Ex-Seattleite, said person seems to have forgotten about West Seattle and other Spokane Street connections. Bruce Chapman's deep-bore tunnel idea is worth revisiting. There's said kind of tunnel just North of Reykjavik that seems to work just fine. JG
Posted Sat, Jan 17, 9:54 a.m. Inappropriate
Not that it matters now Jerry, this being a long since forgotten column, but West Seattle does not deserve a multi BILLION dollar tunnel. If you don't share it with the wider region it's has an even lower return on investment.
It appears that the Tunnel will be going forward with...user fees. I wonder from where those fees will be coming from?
Perhaps an I-5/SR509 link? We shall see.
It took an ExSeattleite to resolve your process driven inertia. Call on me any time.