Mercer Plan has a new price tag: $290 million
For the first time, cost estimates for the western part, phase II, have surfaced. Adding $100 million to a project that is already short of funding is starting to look like a kind of farewell fling from Mayor Nickels. A critic traces all the funding maneuvers.
Only a week after Mayor Nickels' election loss, the City's Department of Transportation (SDOT) Director Grace Crunican presented a new budget for the Mercer Plan to the City Council’s Transportation Committee. Councilmembers in attendance, including the committee’s chair Jan Drago, did not bat an eyelash when Crunican’s powerpoint showed that project costs had risen from $190 million to $290 million.
Undaunted by a shortfall of over $60 million when the project was set at $190 million, Crunican announced the Mayor’s intention to move ahead with a second, more westerly phase to their Mercer plan adding another $100 million to its cost. For several years, SDOT has said there is the potential for a second phase but not since about 2006 have they seriously presented the idea to the City Council, least of all with a budget attached. Apparently, SDOT has quietly continued planning on a second phase even earmarking $10 million from existing sources to keep the planning going.
For nearly a year, SDOT and Mayor Nickels have used a budget figure of $190-$200 million for a project they have called “shovel ready.” Suddenly, a second phase has been added, and the full Mercer is now a $290 million project. How SDOT can dedicate city funds for a second phase and get this far along without a public airing or even council discussion seems puzzling, but neither the committee’s chair Drago nor other councilmembers have raised a peep of concern about it.
What makes this even odder, Nickels and his staff at SDOT do not have full funding lined up yet for phase I. With phase II added to the budget, the shortfall would be well over $150 million for both phases. Perhaps activating the second phase now is the Mayor’s version of a “Hail Mary.” Or he hopes to solidify funding for Phase I and get some funding lined up and spent on a second phase before he leaves office — deep enough into it so his successor and the City Council can say with at least a semi-straight face, “it’s too late to turn back.”
Crunican indicated that to fill that $150 million gap, SDOT already was aggressively going after a host of additional sources including more federal, regional and local funds. She also made clear that more “Bridging the Gap” dollars would be tapped to make up the difference as well. Bridging the Gap (BTG) is the name given to the $544 million, 9-year transportation package passed in 2005 to cover a backlog of basic street, road, sidewalk, and bridge repairs in our neighborhoods. Voters approved a special property tax levy to cover $365 million of its cost, and the City Council passed an employee head tax ($51.5 million) and parking lot tax ($127.5 million) to cover the rest of the tab.
In 2005, planning for the Mercer Project was well under way. Phase I plans called for a rerouting of traffic from I-5 headed westbound along Valley St. onto a widened two-way Mercer St., which is now only an eastbound street. Valley would become a two-lane residential street. These Phase I Mercer improvements would run from I-5 to Dexter Avenue which parallels Aurora one block east. Today, these plans remain essentially the same.
There was talk in 2005 of a second phase that would extend improvements westward beyond Dexter to Seattle Center, but those plans were never well defined or if they were, they were kept hidden as project costs on the first phase went up.
The plan that Crunican announced two weeks ago for Phase II calls for improvements west along Mercer from Dexter all the way past Seattle Center and down the hill to the waterfront. Most of the cost of this second phase is related to the cost of sinking Aurora just north of the Battery Street tunnel and "reconnecting the grid" with overpasses across Aurora at Harrison, Thomas, and John Streets. That portion of Broad Street that now angles under Aurora from Harrison near the Seattle Center to Roy Street at the South end of Lake Union would be eliminated; Roy Street would be reconnected and run under Aurora. This $100 million estimate for the second phase is just a "5 percent engineering estimate," so it is still very rough.
In 2005 with the price tag rising to about $90 million, up from $75 million a year earlier for phase I, councilmembers committed $30 million from BTG sources for the project. Assurances were also made that only monies from the employee head tax and parking lot tax would be used and not the voter-approved portion destined for neighborhood projects. Too bad no one wrote that into the ordinances creating the package.
By 2007, project costs for the first phase had shot up to $190-$200 million — about the time we also stopped hearing about a phase II. With only about $30 million in hand, Mayor and council decided to make up the difference by inserting Mercer into the $18 billion county-wide roads and rail ballot measure. When voters soundly rejected it that in 2007, City Hall turned back to Bridging the Gap for more of those funds.
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Comments:
Posted Thu, Sep 10, 8:44 a.m. inappropriate
John, for once we are largely in agreement. Mercer Phase II is a complete waste of money, and Phase I could be done much more cheaply.
However, some small factual errors: Bridging the Gap includes bike improvements (mostly spent on sharrow paint so far), and Vulcan owns only about one-third (not half) of private land in SLU, and there are no residential developments on Valley. (Vulcan has proposed more office buildings on Mercer, for Amazon and UW--I'd actually like to see mixed-use residential!)
Also, I don't understand how Mallahan can ignore the problems with the bored tunnel north portal if Mercer Phase II doesn't go ahead. That's $150 million more missing from the bored tunnel funding.
Posted Thu, Sep 10, 9:11 a.m. inappropriate
I disagree with this line of thinking completely. That area is a wasteland and needs to be completely rebuilt. The piecemeal approach to moving traffic through it is what made it the abomination it is today. It is crowded BECAUSE it is complicated. This project is transformative. The area east of Seattle Center has so much potential if it wasn't so disconnected from the up and coming SLU neighborhood. SLU could actually have access to Seattle Center without having to walk or bike on those horrifying tiny sidewalks under Mercer and Broad. This isn't about moving cars from Highway 99 to I-5 quicker, it's about simplification and neighborhood transformation. This is a great use of public dollars to create a new urban neighborhood that is livable, walkable and sustainable.
Posted Thu, Sep 10, 10:51 a.m. inappropriate
"What makes this even odder. . ."
There is nothing odd going on here, Drago said, as reported here in Crosscut, that she would do this.
Both candidates for mayor need to agree on killing some projects and issue joint statements to stop them.
Jan Drago has other transportation scripts that are playing out as well. Indeed, her current, fourth term (which ends this year) is easily her most productive and influential since being elected 15 years ago. (She's the most senior member of the City Council.) Perhaps that’s because she’s expected to retire at the end of 2009 and wants to leave with a bang. She has not formally announced either way, but most say this year will be her swan song. She’s certainly approaching it with energy and focus. “I want to get all these projects to the point of no return,” she says, referring to the Viaduct, the Streetcar network, Mercer Street, and some other transportation items now in play.
http://crosscut.com/2009/01/16/seattle-city-hall/18780/
Posted Thu, Sep 10, 11:32 a.m. inappropriate
An interesting thing about The Commons proposal was that it put Mercer below grade and capped between Boren and 9th where it connected to the Broad Street tunnel. I'm not saying The Commons was the best land-use for the area, but a street grid could've been laid out, Valley Street retained, development occur and plenty of parkspace dedicated. This grade separation of Mercer nearly made the connection between I-5 and SR99 'south' for thru-traffic. The Fairview/Mercer intersection remained, but could it too be grade separated? The silence is deafening...
Posted Thu, Sep 10, 11:36 a.m. inappropriate
It's not all or nothing, black or white. These neighborhoods need weaving back together. All it takes is doing what most households with scarce funding --the bare essentials first, the window dressing if and when funds become available.
Posted Thu, Sep 10, 11:39 a.m. inappropriate
Great article. Far from being a “mess” Mercer is one of the most successful arterials in the city if you believe that streets are supposed to move rubber-tired vehicles from one place to another. The current plans for Mercer that reduce its capacity, is a final insult to tax payers from the outgoing city administration. After years of flooding downtown special interests with tax dollars, administrative favors and gifts of city resources there should actually be a moratorium on this kind of spending in the core. It would finally give the city a chance the catch its fiscal breath and start allocating resources to benefit the entire city. This latest phase added to the Mercer project is to ensure an elevation correction between SLU and Seattle Center. These two areas have become a sandbox for some of the wealthiest people in the world. If they want to change it they should get out their own checkbooks and pay for it.
Mercer Street is fine.
Posted Thu, Sep 10, 11:44 a.m. inappropriate
No big mystery in another way too. Allen B. Jacobs, U.C. Berkeley, spelled in all out in 2002, The Boulevard Book--History, Evolution, Design of Multiway Boulevards, and before that, Great Streets, and before that, Looking at Cities. All good reads. Even if you disapprove, best to understand who and what you think is your enemy.
Posted Thu, Sep 10, 1:20 p.m. inappropriate
I don't think you know what Phase II entails--overpasses on Aurora that "provide a vital east/west connection during Alaskan Way Viaduct Replacement". The initial concepts are not pedestrian or bike friendly at all. The bored tunnel plan includes a lowered Aurora with additional overpasses--I'm also underwhelmed at that method of "reconnecting." Go stand at the existing overpass at Dexter and Mercer and see if you feel connected. It's as much of a divide as I-5 between Wallingford and the U-District. Sure, I can walk or bike across overpasses at 45th or 50th but it does not weave the neighborhoods together.
Phase I is different, but I don't think it makes sense to spend that amount of money on what can essentially be done with paint. Of course, the demolition is already underway so it's too late.
Posted Thu, Sep 10, 2:23 p.m. inappropriate
joshuadf
Easy to believe what you say is true. In this city, a slip between the cup and the lip almost always takes place in the working out phase after the pros decide they can dispense with further public comment. Which on the west side of Aurora was "make the whole thing operational (functional) at approximately the same time, not in separate 'full glory' phases, what if the money runs out or never comes through? " Looking ahead and reasoning back, not a strong suit of those who play it too close to the vest.
Posted Thu, Sep 10, 5:20 p.m. inappropriate
From WsDOT website drawings, the intersection of Roy/Aurora looks more like a 'roundabout' than Roy becoming an underpass. As for cutting Aurora beneath Thomas, Harrison and John Streets, this is more to reconnect the grid and influence development than traffic management. The 1st phase directs westbound traffic onto Broad, which makes sense because it directs traffic away from Battery Street tunnel. But, the 2nd Phase leaves westbound traffic on Mercer. The Mercer rebuild does seem more a development scheme, and a sensible traffic management plan is either an after-thought or non-existent. What a mess.
Posted Thu, Sep 10, 5:47 p.m. inappropriate
This editorial makes a number of erroneous claims about the Mercer project. Just a few facts to clarify the record.
To start, Mercer East (from I-5 to Dexter Avenue) is obsolete and in poor condition. Traffic moves sluggishly on it now and flow will only get worse without the project. The most recent traffic modeling shows significant improvements for traffic overall through the work.
There has been no change in the cost of Mercer East (from I-5 to Dexter Avenue), estimated to cost $190.5 million. With $140.5 million in secured funding, to include $31.4 million in private sector contributions, the city already has more than 73 percent of the cost covered. The city is seeking a federal grant to cover the remaining $50 million. Fixing all of Mercer’s problem for $10 million (in 2000 dollars), as the columnist states, is just not believable.
No Bridging the Gap (BTG) levy dollars that would pay for sidewalks or bike lanes are being diverted to Mercer. The City Council has already approved bonding revenue from the BTG package’s parking tax to build Mercer East, a tax that was always intended to help fund large projects. The BTG Levy Oversight Committee, composed of city residents, reviews the use of BTG funds by the city and ensures that those dollars are properly utilized.
As for Mercer West, the proposal to improve it from Dexter to Elliott avenues has long been under discussion and was repeatedly cited during stakeholder talks on replacing the Alaskan Way Viaduct (AWV). It is a critical east/west route for traffic traveling to north Seattle , especially with the north portal of the bored tunnel exiting just south of Mercer.
The bulk of its cost cover expanding Mercer under Aurora Avenue to six lanes (with adjacent pedestrian and bike pathways), which would clearly improve traffic flow. The city will create a funding plan for Mercer West as it assembles its financing for AWV replacement costs. A portion of the money the city has committed to spending as the viaduct is replaced will go towards Mercer West.
Hope these help set the record straight.
Allie from SDOT
Posted Thu, Sep 10, 7:03 p.m. inappropriate
Not even close, allieger. Mercer West still looks plenty questionable, as does Mercer East. Thanks for trying though. It makes sense that an SDOT employee can't explain things and answer questions. John Fox's article states Roy is to become an underpass. You say Mercer is to become a 6-lane underpass. How will either help direct traffic during SR-99 closure? Draw a map showing the street route traffic will be diverted onto.
Personally, I don't care that much about costs, other than the common suspicion that it's a gravy train for contractors and a multi-million dollar bribe to developers. All anyone really needs to know is how traffic will be diverted during construction and if the detour and rebuild will work. Most people are convinced the Mercer rebuild will be a traffic backup worse than it is now. You haven't set any record straight whatsoever.
Posted Thu, Sep 10, 7:52 p.m. inappropriate
Allie, the pavement of Mercer is in poor shape, which is seperate from the config and alignment. Traffic is sluggish getting onto I5 because of the weave to SR 520 and congestion on the freeway itself. It is far, far, easier to sync one-way signals than two-way signals - this is basic transportation class stuff. It is not clear that changing two wide and essentially one way streets to one three lanes each way street plus one backwater road will improve traffic flow, even for peds. Peds will have a greater distance to cross at Mercer St with the widened roadway, and wide sidewalks or no, that distance will increase the feeling of a moat between downtown and SLU, not decrease it. Like Vegas without the ped bridges. And as for the money issue, the S Lander overcrossing project would have allowed rail at grade crossings to be closed, reducing pedestrian and vehicle conflicts, and that project was canceled while Mercer currently lives.
Posted Thu, Sep 10, 10:18 p.m. inappropriate
Mayor Jowly and his henchwoman Crunican are trying to kick is in the ass on their way out the door. It's wierd how many people scream about Seattle's share the viaduct replacement project cost-->$900,000,000--but don't bat an eyelash over this wretched project, which is basically another piece of booty being handed to Paul Allen on a platter in addition to the SLUT, his shiny toy train to nowhere.
Posted Thu, Sep 10, 10:30 p.m. inappropriate
"The bulk of its cost cover expanding Mercer under Aurora Avenue to six lanes (with adjacent pedestrian and bike pathways), which would clearly improve traffic flow."
East-bound traffic on Mercer is currently FOUR lanes under Aurora. Reducing this to only THREE lanes under Aurora would "clearly improve traffic flow" from Queen Anne to I-5? LOL The idiot who wrote this must work for SDOT.
Currently, all FOUR east-bound lanes of Mercer are frequently backed up under Aurora to 5th Ave N. or further west. Please explain how reducing the current FOUR eastbound lanes to only THREE under Aurora would "improve" traffic flow.
Posted Fri, Sep 11, 6:36 p.m. inappropriate
John Fox here responding to some of the preceding comments especially to those made by “Allie from SDOT”. In no particular order:
Allie refers to $31 million in private "contributions" for Phase I now Mercer East – the $190 million portion. These so called “contributions” include monies from the $20 million dollar sale of city land along Mercer to Vulcan back in 2001. By city ordinance, the city decided to plow a large amount of these proceeds back into the Mercer Project instead of placing them in the cities general fund where land sale proceeds normally go. I’d hardly call this a private contribution.
What the city calls private contributions also includes mitigation dollars reprogrammed from individual developments to Mercer. Normally developers contribute some money for streets, sidewalks, alleys, signaling etc directly related to their projects as required under SEPA and city ordinance. In South Lake Union (and I still question the legality of this) the city exempted developers (namely Vulcan) from these project-by-project mitigation fees and instead required them to contribute a set amount into an area-wide fund – the proceeds of which went primarily for Mercer. In effect, the public (out of the general fund) is being forced to cover site related improvements while these developer’s fees instead are diverted to Mercer. The Mayor’s plan relieving individual developers (primarily Vulcan) of site by site transportation mitigation can be accessed here:
http://www.seattle.gov/mayor/newsdetail.asp?ID=5578&dept;=40
Allie also makes claims that she does not support with facts or studies. There are none supporting her claim that the Mayor’s plan will reduce congestion. By contrast there are at least three studies saying just the opposite.
She questions whether the transportation recommendations from the Schell supported neighborhood plan from 1998 (carried over through 2001 and still reflected in the 2002 CIP Plan) could be done at such a low cost. Readers can view the Cascade neighborhood’s 1998 Neighborhood Plan recommendations at the following link. http://www.cityofseattle.net/neighborhoods/npi/plans/slu/Section7.pdf
Here you’ll see the “small and simple” traffic improvements preferred by the neighborhood that included straightening the Mercer Weave. I did fail to note that those early recommendations also included creating an underpass under Aurora at Roy that would connect with Valley Street which would indeed have added to the cost. You can find city estimates for these fixes in the 2001-2006 CIP Plan - still far less than the Mayor’s 2-way $190 million Phase 1 plan.
The 2001-2006 CIP Plan identifies a $6.24 million pricetag for reconfiguring and straightening the Mercer weave - see page 65 of SeaTrans Section of that plan with a link here: http://www.seattle.gov/financedepartment/0106adopted/seatran.pdf
It also cites the rest of the improvements from the neighborhood plan (see page 64), including reconnecting Roy under Aurora which would add another $24 million for a total of about $30 million. That’s a little over one-tenth the current cost of Mercer East Phase I.
Now take a look at the December 2008 Environmental Assessment (EA) - Alternative A. This is the original set of improvements from the neighborhood plan including smoothing out the weave and reconnecting Roy under Aurora. To quote from that 2008 EA (see page 36 of 44 Chapter 2-3), that subsection begins with the following “Alternative A would improve traffic times through the corridor”.
http://www.seattle.gov/transportation/docs/mercer/1_MercerEA_SigPg_Ch1_Ch2.pdf
By contrast, that EA makes clear that the Mayor’s 2-Way Plan would dramatically increase travel times especially in the Eastbound direction along Mercer. That is exacerbated by the fact, SDOT wants parking along the Southside of Mercer with traffic bulbs at each intersection. This effectively brings down the number of lanes in the eastbound direction from four to three and that can only create more congestion. Consider also that by narrowing Valley and turning it into a residential street, much of that traffic heading south along the lake from Eastlake now merges with traffic coming off I-5 onto Mercer (going west). There are two other analysis including the Parson’s Brinkerhoff analysis from 2004 with links above doing screenlines showing increased congestion at many intersections throughout the area.
Allie also says that “there has been no change” in Mercer Phase I’s $190 million pricetag. Parson’s Brinkerhoff completed in 2004 a study of possible transportation improvements to South Lake Union. Costs were broken out for turning Mercer into a 2-way street (Fairview to Dexter) and narrowing Valley (Fairview to Roy) i.e., now called phase I East improvements. At that time, costs came in at between $63 million without pedestrian improvements and up to $92 million with them added - see page 160 Table 8-5 of that report:
http://www.seattle.gov/transportation/slureport/FinalSLUTransportationStudyJuly04a.pdf
Compared to today, That’s a 100% increase in costs since 2004 for Phase I.
Also, Allie fails to note that use of both the parking tax and head tax portion of Bridging the Gap (BTG) by ordinance were not supposed to go exclusively to pay for big ticket projects including Mercer. The legislation makes clear that these dollars were also to be used to meet needs in our neighborhoods. And when these taxes were approved and the levy portion of BTG were sold to voters back in 2005, we were told that "only" 30 mil from these sources would go to Mercer. Now we are looking at easily over 100 million more of BTG funds if both phases go forward...perhaps as much as 150 million - the gap for both phases...because there are precious few other sources around to go to fill this shortfall.
Allie also reveals a bit of SDOT’s strategy to cover some of Phase II costs, they’re going to try and hide funding for Mercer in the bored tunnel viadcut replacement project.. The city’s portion of the bored tunnel project costs are about 900,000,000 give or take so why not just insert mercer into that and cover Mercer's shortfall from that obligation? Whether they can pull that off or not, it’s still city funds that we desperately need and could otherwise use out there in our neighborhoods for a growing backlog of ailing bridges, streets. and sidewalks - real city needs.
Posted Sun, Sep 13, 8:13 a.m. inappropriate
Good work, John Fox. I wrote earlier in Crosscut that the announcement of so-called Phase II---delayed until after the mayoral primary---should have been noted at the time by The Seattle Times and other local media. But
Crosscut was the only place to give it coverage and examination.
The whole Mercer Project should be reexamined by the new mayor and City Council. Good luck to Vulcan in its commercial efforts around South Lake Union. May they be successful and profitable. But there is a limit to which taxpayers should be asked to subsidize those development efforts.
Normally, as you point out, John, developers pay "mitigation fees" to
cover a major part of such costs. Now the mayor also is asking for fresh public monies to further subsidize the unneeded Allentown Trolley, a cute
tourist attraction built for Vulcan but which meets no local transporation need. Former WSDOT chief has characterized Sound Transit light rail as "not a transportation project but a construction project." The public investments in the Mercer Project could be characterized as "not relating to transportation but to the desires of a commercial developer." Mayor Nickels probably does not realize that cynical big-ticket projects such as this are precisely the reason he was decisively rejected in the mayoral primary.
Posted Sun, Sep 13, 8:15 a.m. inappropriate
P.S. I accidently deleted the name of Doug MacDonald as "former WSDOT chief." Sorry for the typo.