Once envied, America's aging infrastructure is in alarming shape

And that is why Retrofitting the AWV makes such good sense. This is what we would get:

A budget of $1.4 billion creating surplus funds ($1 Billion) that could be diverted to the 520 replacement and eliminating the need for tolls.

A 3 year construction project that would create minimal disruption in current traffic volumes and speeds (110,000/day).

NO disruption to our local economy including businesses along the 99 corridor.

Eliminaton of the current risk and life/safety concerns for the forseeable future.

Relocating under-viaduct parking (3000 spaces)to adjacent new structured parking garages, with joint venture opportunities to build residential or offices above.

Creating a covered pedestrian promanade from the Pike Place market to the Staduims with upgraded lighting, paving and opportunities for vendors, artwork and special events.

The use of "quiet paving" on roadways to greatly reduce objectionable noise, coupled with sound absorbing and deflecting baffles on the underside of the upper deck.

Preserving the unique and only world-class panoramic view left in Seattle.

Solving the seawall repair problems.

And, overall improvement of the Central Waterfront by reestablishing and expanding the Waterfront Trolley and extending it to the Pier 90-91 area and then up to Fisherman's Terminal. Also, extending it East through Pioneers Square, International District and on.

That's a modern,cost-effective, Seattle-Type solution to an otherwise black hole of costs, delays, disruption and ultimately an unsafe Tunnel making the possibility of catastrophic loss of life very possible and greater than any hypological losses on the Viaduct.

It is safer to be on the Viaduct during an earthquake than 200 feet below the surface without one stairway to the surface or shoulders wide enough to allow emergency vehicles into a congested 2 mile long dark hole.

Wake up Seattle!

"It needs to be multi-purpose as well as designed to have a lighter impact on the landscape while providing environmental mitigation."

Environmental mitigation. Ah, there's the rub. One of the major reason's our nation's infrastructure is crumbling (the other being political plundering of infrastructure funding) is its hostaging to environmental extremists who fail to recognize and allow a reasonable impact of humans living on earth. The Columbia River Bridge replacement is a prime example. I read (and I can't cite exactly where right now) that the cost has been - roughly - doubled because of environmental "concerns". These concerns include whether or not fish passing through will be inconvenienced or bothered by the construction activity.

We need to wrest back control from the environmental extremists who do not compromise, who double (at least) the cost of infrastructure and who - frankly - would, ulitimately, rather see human society decay.

arties is absolutely right about upgrading the viaduct. No other proposal matches the existing viaduct in ANY transportation related category. The rights of ways already exist. The configuration already can handle 110,000 vehicles a day. It already provides a bypass for downtown and off ramps for the core, Ballard and West Seattle. It already meets the demands for commercial vehicles. It absolutely can incorporate modern seismic protections and other enhancements for noise abatement, bikes, pedestrians and aesthetics. It acknowledges the fact that rubber-tired, multi-passenger vehicles are still the choice of over 90% of us. And we can afford it.

The current proposals for both the Alaskan Way Viaduct and the 520 Bridge are only vaguely based on real transportation criteria and are primarily designed to benefit small groups of special interests at the expense of the rest of Seattle. Both solutions result in reduced capacities and maximum expense. To spend extra billions on the west termination of the 520 bridge so that an affluent neighborhood won't be annoyed, and to knock down the AWV to provide amenities for downtown developers is not "vision" and it's certainly not good civic leadership.

The time and tax money wasted on spin cycles and PR fabrications to advance these two projects are an insult to voters. Retrofit and enhance the existing viaduct.

Thanks jmrolls!
I forgot to mention that there is no rocket science in Retrofitting since the technology already exists and is being actively used by WSDOT on other structures in need of Retrofitting.

And, construction can begin almost immediately so we wouldn't have to be threatened by another earthquake impact past the decade we have been on the Viaduct since the Quake.

WSDOT is gambling with our life and safety as well as our pocketbook.

Enough!

The idea that a viaduct retrofit could start quickly (say, before the tunnel) is flatly incorrect. The idea that it could get built quickly depends on how much work you plan do do...anything major would take a while. The idea that retrofitting would make the structure last a long time is suggested by some but generally not supported, even if you "Cadillac Hotel" it with a new permanent exoskeleton.

But the real question is why we'd want to desecrate our city for another 25 years or however long it would last.

PS, in any cost comparison, I hope you include the cost of knitting SLU and LQA back together.

And Artie, while you're complaining about the new tunnel, what about the Battery St. tunnel, which lacks the new tunnel's safety features and would be basically impossible to retrofit to meet code, for example the literal impossibility of adding breakdown lanes?

What is mhays talking about when he says that a retrofit for the Viaduct would "desecrate our city for another 25 year"? Is that an aesthetic judgment? Well, then, here's another: When one looks at the waterfront from out on the water, the sight of cars zooming by the upper stories of buildings can be quite beautiful. (Think Fritz Lang's "Metropolis.") I wonder if the downtown condo owners whose views are 'marred' by the Viaduct ever stop to consider what it would be like if more condo towers were built right in front of them? If the waterfront is ever "opened up" by tearing down the Viaduct, such shoreline sprawl would become a real possibility.

mhays,

I am ready to be proven wrong about Retrofitting the Viaduct. But until WSDOT spends the equivolent amount of money it has on the other alternatives being considered, and studing various schemes that Retrofit the Viaduct, none of use can say, for sure, it can be done with the benefits I listed above.
We've asked for such a study several times since the earthquake (almost a decade ago), to no avail. WSDOT has it's own agenda as does the City of Seattle. And both political entities have NOT been truthful with the citizens as to the benefits and positive aspects of the Retrofit option. Until they take the Retrofit analysis on as an equal task, it's just the blind leading the blind. WSDOT will say they did consider the Retrofit and even said it could be accomplished within the allowed funding. But they used the most expensive way to do it, which was unnecessary and misleading.

Vic Gray, renowned Structural Engineer, has led the Viaduct Preservation Group on this effort to get it studied prior to making a selection of the preferred alternative. His words have also fallen on deaf ears.

This project has been hijacked, kidnapped and has perpetrated lies on the public, worthy of being corrupt and unlawful.

It's not about opening up the waterfront as the mantra suggests. it's about protecting the publics health, safety and welfare withas part of atransportation project. So far, those goals have not been addressed.

Study the history of the Viaduct and you will see how important, efficiient, and what a creative solution it was and still is.

Honestly, the Viaduct is essential, more than ever before,and will be the key to the continued success of our local economy. If it is torn down and replaced by a Tunnel, all bets are off! And, WSDOT has ignore the hit on our economy as a major factor in the cost of the Tunnel project and the years of disruption that we will experience. Business disruptions, layoffs, increased unemployment and loss of revenue will outway the number of temporary jobs that it will create.

Better to spend Seattles beautification funds (less than the $900 million expected)on the creation of the Elliott Bay Harborfront, stretching from and connecting Alki, downtown and Magnolia for a REAL world class harborfront.

Wake up Seattle!

Cocktails, why are you talking about new condos? There won't be any. The 99 ROW will be used for the rebuilt Alaskan Way and public open space. There will be small operations buildings at each tunnel portal. There will be a few developement sites where land is being used to stage construction at each end, which would presumably include the Wasca site and other parcels near the stadiums, some sites around 6th & Harrison, and other minor examples. A current parking lot at Pike & Alaskan will presumably be used for construction and surplused afterward, but that's zoned lowrise.

Art, the lack of study is one reason why a retrofit would take so long. I suspect the existing EIS might need to be redone, unless the existing EIS's retrofit (or no action?) option was similar enough to the new proposal. In advance of that they'd need to do early testing and feasibility design. Submission of the EIS would be followed by a great deal of additional design and testing, which would begin around where the tunnel was 14 months ago.

Then there would be funding. Maybe it would be possible for keep funding off the critical path, or maybe not. Changing directions would require Seattle to lobby for it, and reach consensus around a plan many don't like. You'd have to make the case that the retrofit would last a lot longer than the early projections suggested, or at least that it could be built cheaply enough to overcome the short life cycle, and that it could be built with minimal disruption, which is far from clear.

As for construction disruption: A lack of disruption is a good plus for the tunnel.

While the Tunnel was touted as having no disruptive impacts, the demolition of the King to Holgate section will cause disruption, possibly as long as two years until a temporary bypass (another viaduct)is constructed. Forked tongue!!!

Then there's the disruption caused by the two Portal locations, especially the North Portal. It will require all traffic (north and south)to learn new routes and trampling lower Queen Anne with untold volumes of trucks and cars to/from Ballard etc. How will they schedule events at Seattle Center due to traffic congestion.

Here's a little known factoid: When teh Feds were planning I-5 through the city (and Downtown, they reduced the number of lanes on I-5 through Downtown and relied on the carrying capacity of the Viaduct to balance the capacity. The on and off ramps of the Viaduct were added to increase access to dfowntown. By reducing he traffic volumes in the 99 corridor which is being planned, I-5 will be a parking lot for most of every working day. That will be disruption in a very big way. WSDOT says that's just the way the chips fall!

As for the structural design of a Retrofit, I leave it up to the professionals, not the burecrats. After all, guess who designed and allowed the "interesting" on/off ramps at interchanges where one has to navigate between vehicles getting on and off the freeway at the same time. I reat my case!
promanent Structural Engineers in our State have gathered together to come up with a cost/effective Retrofit design solution that works for a long time. One does not Retrofit 1/2 way. We have codes to discourage that kind of thinking. One retrofits for the long haul, not for the short. There are no appreciable savings in that kind of thinking. Life/Safety is the driver and one does not do that on the cheap or to last a short period.

We need a thorough study of the retrofit which will not delay any planning. The original Retrofit design in the EIS, was an extreme solution, so anything less would fall within the parameters of that document. If it proves to be as good as we think, any slowdown would be easily compensated for by a quicker start time and shorter construction period. We should not overlook solutions that meet ALL the State's criteria for fixing the Hwy 99 Viaduct.

Get Real Seattle!

King to Holgate is a replacement in the same ROW. The central tunnel isn't. That's why there's not much disruption.

A rebuilt Alaskan Way will handle some of that Ballard traffic, slating uphill to the existing Elliott/Western couplet that carries that traffic today. Those going through the tunnel and turning left will probably be headed to Queen Anne mostly, or that's my guess. Speaking as a former resident of Mercer in LQA, it strikes me that there's easy capacity for this...particularly since the cars headed for QA already come through the same area from a different direction.

The 99 corridor keeps the same through capacity...the new tunnel is the same number of lanes as the current tunnel, except it'll have breakdown lanes. The capacity difference is those who would exit Downtown will do so a bit sooner.

PS, I find it amusing that while a lot of people take potshots at the tunnel, most people do so from fortresses of their own. Just on Crosscut we have retrofit people, surface people, and at least one die-hard cut-n-cover person, most of whom seem dead set against every other option.

I'm sure my happiness with the current plan is tainting this opinion...but I applaud DOT/political leaders for doing a BS test, then narrowing the choices for more study, then picking a solution.

Your just drinking more of their lemonade! Obviously your mind is made up. But you were lead by them and their political moves.

Retrofit supporters at least came to our solution based on our collective experiences and objectives set by the legislature and WSDOT. Just as a reminder, they are:

Repair or Replace the AWV as soon as possible (earliest start & soonist finish)

Maintain the same traffic volumes and speeds as are currently being experienced (110k)

Cause the least amount of disruption in the corridor and in general.

Stay within the funds available ($2.4 Billion)

Now a dose of reality.

The next session of the legislature (2011) will include the possible funding decisions necessary to build the Tunnel. It is unlikely that the legislature will let Seattle off the hook for cost overruns. It is unlikely the City will get the legislature to drop that provision. It will have been a decade since the quake hit and the publics health,safety and welfare is stll at risk and a growing liability if something should happen causing deaths before there is a replacement or tunnel.
The State will be forced to Retrofit the Viaduct to eliminate that risk. At that point, we will want to have all the minds and designers at the table to come up with the most creative solution for the Retrofit. It will be under construction within a year of that design solution adoption.

Finis!

Art, I was years ahead of anyone's politics on this, pining for the deep bore even when the cost looked outlandish a few years ago. When it became clear that it's affordable, and as that's been confirmed to-date, I've been extremely glad to see it move forward. I love the tunnel because the end product is by far the best, the construction process will involve the least inconvenience, it preserves through-capacity while not encouraging more driving, and holistically it's probably the cheapest alternative.

Since we're guessing about each others' motives, I'll guess that yours is to preserve the viaduct as a museum piece, and justify it by whatever means necessary.

The State has already retrofitted the viaduct for short-term stability, meaning it's not terribly urgent to tear it down.

Since you're interested in safety, surely you want the south section removed immediately. Right? The current plan has it coming down well before any retrofit of that part could even start. But back to the north 2/3...

Let me get your timing straight...you say the tunnel will have problems in 2011, then the retrofit will come back, then it'll be studied and designed enough to pick a solution, then construction will start within a year? Even if that's true (I suspect any sizeable retrofit would take much longer, to procure a team, analyze subgrade conditions, design, deal with utilities in the way, etc.), you're starting in 2013 instead of 2011.

I suspect it would take at least a few years to build. A "semi-permanent" type of retrofit would presumably involve basically a new system of footings and soil stabilization (in a part of town where excavation can be a painstaking process), a large amount of new structure (more like a new exoskeleton, less like simply wrapping columns and tacking braces in place), new roadway decks topped by new pavement, possibly new taller railings, etc. It's the sort of project that would probably be done in sections rather than all at once....due to volume of work, and to keep the road open most of the time. I suspect that some of these elements, such as roadway deck upgrades, would require partial closures over a long period.

The sequence wouldn't be quick. The footings would be first, then the skeleton, then the deck, then the paving -- because each physically depends on the previous. This is unlike a building retrofit where you can refurbish the masonry, paint walls, and upgrade the MEP systems simultaneously with the seismic upgrades. To speed things up, you'd probably do it in segments with each segment staggered so that each scope could work in a segment or two, then move to another when finished. Still it would take a long time.

And when that's all done, you still have a viaduct and existing tunnel that don't meet current standards, particularly since they lack shoulders, and the short curve radii and short sightlines require traffic to slow down. And that problem with a giant piece of crap on the waterfront (plus exoskeleton).

On funding, it seems likely that the State and City will reach a midpoint over who pays for overruns. This will probably be aided by the initial south section bidding substantially under budget.

The exact criticisms of the Viaduct having narrow lanes and no shoulders is being replicated in the Tunnel. Check the cross-section of the Tunnel. The Tunnel design calls for a 2' and a 6' shoulder, hardly enough room for a car or truck to pull out of traffic. And, unless our emergency vehicles are modelled after the SmartCar, there is no way they could get to an emergency or assist in a catastrophic shutdown. At least with the Viaduct, it can be accessed from either side and has more lanes. So, I don't see any advantage that the Tunnel has over the Viaduct. Yes, the Battery Stret tunnel is hard to fix. But we know that and still get 110,000 vehicles through it. It needs sprinkler fire-suppression improvements and more stair access to the surface. Where are the stairs for the Tunnel?

As for construction phasing, that is not necessary. WSDOT could easily contract with multiple contractors, each to Retrofit a separate section simultaneously, thus a very short construction period estimated at 3 years.

The Exoskeleton example of a Retrofit is WSDOT's cadillac Retrofit solution. It is excessive and unnecessary. By way of example, WSDOT is Retrofitting the Spokane St Viaduct with similar techniques to what we are calling for. And, that Retrofit is in even worse soil conditions than along the waterfront.

Our design includes:

efficient soil stabilization, below surface comcrete Grade Beams, concrete encasement of piling, wraped columns,minimal noticeable added structural elements, new deck paving and not raising railings. If the design is perfected through an adequate study, it may be posible to not change the Viaducts appearance except for beautification. Any construction disturbances can be scheduled to non-peak times and periods as usual for WSDOT projects.

As for removing the Southern section first, that's just a ploy to begin the demolition of the whole Viaduct so we can't change schemes. It is not the most dangerous portion. In fact, there are NO dangerous sections. If there were, we wouldn't be allowed to drive on it after a decade of the Quake. Just WSDOT Hyperbole! The only weakened section, as you have stated, was fixed. WSDOT's inspections prove that.

What started this paranoia anyway.
The 1989 Quake in S.F. had our WSDOT engineers recommending Retrofitting of the Viaduct for a cost of $300 million. No retrofit was undertaken. Hummm?
When the 2001 Quake hit Seattle, WSDOT got the necessary funds authorized to repair or replace the Viaduct with their "Sky is Falling" hyperbole. If things were to follow the normal emergency conditions of that time, Gary Locke would have had it retrofitted, and little to no damage would have been experienced in 2001.
Enter Seattle, who, like many other opportunities, saw this as a way to get rid of the Viaduct for their own local purposes at someone elses expense. Gary Locke opened the door to include Seattle's criteria, and thus a Transportation repair project became an Urban Design project, thus the slowdown, conflicts , nit-picking and unlimited delays putting the public at risk. Nowhere in the State's 2001 legislation did it speak to this expanded criteria. And last session, the new Bill that called for Seattle paying for the cost-overruns, finally had the legislature saying if Seattle wants an Urban design solution, they should pay for anything over what the state has already committed to.
This expanded criteria has come full circle and is no longer considered a free-bee for Seattle.

So here we are, at odds with each other. Our Group never bought into this ever-expanding program and creating untold disruption, budget and unsafe conditions. Everyone who supports the Tunnel has! We still se it as a transportation issue.

Only time will tell.

I've enjoyed this discussion, but have to end it now and get back to important things that directly effect my life. It is time for the next generation to live with the decisions and results. Yes, if the Retrofit is to have a life, we will know in the next year. If it doesn't, then we have at least expanded the honest discussion at this critical time in Seattle's history.

One last thing. As for my motives, I am not primarily focused on preserving the Viaduct even though it has and is still playing a gigantic role in Seattle's economic evolution. I am motivated by honest decision-making that creates the best solution for the least amount of money, and serving the greatest number of people over the longest period of time. We come up with the RETROFIT, you, the TUNEL. Time will tell.

Signing off!

Mhays, I am sorry but the vision you have of the tunnel project, which is part of a total project, is just way off, and it is I'm afraid because of the misrepresentations and lack of representations by WSDOT that has created such a misconception.

You're not alone, many people think it's a nice little tunnel, things will be lovely before, during, afterwards, because of those wonderful professional people at WSDOT having a handle on things.

Unfortunately this thing was conceived in lies, and it survives in lies. A group of tunnel people with the help of Bruce Agnew, aided by the Chamber and DSA people cooked up a study that purported to show that tunnels were oh so much cheaper than anyone ever thought before, and that there was this great technological advance that made it so. Then they produced a chart showing the AWV tunnel being sooooo expensive in comparison to the rest of the bored tunnels in the world.

After that this group got together, cooked up a letter that summarized all that, pulled together a few people from the stakeholders group and said that they represented all of the stakeholders, that the consensus of the year's worth of study, was to build a bored tunnel. This was despite the fact that the SAC had issued findings on December 4th and on December 11th (with the governor in attendance) that the two recommendations were the hybrid elevated and hybrid surface options.

The problem with what these bored tunnel promoters were doing is that they were crafting a solution based on wrong information - intentionally wrong information - and they didn't care. All stood to gain - money or prestige. With a tunnel the big money was guaranteed.

The tunnels cited and the costs for them were not accurate, by dollar amount, by currency, by period in time; no effort was made to make them comparable - for example tunnels in China constructed five years prior, 1.5 miles long, where labor was $5 an hour were compared with tunnels in the present, .5 miles long, where labor is over $24 dollars, to tunnels even 10 years ago, etc. Arup which prepared this report said it couldn't make accurate comparisons, but trust its chart anyway.

All the time the stakeholders were wrapping up their work, leading to the two solutions, rogue WSDOT employees were in a parallel universe, at the direction of someone higher up - churning out the case for the bored tunnel. Their work was never part of the SAC effort. Emails show that before and after the governor, mayor, and KC exec are at their Dec 11th meeting acknowledging the two hybrid solutions - the Deputy Secretary of WSDOT, David Dye, Project Manager John White, Bruce Agnew, tunnel industry consultants and contractors, John Reilly, Harvey Parker, reps from Sauer, Arup, Robbins Co. (TBM suppliers), were all meeting and communicating to put together the package that Dye ultimately took to the Governor to sell the bored tunnel.

Your version of H2K is also very misinformed, it is a massive interchange at least three or so times as wide as what is at the south end now. In addition, your "little portal vent building thing", those are massive 72' tall structures, that spew out noise and particulates; they are intrusive, along with the north portal is also to be a huge interchange that will be pretty close to three times as wide as what is along the Battery St. Tunnel area now.

In addition, you are a victim of the disinformation about traffic - I laugh a little at what you think, b/c it means WSDOT has accomplished what they wanted - you to be uninformed, not very critical in your thinking. Someone said this and it is true, we're to pay $4.2 Billion to reduce capacity just about in half. WSDOT is fudging the numbers - picking particular years to base its usage estimates and tolling scheme to their advantage, understanding actually the usage, because at 75,000 cars per day in the tunnel - it is actually maxed out - and that means there is no room for WSDOT PR people to claim it will "meet" 2030 projections; so "the models" can be "interpretated" that traffic will move, I-5 "will absorb capacity", Alaskan Way and Downtown streets "won't be overwhelmed" with the traffic that is being diverted by not the project, but when all is said and done, everything will be just fine - trust the good people from WSDOT.

There is so much more wrong with this - esp. safety - but unless people will do the critical and time-consuming work that is required to find out the real story, they will pump out narratives that are pretty much all the bored tunnel PR as opposed to the truth of the matter.

Sign off if you want, but I have to respond to some of that...

You seem to phase construction 2013 to 2016. That would finish later than the tunnel.

Using multiple contractors for the viaduct retrofit sounds like a disaster, speaking as a contractor (new/renovated buildings, not viaducts). Better to use one general contractor, or perhaps one design-builder (often quicker and cheaper), and they'd package the work to separate scopes and perhaps geographic zones into dozens of subcontracts. Either way, I suspect the construction process and keeping the thing open, not horsepower, would be the limiting factor.

Elizabeth, everything you just said about traffic, size of interchange, pollution, etc. is basically semantics.

The interchange at Harrison will be a big improvement, speaking as a pedestrian who walks through frequently. The current Aurora ROW will be just another surface street from Denny to Harrison -- finally crossable for both cars and pedestrians. I like the prospect of another N-S street at 6th too. These knit neighborhoods together and take pressure off the main streets like Denny and 5th.

Regarding the portal buildings, the point was that they won't block views. 75' is appropriate for those neighborhoods. As for pollution...it's the same pollution regardless of where it's located.

Skolnick and Campbell have high jacked the thread to discuss the AWV replacement.

The key point of the piece is infrastructure maintenance. At all three levels of government, it is due to tax aversion. Consider these examples. The federal highway trust fund in on vapors. The federal gas tax has not been increased in many years. What is needed: a $2/gallon gas tax increase. It would still not match Europe or Japan, but would have several good price effects (e.g., global warming gases, sprawl, car size, exercise) and the revenue could be used to repair US infrastructure. Some could be passed to the locals to add sidewalks and improve transit. The state has increased its gas tax twice in the last decade, but has devoted almost all of its revenue to new highways and almost none to maintenance. I-5 in Seattle will require about $2 billion. In King County, the elected cannot seem to raise taxes and will allow the South Park Bridge to close. In Seattle, Bridging the Gap, a 2006 levy, is correcting a part of the pavement management gap, but a new Magnolia Bridge, more pavement management, and sidewalks on arterials that lack them are still not funded. In transit, Seattle has failed the maintenance test twice. In the 30s, due to the Great Depression and a lack of service subsidy, the streetcar system was allowed to fall apart and was removed. In the 60s, the electric trolleybus system, built in 1940, was allowed to decline due to falling farebox revenue, I-5, and the annexation of north Seattle.

Back to the AWV. Skolnick advocates retention of an ugly, noisy, brutalist highway that divides Seattle from its waterfront. The elevated highway is destructive to Seattle’s urban form and life. Get rid of it as soon as possible. The Campbell analysis of the deep bore capacity is flawed. In fact, the deep bore will provide more through capacity. The Battery Street Tunnel has four narrow lanes without shoulders; the deep bore will provide four wide lanes with shoulders. It will attract more bypass trips, counter to our land use and transport objectives. The deep bore will come with a wide arterial connecting the waterfront with SR-99 to the south. Under either the deep bore or surface options, the waterfront will be restored. With the deep bore, Seattle will have a big ass highway underfoot and two large freeway interchanges at either end of its downtown. The beauty of the surface, I-5, and transit options was that WSDOT funds would have paid for some of the arterials. Under the deep bore, Seattle will have to cover those costs themselves. There are big bills due.

I find it interesting that in my grandfathers day (depression and war years)They could do all these public works projects, and almost anything they could dream with little money.
In this day in comparison we have all the money in the world and can't do squat.

eddiew, on the plus side, the typical deep bore estimate (4.2?) typically includes the seawall, Alaskan, and various new/upgraded streets in SoDo and SLU. Sort of like Mercer, it's referred to as one road but it's really a series of them. The surface option would add more concrete, with the goal of turning Downtown streets into highways, which I don't consider maintenance. As for those interchanges, the tunnel gets rid of several that get in the way of pedestrians, including a couple on First (First & Spring with its car-first light cycle is my nemisis near work!), and one on Western, while taking some pressure off Denny by moving the busiest interchange a few blocks north, with easy access east and west.

You're spot on about lack of funding over generations. It's many administrations at all levels of government trying to look good in each budget cycle, and the future doesn't get mentioned.

The public is the real culprit of course. We not only allow politicians to do this, but demand it via our voting patterns. Sort of like we demand offshoring and kill local businesses by flocking to the cheapest megastores.

Seattle does better than many places. At least we've been fixing our school buildings, libraries, fire stations, and other civic buildings in recent years. It's stunning how much progress has been made on those since the 1990s. Tacoma has been making similar progress on school buildings.

Oops, First & Seneca.

mhays, really, you're full of baloney. Talk about "semantic" - sure thing that the AWV is a series of roadways. Man, WSDOT and company sold you a bill of goods. SR99 is a roadway, not a series of roadways. It's called segmentation, and it's about avoiding a full environmental review of cumulative effects of the complete project. It's something that is illegal. WSDOT had to strip this project down into tens of projects to pull their coup off. And when you do the PDR's, when you read the hundreds of pages of WSDOT emails, studies, reports, memos, etc. please come back and tell us again with a straight face that the tunnel is supplying more capacity. It isn't, WSDOT hopes 75,000 cars don't pass through it. This is tunnel cheap, safety last, and maybe in comparison to the Space Needle the portal buildings are small, but again, the public side of all the info is drastically slanted to make everything that is wrong with this project seem small, or preferably, non-existant.

The lawsuit won't go far. It's the NORM to do road projects in segments.

Shame on the self-serving whack jobs who are wasting taxpayer dollars on this, including their leader.

I shouldn't have said whack job. But it's appalling that someone is misusing the law this way. And without much clue about law, transportation, or environmental ethics.

I kind of like the viaduct, in a way. When I visit Seattle, I get off the ferry, look at the viaduct, and say to myself, "Thank god I don't live here any more." Then I look around at the waterfront, blighted by the viaduct, and think, "nothing to see here- might as well get on to business".

But surely it is inane to regard the viaduct as some form of admirable art, like Lang's Metropolis. Somebody didn't notice that Metropolis is a dystopia.

In any case, any real environmental review would show that the cars that use the viaduct are the biggest threat to the environment, and minimizing them could only be regarded as a benefit.

And what a pretty picture the viaduct supporters present- they're like a Seattle version of Montana's militia. The tunnel scheme (or so they say) is a secret conspiracy, an effort to hoodwink the public, in order to....do what? Who is the secret beneficiary of the tunnel scheme? A shadowy Mr. Big and his tunnel-boring machines? The same concrete-pouring aristocracy that would be employed rebuilding the viaduct? We're assured there is a plot, and that there is a crime, but what is the motive?

At the bottom line, the viaduct supporters epitomize the infrastructure crisis. They're determined to maintain the mistakes of the 20th century and carry on as though the age of the automobile will last forever. And that's something America just can't afford to do.