Slaying concrete dragons
In the battle over the downtown tunnel, there are echoes of Seattle's defining highway battle of the '60s, the fight over the R.H. Thomson Expressway.
Allynfolksjr/Wikimedia Commons
"Seattle will become a smog-covered traffic jam. The destructive cycle of freeways already has turned 70 percent of Los Angeles into space devoted to automobiles. We need a comprehensive plan for rapid transit before considering another freeway."
— Maynard Arsove, president of Citizens Against R. H. Thomson (CARHT), 1968.
Eco-activists vs. highway engineers, lawsuits, multiple votes, endless studies and options, a sea-change City Council election, a pro-highway mayor replaced by a more skeptical one, tunnels vs. elevated options, arguments for rapid transit over freeways: The fight over the proposed R.H. Thomson Expressway in the 1960s and '70s had many of the familiar elements of a Seattle knock-down, drag-out fight for the future.
It's not exactly parallel to the downtown-tunnel controversy of today. The post-Alaskan Way Viaduct deep-bore tunnel is planned to replace a decrepit elevated highway with an expensive underground bypass, while the R.H Thomson was a surface expressway that would have been one link in a new series of highways, viaducts, and bridges sweeping through and surrounding Seattle with new ribbons of concrete touching on many neighborhoods.
But what began as NIMBY opposition in Montlake grew, over time, to a citywide grassroots movement fueled by new urban and environmental sensibilities. The movement pointed to a better way to build modern cities, one based more on mass transit than the automobile. And it also became a rallying point for those looking for a socially just city.
The operating principle of opponents such as the grassroots Citizens Against R. H. Thomson was that a highway that didn't work for one neighborhood didn't work for any. Transportation solutions had to work for all.
The R.H. Thomson, like so many projects, started somewhat small, as an extension of Empire Way, now Martin Luther King Jr. Way, which comes to an abrupt end at Madison Street just south of the Arboretum. Extending it as a north-south boulevard along the edge of the Arboretum was one idea.
Voters passed a bond issue in 1960 that would raise significant funds for improvements to arterials, including Empire Way, and this eventually inflated to a full-fledged highway that would run north, then duck under Union Bay in a tunnel, and eventually hook up other new and expanded roadways (like the proposed Bay Freeway and viaduct through South Lake Union), essentially encircling the city. At the time, this was city-building 101.
A massive interchange was planned for the Arboretum, which had already had to give up acreage for the planned new SR-520 toll bridge. Arguments developed over the Expressway's route: Would it go through the Arboretum itself, or through the eastern edge of the Montlake neighborhood, taking out middle-class housing? Why not move it east through the Broadmoor Golf Club, asked architect/activist Victor Steinbrueck, who neatly put his finger on one of R.H. Thomson's troubles.
Such urban expressways rarely inconvenienced or displaced the rich and privileged. Indeed, as plans advanced, an interchange was planned for Thomson's link-up with I-90, which would have ripped a large hole in the fabric of the Central District just at a time when Seattle's black community was pushing back in a white-dominated, segregated Seattle.
The fight against R.H. Thomson had many chapters: NIMBY lawsuits that delayed the project; a City Council election that swept skeptics into office (Tim Hill, Sam Smith, Phyllis Lamphere); a new mass transit-booster mayor (Dorm Braman) who was more willing to scale the project down (from an expressway to a parkway); disagreements between the city and state over design and process; the rise of grassroots opposition citywide as neighborhoods became aware of the major impact the roadways would have on their quality of life. Their new name for the R.H. Thomson: the Jack the Ripper Expressway.
But what it came down to in the end was two competing visions for the city.
The establishment wanted progress, which meant more and bigger roads. New-generation urbanists wanted better urban planning, fairer cities, and mass transit. It was a time when ideas for shaping cities that were greener and more people-friendly were coming into vogue. People had been willing to vote for millions of dollars in street improvements. A new floating bridge had just been built, and I-5 had (controversially) cut a concrete "trench" through the middle of Seattle, leaving an open wound (attempts to lid it had been defeated).
Freeway skepticism was on the rise, and the promise, at least, of mass transit was within reach. Rapid transit had been part of a Forward Thrust improvement package, and won over 50 percent of the vote, but not the 60 percent required for passage. Still, anti-freeway advocates had an alternative to promote: rail and buses over cars and sprawl.
At the end of the day, the R.H. Thomson project died in the early '70s due to a thousand cuts of Seattle process — but also because there was a growing awareness that the city's strength was not in copying New York or Los Angeles, whose errors were becoming evident, but by innovating a new way. The R.H. Thomson Expressway was a long, long way down the road before it was stopped: It had been in the city's Comprehensive Plan, it had the state behind it, voter-approved bond money, studies, condemned land (many homes in Montlake), other freeways it could tie in to (520, I-90, and its third floating bridge). From the standpoint of the establishment, it was a no-brainer.
Yet it collided with a new urbanism, community activism, and a young generation's sense that progress and technology carried negative consequences as well as promise. In a story about the history of the Alaskan Way Viaduct on KUOW, reporter Dominic Black said it this way: "The science that everyone was so giddy about — you know, that brought the cars and fridges and the Boeing Spacearium at the World's Fair in 1962 — it's also the science of Silent Spring, of pollution, nuclear testing, pesticides. Anxiety."
The option, of course, wasn't to stop progress, but reshape it to be more people- and eco-friendly. But first, the momentum for the status quo had to be faced.
As the late anti-Expressway activist Maynard Arsove described it in Puget Soundings, it was a battle against "concrete dragons." He told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer: "Somebody has to fight the freeways. There are powerful lobbies representing the highway construction industry, the automobile, truck, tire and cement and construction equipment companies and some labor unions who push for freeways. There is no one to point out the disadvantages to our way of living."
For activists, being "stakeholders" for disadvantages of progress puts them in the Cassandra role, as spoilers or wagers of a "war on cars." But emphasizing the negative is often imperative to get people's focus on changing course. The R.H. Thomson project was slowed from a juggernaut, burdened with re-thinking, stalled until a friendlier political context could be created, and it effectively died with a whimper when a tied vote of the City Council failed to keep it going. For Seattle greens, it was the best sister-kiss in history.
The legacy left a different, more process-oriented, more citizen-involved form of city planning, which itself sometimes feel like a burden. It helped kill off some other ill-conceived projects, such as the Bay Freeway, which, along with R.H Thomson, had nails put in its coffin by a public vote in 1972. Left over were those famous "ramps to nowhere" in the Arboretum, which have stood for decades as a point of civic pride. They are monuments to standing up to the status quo, to the capacity of an open society to change course when it gets it wrong.
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Comments:
Posted Wed, Mar 30, 7:06 a.m. Inappropriate
Seattle's decision not to become a "freeway city" like Los Angeles looks pretty good until you look at the monster those freeway dragons would have kept at bay: Bellevue. Anyone who has to commute through the tangled mess of 405 knows that you can't just wish cars away. Not in our lifetimes. The problem with most mass transit planners today is that they are just as much myopic utopians as the folks who brought us the Viaduct, the Thompson Expressway, DDT and WPPSS. They just don't know it yet.
Posted Wed, Mar 30, 7:24 a.m. Inappropriate
Reality came crashing down on the surface option with the latest poll. Any idea that Seattle would come together against the state/port/county/etc. went away when Seattle itself picked it #3.
So we're left with aerial vs. tunnel. Which was the "concrete" option again?
Posted Wed, Mar 30, 7:56 a.m. Inappropriate
I see fewer similarities than Mossback.
While all that freeway fighting was happening, Seattle's population was shrinking.
Now it's growing.
There's now mega policy to stop sprawl that comes with an urban growth boundary.
It is and environmental imperative that more focused development happen within Seattle. That's city policy.
The new waterfront will attract more people and jobs downtown, and all of Seattle's neighborhoods will benefit.
It is that higher value that ought to be uniting people: "Open the Waterfront" seems to have attracted almost 60% of Seattle's electorate.
"Continue the Blight in the name of car rule" (the rebuild/retro RH Thompson of our day) seems to have attracted 38%.
The debate over surface and tunnel seems to be mostly about traffic engineering over the space of a mile. There has been no measurable environmental difference between the two presented.
Together, the tunnel haters appear to have a plurality - but they are dominated by the RH Thompson crowd almost 2 to 1.
Seattle's establishment has become a much brighter shade of green since the freeway war days. And you ignore history when you lump today's establishment in with what preceeded it.
More recent history is more telling. The people pushing a surface alternative at all costs now (a small crowd)appear to be the same people who radically and tragically pushed to multi-year waste of time and money called the Monorail.
The City Council put an end to that. They were re-elected for doing it.
This time the only difference in city government is a Mayor who probably will not be re-elected as the tunnel is nearing completion and most people have moved on to more pressing things.
Posted Wed, Mar 30, 8:29 a.m. Inappropriate
I was here in the seventies and remember the transit vs. freeway debates. I moved on to a city that allowed me to live quite happily for years without a car. When I returned to Seattle in the 90's, I quickly realized that I couldn't live without one here and it's no different today. Seattle-area residents face a real dilemma. It is too expensive for most to live in the city proper so many must commute long distances by car. Those of us who do live within the city limits are faced with bus commutes so unwieldy (not to mention sometimes unsafe) that a 20 minute drive can turn into a trip of an hour or more.
If we don't first offer a valid transit system as an alternative, I don't see how making parking too expensive and driving even more hellish than it already is can solve any of our problems. When I hear politicians (how many of them actually rely on public transit?) talk about road and car diets, it sounds like "let them eat cake" to me. People here are tired of paralysis and inaction. We find ourselves squeezed between the opposing interests of the sharrows crowd and developers. We know things are bad and want something done, but this decades-long lack of vision and leadership has so wearied us that we'll end up passively accepting whatever new bandaid consensus will force upon us - or move on.
Posted Wed, Mar 30, 10:04 a.m. Inappropriate
Jan writes:
“The people pushing a surface alternative at all costs now (a small crowd) appear to be the same people who radically and tragically pushed to multi-year waste of time and money called the Monorail.”
Jan is attempting to cover up the truth (and not doing a good job of it).
The Seattle Popular Monorail Authority was a creature of the current civic establishment. The tax and spend measure that went on the 2002 ballot was abusive to taxpayers. It was designed and pushed by the same people and entities that designed and pushed Sound Transit’s abusive ballot measures. Moreover, those sister taxing districts are flawed for the same reasons (only in ST’s case the damage to the public and the economy is FAR worse, because of its vast scale).
Essentially the same legal template was used for both, so they would be heavy tax imposers that lacked appropriate oversight and accountability measures.
The state and local enabling legislation for SPMA was drafted by the private law firms in town that would use them to make money as bond counsel - Preston, Gates and Ellis (now K & L Gates), with input from some Foster Pepper lawyers. Moreover, Cleveland Stockmeyer and his law partner Phil Talmadge had a hand in setting up the overall structure. As Cleve wrote for a Muni League report in 2003: “In 2001, with law partner Phil Talmadge I represented the ETC and devised the strategy to constitute the monorail board as a stand alone agency.”
http://www.munileague.org/cec/2003/report/mono/StockmeyerC.htm .
Nobody’s more establishment than Phil Talmadge.
The draft state enabling legislation was prepared early 2002 and hand delivered to the legislative leadership by Hugh Spitzer (a Foster Pepper lawyer) on behalf of the ETC. The legislature rubberstamped it that session.
Here’s how all the same characters that were behind Sound Transit showed their support of monorail – this is from the 2002 voters guide:
“Broad support. Monorail supporters include League of Women Voters, Washington Conservation Voters, King County Labor Council, King County Democratic Party, Sierra Club, Speaker Frank Chopp, environmentalist Denis Hayes, Dick Falkenbury, Peter Sherwin, Judy Runstad and many more.”
That “Statement For” in the 2002 voters guide was signed by Greg Nickels, Dan Evans, and Jim McDermott.
Here’s an editorial in the Times from a key municipal-client law firm, and a labor honcho:
http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=20030205&slug;=monorail05 .
Jamie Pedersen was one of the SPMA’s main outside lawyers.
Can anyone identify any political or civic leaders who spoke out forcefully against the SPMA tax and spend ballot measure in 2002? And no, Royer’s lame “Statement Against” in the voters guide doesn’t count. He failed to identify the key problems with the governance structure and the financing plan.
Guess what – those are the same groups and entities now pushing for the deep bore tunnel. The Cascadia Center introduced the deep bore tunnel concept in October, 2008. The law firms represented above control the board of the Discovery Institute; they call the shots for the Cascadia Center. This deep bore tunnel is a product of the same self-interested cabal that ginned up the other big, abusive, and essentially wrong-headed megaprojects around here.
Posted Wed, Mar 30, 10:33 a.m. Inappropriate
I have wondered if there is a way to improve the public process to settle on options that would ultimately have better public buy-in. What I think we do now is choose a technology and a solution as the 'top horse' than defend it through the EIS process. This can create a sense that the alternative options have been lamed before the race begins so that the preferred choice comes in first. What then results is a protracted battle during the design phase that is very expensive. Sometimes the annoited choice is the best one, but certainly not always.
I heard that at one time the military would choose fighter plane designs by setting up a series of teams. Each team would be given the equivalent resources to win. There was no preferred option. Based on this robust alternatives analysis in the schematic phase, the winner was the one that best performed. Reminds me a little of March Madness.
This is not to choose sides on this issue but to say that this aspect of public process plays out repeatedly in Seattle and that it would be much less expensive and much more fruitful to have a genuine knock-down drag out battle at the early planning stages than deep into the project - in an ideal world of course!
Posted Wed, Mar 30, 10:38 a.m. Inappropriate
Seattle city limits had approx. 563,000 people around the time of 1959-1963 and close to 100,000 in the Seattle School District. All of the rest of King County had to be less than 437,000 because I am sure the county population was less than 1,000,000. Now, Seattle has 608,000 and King County has over 1,940,000 as of the April 1, 2010, census. Seattle gained 45,000 and the rest of King County gained 800,000-1,000,000 in the last 50 years. (About 20x more bodies added to non-Seattle portions of King County. Remember, you could have a Seattle postal address but be in unincorporated King County back then both north and south of the city limits). So much for artificial density!! Bottom line: R.H. Thompson and Bay Freeways and other links, connections, and lanes should have been built; I-5 should be 4-5 lanes through downtown; congestion lessened; no Mercer Mess; and certainly a better location for the obsolete convention center. An obsolete Alaska Way Viaduct should be retro-fitted and widened and/or a new 6-8 lane viaduct should be the replacement.
Posted Wed, Mar 30, 12:50 p.m. Inappropriate
What role does the availability of energy, the fact that we are beginning to run out of oil globally, and the ability of new technologies to keep automobiles on the road play in this policy making? All I see out of planners, politicians, and the media is the assumption that gas and electric cars will be affordable to our cities citizens in enough numbers to keep the roads filled. This is an assumption that bears scrutiny. Oil exports have fallen for several years now, and oil prices continue to climb. The oil companies are drilling and mining the last of the oil when they are exploring 27,000 ft. under the oceans and mining Canadian oil sands. We are decades away from appreciable numbers of alternatively-fueled vehicles.... and its appropriate to question whether billions of cars will EVER be able to be fueled by wind/solar/nuclear power.
Part of the discussion MUST be what type of cars and numbers of cars are realistic in the future. Planners merely extrapolate from past patterns and assume the technology will come along to fuel further growth and economic availability of the car, and the media go along with these assumptions.
Posted Wed, Mar 30, 1:52 p.m. Inappropriate
The tunnel is a monument to old, cheap energy, style cities. It moves Cars, not transit and it moves them past the city. So now only 40K cars of the current 100K daily viaduct users will use it. Plus its initial costs are 3.3Billion thus eating all the money that will be needed to mitigate the mess it will cause when 60K cars start driving on the surface streets.
Therefore it does not serve the needs of the majority of the viaduct users and thus should be abandoned as a viable alternative.
As for rising fuel costs, yes, people will want to drive less as gasoline approaches $5 gal. It's already happening as gas is at $4/gal now. The investments in transportation for Seattle need to recognize this and adjust, that means more money for Rapid transit and less for freeways.
Posted Wed, Mar 30, 2:19 p.m. Inappropriate
Thanks, Knute for raising history. No matter the attempts to dismiss or reinvent it, history remains the best comparative analysis we will ever have.
The difference I see this time around is that the two warring parties are but a religious schism for the right to influence, if not control, the general public. Environmentalism is not what it used to be and, significantly, the place-based participatory organizations you write about and quote are today on the outside looking in, or have given up, some even on the usefulness of voting.
-luigia, above, expresses quite elegantly the wariness, resignation and disgust created by the green-washing coming from both sides of this schism. I too, lived comfortably without a car for a few years in my youth and made the same decision upon returning (all in the 60s). For a time it was one shared car, but self-employment eventually made that two. Boston in the 60s was heaven on earth—and only double Seattle's density.
Who would have thought Seattlites would still be strapped in their cars! On the other hand: most of us find that transit becomes increasingly hard to make use of as we take on life's challenges and age and this makes it equally hard to eventually give up the keys.
Posted Wed, Mar 30, 2:21 p.m. Inappropriate
Gary, most of the through traffic will use it. That's the target audience. Not the cars that take the first or second exit off the viaduct, who you're including.
As for peak oil, it'll make oil more expensive, but I suspect a combination of fuel efficiency and population growth will keep driving at relatively similar levels in the Seattle area. Mainstream peak oil theory doesn't suggest the sort of massive dropoff that some people seem to think.
Posted Wed, Mar 30, 3:34 p.m. Inappropriate
No MHays, you're ignoring WSDot's own data. The current viaduct carries 100K daily, the tunnel will carry 40K because of people avoiding the tolls and needing to exit to the city. The tunnel funding does not pay to mitigate these extra 60K cars that will be on the surface.
As for people changing their driving habits, last time we saw oil hit $150 Barrel and gasoline at $4+ people tried to switch to buses which became jam packed. Metro had it's highest ridership. But that's not the alternative here. It's not tunnel or buses, its tunnel or surface with mitigation money.
And BTW did you notice that Brightwater which has a stuck digging machine now has sink holes? Remember the waterfront is sand, its a beach and its below the water table. (and the sea level) this thing has the potential to be very expensive for very few cars.
Posted Wed, Mar 30, 7:01 p.m. Inappropriate
So if Seattle proper is too expensive for "most people," why is the population density increasing? That doesn't add up. The city proper has gained population every Census since 1980.
I have no problem living in Seattle without a car, first downtown and now on Capitol Hill. I don't accept the claim that people in Seattle have to own a car, but I understand why it's convenient to make that claim when bemoaning the failed monorail project or the current tunnel plans. "If only Seattle had followed the plan I support(-ed), we'd be a truly urban city." The fact that people do choose to live here without a car undercuts the argument that there's only one way for the city to become denser and more livable. Could it be better? Sure, but it's increasing as is, and both the city and region are making strides on transit, as the expanding Link line shows.
Posted Wed, Mar 30, 7:48 p.m. Inappropriate
Not true Gary. You aren't accounting for people already exiting early heading to downtown, or to a lesser extent Interbay.
Most of the pass-throughs headed for Aurora are captured by the tunnel. The tolls will scare some people off, but if traffic is light that'll attract some people who currently drive on surface streets.
Posted Wed, Mar 30, 7:52 p.m. Inappropriate
Its funny how tunnel proponents are so tired of debating this issue. Apparently the tunnel option "won" in a referendum... actually it didnt. Opponents of the tunnel are not the minority... we just couldn't agree on a surface option vs a viaduct replacement.
Mayor McGinn has been trying to protect Seattle from the huge cost overruns that are almost certain to come out of the tunnel. He is attacked for watching out for our fiscal interests. He warns that the viaduct is unsafe (we have known this for years) but apparently its crazy to talk about shutting it down.
If an earthquake hits and the viaduct creates a disaster, the victims families should be prepared to sue every council member and gov Gregoire for negligence and obvious disregard of public safety...the viaduct could have been retrofit already at a fraction of the cost of this tunnel.
The governor and the city council seem to care more about building a tunnel than about our children's education.
This makes no sense.
Seattle is a great city but in so many ways behind the times... urban highways are expensive, unsafe and bad for the environment. I know cars are enjoyable but we should make the responsible decision not the convenient one.
Posted Thu, Mar 31, 8:36 a.m. Inappropriate
Mr. Hays,
If traffic is light why would you pay to go through a tunnel to get around it? It's $4 for 5 minutes less time at best. Makes no sense. Off hours the tunnel will get even less use. The only reason to pay the toll is to avoid the clogged surface streets.
I'm a surface/retrofit guy. First fix the seawall that's half the problem. If the seawall fails then the viaduct falls. Second add some reinforcement steel to the current viaduct. When the whole thing wears out, go surface. By then we will have $7/gas and a decent light rail line with spurs to Ballard and West Seattle.
In no way am I a tunnel supporter, that's not a cut and cover the ditch, or deep tunnel.
Seattle needs another deep tunnel but not for cars. LINK will max out the current tunnel once the North end opens. Then it will be time to dig the West Seattle/Ballard connection line tunnel. But that should be dug well East of the proposed waterfront tunnel. And higher up above the sea level.
Posted Thu, Mar 31, 8:52 a.m. Inappropriate
Many people who support the tunnel do so based on false assumptions. The false assumption include the following:
- The existing viaduct will not come down unless we build a tunnel. Not true, the existing viaduct can be torn down and the views opened up without building a tunnel.
- The tunnel replaces the vehicle capacity of the current viaduct. Not true whatsoever. The existing viaduct carries 100,000 vehicles per day. Many of those vehicles use the on/off ramps at Seneca/Marion and Western Ave. These will not be served by the tunnel at all. WS-DOT's own modeling shows only 40,000 vehicles/day using the tunnel, and that's without modeling the impact of the tolls. The tunnel simply does not replace the viaduct.
- People in West Seattle and using 509 believe that their commute to downtown Seattle will be impeded if the tunnel is not built. Absolutely false - the commute to downtown Seattle from West Seattle and 509 will be the exact same with and without the tunnel. The exits at Seneca and Western are lost in both scenarios, and the surface roadway from Spokane St which will allow access to the street grid near Pioneer Square for travel into downtown Seattle is the same in both cases.
- The tunnel is important for freight mobility. Less than 3% of the freight traffic from the Port of Seattle and SODO industrial areas uses the viaduct - the vast majority heads to I-90 and I-5. The viaduct is not an important freight corridor, but in any event, the tunnel does not serve the Interbay and Ballard areas well, and Aurora Avenue isn't a main freight destination.
- When a road is removed all the traffic reappears elsewhere. That simply doesn't happen as has been shown again and again when roadways are removed, such as San Francisco's Embarcadero Freeway. This is also demonstrated in the inverse when new lanes or new roads are built, there is new traffic that didn't exist before (induced demand), when roads are eliminated, some of the traffic disappears.
Removing the viaduct will improve Seattle's waterfront. The seawall should be built, as should the south end boulevard connecting to Spokane St. That doesn't make spending $2 billion on a deep bore tunnel used by only 40,000 cars a way a good transportation investment for the city or the state.
Posted Thu, Mar 31, 10:05 a.m. Inappropriate
"Gary isn't accounting for northbound motorists exiting to downtown and to a lesser extent Interbay. Most of the pass-throughs to Aurora are captured by the tunnel. The tolls will scare some people off, but if traffic is light that'll attract some people who currently drive on surface streets."
The number of vehicles that daily access SR99 AWV at 1st Ave is 20,000.
The number that access SR99 AWV at Elliott/Western is 35,000.
How can the larger number be "to a lesser extent"? Don't forget the 5,000 vehicles that daily use Battery Street Tunnel between Lake Union and Lower Belltown. Of the 110,000 then, about 50,000 will use the DBT, minus those who won't to avoid the toll. Mercer Mess is expected to get messier. "We'll do anything for money" should be Seattle's motto.
Posted Thu, Mar 31, 10:33 a.m. Inappropriate
No other proposed configuration for the AWV 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 an essential bypass for downtown and off ramps for the core, Ballard and West Seattle. It already meets the demands for commercial vehicles. It can incorporate modern seismic protections and other enhancements for noise abatement, bikes, pedestrians and aesthetics. It acknowledges the fact that cars are going to be the primary mover of commuters for some time to come. And it’s 2+ billion dollars cheaper than this inadequate tunnel.
Any solution that doesn’t provide at least the capacities and transportation features of the existing viaduct is a waste of money and a giant step backwards for the city.
Posted Thu, Mar 31, 2:11 p.m. Inappropriate
jmrolls' claim that there are no other 'proposed configurations' that match the AWV for capacity is false. The current cut/cover tunnel in the DEIS does match, minus the Senceca/Columbia ramps to 1st Ave. Those ramps create traffic hazards on 1st Ave and on steep sidestreets leading to them. I-5 ramps that exit downtown from and enter onto steep sidestreets create the same hazards. DOT directors and department heads know of these hazards, but since Seattle is inhabited by liberals, why inconvenience patriotic conservative suburban motorist shlub voters?
Posted Thu, Mar 31, 3:55 p.m. Inappropriate
The only "hazards" on those streets are the ones in Wells' mind (which, for that matter, is the only place where anyone is still considering a cut-and-cover tunnel).
Those midtown entrances ensure much faster and more reliable bus transit to West Seattle - and a whole lot of urban liberal bus riders appreciate them mightily.
And Carl is DEAD wrong about the commute to/from West Seattle.
Posted Thu, Mar 31, 8:47 p.m. Inappropriate
Not one word about cost overruns?
A major part of the tunnel opposition is the fear of bankrupting the city or a huge bill that crowds out the ability to make other needed investments (like transit). Whether the overrun provision is enforceable basically comes down to a judge's decision. As long as it's a possibility, we need to prepare for the contingency, and that means assuming we'll get a $multibillion bill. The legislature could eliminate this uncertainty by simply removing the overrun provision, but they've made no move to do so, and several legislators have said they intend to enforce it. Even if a judge throws it out, the legislature could take an equivalent amount of tax revenue from Seattle by rejiggering the tax streams.
Posted Thu, Mar 31, 10:11 p.m. Inappropriate
The major reason for the tunnel opposition is that it reduces capacities and increases congestion. Remember that it is a "transportation" project...allowing things to move from one place to another. Regarding cost overruns, the tunnel option is double the cost of a restored viaduct. That means the there would be two BILLION dollars left over to do whatever.
Call or write the governor about that.
Still time to do the right thing.
Posted Sat, Apr 2, 8:33 p.m. Inappropriate
"The new waterfront will attract more people and jobs downtown"
No, the opposite will occur. The tunnel option is too destructive to our industrial, job-producing areas, and it is far too expensive.
Do not build the bore tunne. Build a new viaduct.
Posted Sat, Apr 2, 8:38 p.m. Inappropriate
100% agreement with animalal.
Seattle city limits had approx. 563,000 people around the time of 1959-1963 and close to 100,000 in the Seattle School District. All of the rest of King County had to be less than 437,000 because I am sure the county population was less than 1,000,000. Now, Seattle has 608,000 and King County has over 1,940,000 as of the April 1, 2010, census. Seattle gained 45,000 and the rest of King County gained 800,000-1,000,000 in the last 50 years. (About 20x more bodies added to non-Seattle portions of King County. Remember, you could have a Seattle postal address but be in unincorporated King County back then both north and south of the city limits). So much for artificial density!! Bottom line: R.H. Thompson and Bay Freeways and other links, connections, and lanes should have been built; I-5 should be 4-5 lanes through downtown; congestion lessened; no Mercer Mess; and certainly a better location for the obsolete convention center. An obsolete Alaska Way Viaduct should be retro-fitted and widened and/or a new 6-8 lane viaduct should be the replacement.
— animalal
Posted Sat, Apr 2, 8:47 p.m. Inappropriate
I love driving. I love the viaduct, because it is a beautiful drive.
Simply rebuild the seawall, rebuild the viaduct, and add lanes. Commerce is made by independence, and vehicular movement.
All the energey spent to get us out of our vehicles should be spent to find a non fossil fuel method to ensure our continued independent mobility.
Anything less cripples our strength as a country, and community.
Posted Mon, Apr 4, 1:19 p.m. Inappropriate
Knute Berger: Thank-you for the enlightening historical perspective. The story behind the R. H. Thompson Expressway ramps makes the current waterfront tunnel slam-dunk seem a little more precarious. Could it be that the mayor’s determinedness coupled with a greener view of progress will ultimately prevail? Beyond a doubt he’s right long-term on preferring regional mass transit and urban density to cars on cars. Victories may be partial and bittersweet, though, especially with the state having final say on its highway. What an irony it would be if the tunnel were jettisoned in the wake of a public referendum and the state then pushed on with a new elevated. Plus ça change . . .
Posted Wed, Apr 6, 1:43 p.m. Inappropriate
The only thing that matters with the tunnel option is the ability to repay the bonds and it's unlikely that they will. Just like other tollways and rosy public projects like the Las Vegas monorail, they enter a death spiral when the toll revenue comes in less than expected (which is pretty much always the case). Then the toll goes up driving away more customers so the revenue drops even MORE.
Read this article from Las Vegas to get an idea of how that looks in real life.
http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2006/Oct-18-Wed-2006/news/10288820.html
Oct. 18, 2006
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
DEFAULT DANGER: Monorail finances shaky
Bond rating slips into 'junk' status because of low revenues, ridership
By OMAR SOFRADZIJA
REVIEW-JOURNAL
Default is a looming danger for the Las Vegas Monorail after low fares failed to draw enough riders and a fare hike chased off too many passengers, according to a bleak financial analysis released Tuesday.
.........
Posted Thu, Apr 7, 10:58 a.m. Inappropriate
"a different, more process-oriented, more citizen-involved form of city planning"
Right, one where the Governor decides everything by fiat power, and when she doesn't get her way, goes over the head of a popularly elected Mayor and subverts plebecites and referendums.
Posted Thu, Apr 7, 1:59 p.m. Inappropriate
Jan - yes we know Seattle are a bunch of hippie Communists. Thanks for sharing.
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