The Port is pulling numbers out of the air to refute an initial traffic study.
There will be another traffic study for the EIS.

Hansen may have paid for the study, but SDOT determined what would be studied.

Were you going to report on the city council's meeting today on the study, or is this it?

The Port is pulling numbers from the Martin report, SDOT reports, and TMA studies. Hansen's study is crap. But you are worried. So are your colleagues. The EIS will send Hansen packing.

Next subject: pedestrian mitigation. Who will pay so that sonics fans don't have to walk 3/4ths of a mile in the rain in winter in the dark to and from an NBA game to their imaginary parking spots? 38 degrees, wind, and rain, in a district with no windbreaks. Should be fun.

"The EIS will send Hansen packing."

Just like the EIS was supposed to stop the AWV tunnel. Looking forward to you next prediction.

Another story on this site submits correctly that no one even knows what the self-inflicted reductions in traffic capacities might be in the area, due to the replacement of the viaduct with the tunnel. Also, you can add to the discomfort of wind, rain and cold on fan's long walks on game nights the possibility of getting murdered or maimed by less-friendly members of our urban village.

Dave Gering makes good points about two problems with the arena traffic study. There needs to be more study on each point.

However, a lot of this concern about traffic seems overwrought. Any arena is empty most of the time - vast nothingness, which is one reason why the location seems better than where we built Key arena.

It is difficult to fathom the idea that a place that is tiny compared to the baseball and soccer stadiums down the street could ruin all of the commerce related to the seaport.

There must be other, much more fundamental problems with commerce in the area, that are motivating the uproar. Maybe there should be more focus on identifying what those things are, and dealing with them.

It is doubtful that any of the very big, and very costly, improvements to transportation infrastructure would have been secured through the force of port related commerce alone. Without the stadiums already there, the roadway infrastructure improvements completed or underway there would probably not exist.

A quick visit to Google Earth shows the walk distance from the Arena lot to the Stadium Station entrance via existing ped routes is .45 miles. And .52 miles to the Sodo station. Aside from being less then "over two-thirds of a mile," both distances are well within the established park & walk pattern for sporting events at the other two venues. Who is mis-leading whom?

JT, don't bother Erica or Josh about facts.

I think crosscut have provided a home for Erica Barnett and Josh Feit in order to make Roger Valdez look good.

Jan:

There are certainly more, or at least additional, fundamental problems with the Sodo site selection, such as Hansen's admission that the goal is far beyond just an arena, but a whole "entertainment district" that would gobble up industrial and manufacturing land -- and the family-wage jobs that produces -- in favor of low-paying service jobs.

Also, how is it that so many so easily forget that we are the most trade-dependent state in the country, and that trade depends on access to and from the port?

Finally, the problem is not the infrastructure "completed or underway" -- it's what was promised but not done when the first two stadiums were built.

When the viaduct comes down, with or without the stadiums, there will be 30K to 50K cars looking for somewhere to go. That's providing the tunnel's stated capacity is correct? And just kiss access to West Seattle, Ballard and a bypass for downtown goodbye.

An unusual result for such a "very big, and very costly, improvement to transportation infrastructure" don't you think?

If everyone agrees with you, will you comment on something else.

The millionaires who've recovered from the great recession just fine, thank you very much, have decided to invest their fortunes in legacy sports arena venues here, San Francisco, San Diego and elsewhere of course, to serve the whims of the leisure class amongst whom they associate, provide cash cow entertainment and expect odorous adoration.