I’m sure when tunnel proponents talked about our once in a lifetime opportunity for a revitalized waterfront what they meant was this.
The new Alaskan Way, located mostly within the current footprint of the viaduct, will be four or five lanes for most of its length until it reaches Columbia Street. South of Columbia, it completely explodes with travel lanes and starts to look a whole lot more like a freeway than a waterfront boulevard. Near the Ferry Terminal, there are even sections with eight travel lanes and a parking lane (though some are transit-only).
You know, 8 lanes and more coal trains are just what the waterfront needs. Maybe we can transport nuclear waste in open top containers next.
Oh, you mean we are building an infrastructure that can withstand more growth in the future?
UNTHINKABLE!
How stupid of us to plan for the future… we should build things that cost lots of money and are quickly obsolete as soon as they are built.
GENIOUS!
This is a stupid post.
@1 I think what Carl is saying is that we are turning what was sold to us as a waterfront public space into a waterfront highway that will discourage people from enjoying the waterfront.
Funneling tons of cars to the waterfront is a poor way to solve the traffic problem. It’s not planning for the future so much as crapping on the present.
Well, it will be better than it is now. The ferry terminal is eliminating the north holding lanes, so those cars waiting for the ferry have to go somewhere.
It won’t be like a freeway, well, I guess it will be like a freeway at 5pm on friday. Slow….
This is a stupid post.
Not to mention dishonest. Here’s some of the material Carl didn’t quote:
Plans include a two-way bikeway on the waterfront side of the street, separated from both vehicle traffic and the walking promenade.
How dare they! Obviously, this entire project will be a dystopian hellhole, especially for cyclists:
If you are biking from the Alaskan Way Trail to the Elliott Bay Trail, the connection will likely be seamless, easy and safe. The Waterfront Seattle crew heard requests for this style of bikeway loud and clear, and they have delivered.
Bastards. Run them out of town on a (light) rail. I’m already wanting my viaduct back, and it’s not even fully gone yet!
Then we come to the eight-lane part. Two general-purpose lanes in each direction, plus a parking lane on one side, just like now. Add a transit lane in each direction, and two lanes for ferry traffic, and you get eight traffic lanes, plus a parking lane. To reduce the number of lanes, you could do one or more of the following:
– have only one general-purpose lane in each direction, which means any little disruption in the flow brings everything to a halt;
– have only one ferry lane, ditto;
– have no ferry lanes at a major ferry terminal;
– eliminate transit-only lanes;
– eliminate parking.
Now, the entire point of Carl’s post was to whine about supposed betrayal by the majority who soundly defeated the anti-tunnel side, so it’s not like he’s going to make any of the hard choices outlined above. (It is fun to watch him ignore improvements for bike, transit, and pedestrian traffic, though.)
Once Alaskan Way is rebuilt, motorists will be able to bypass the Broad street crossing in favor of connecting further south, past any railroad crossings. Most people heading south across Broad are heading to the ferry, which will be quicker to access via the new Alaskan Way.In fact, the city should just close Broad St altogether, rename the north section to Alaskan Place and make it dead end.
@4,
I’ve written about the bike lane before, so I’m not sure how that’s ignoring it. Do I have to put it in every short post about the waterfront?
Two of the lanes are dedicated to transit, so in a post titled, “8 Lanes!”, you might have found room for mentioning these transit improvements; you found space to mention your fictional open-topped nuclear-waste wagons, didn’t you?
Thanks for not presenting any alternatives; I appreciate your validation of my claim.
@7,
The block quote says “some are transit-only”
What I get from this is that “Thee Waterfront” (in music-biz parlance) is being redefined as everything from the Coleman Dock north to Broad Street, to be summarily gentrified as a mecca for people shopping, partying, walking their small dogs and riding bicycles…and living nearby if they can afford the tab. All that messy “industrial” stuff (like loading, unloading and servicing ships…which were once thought of as making a waterfront a waterfront) will be kept out of sight and mind in what’s already more or less a concrete wasteland to the south.
@8, I stand corrected. The mention of transit was indeed buried in a parenthetical aside at the end of the block quote. (In fairness to the original post, it had the diagrams of the street, showing the transit lanes.)
Of course, neither post mentions this eight-lane section runs only from Columbia Street to Yesler Way, that it exists mainly because of ferry and mass-transit traffic, and that Alaskan Way returns to four-lane operation on either end. Commenters provide those facts. I guess “8 Lanes!” just sounds so much more alarmist than, “8 Lanes, But 4 Were Already There, Two Are Stuff We Always Say We Want, and The Last Two Are Probably Un-Avoidable!!!!1!”
Also, it’s fun to block-quote from a bike blog and not mention, um, bikes.
And of course, if your vision of a better world includes the return of George Benson’s “On The Beach” streetcars, it sucks to be you.
Carl believes the future waterfront will never equal the pedestrian-and-bike-friendly space the viaduct provides. :-)