State and city leaders met for hours yesterday to decide the fate of the Alaska Way Viaduct, but couldn’t come to a decision. That’s pretty much because city leaders refuse to accept the rebuild option, and state leaders refuse to pay for anything but that. But as recalcitrant as the participants were, one new idea did emerge from the meeting:
The joint statement says there are two options, build an elevated replacement or, “Reprogram funding to the 520 replacement project.”
I think this was supposed to be a threat or something, the implication being that the city risks losing $2.2 billion in state funds if we don’t budge on a rebuild. But if the governor does repurpose the Viaduct money towards the 520 bridge, it could actually end up saving local taxpayers a ton of money.
Stick with me on this one.
The region needs to replace both the Viaduct and the 520 bridge, but the total amount of money thus far committed by the state towards construction of the two projects combined is less than the projected cost of the 520 bridge alone. Who makes up the difference? Local residents, via various city, county, port and RTID taxes. And possibly tolls.
If the governor forces through a rebuild, not only would Seattle get a double-decker freeway it doesn’t want, but we’d be forced to tax ourselves to pay the difference between the state share and the total cost. Talk about adding insult to injury. And then we’d also have to tax ourselves to make up the difference between the cost of a new 520 bridge and the state share of the project.
But… if Governor Gregoire were to repurpose the state’s Viaduct commitment towards the 520 bridge, local taxpayers would pay much less for their share of that project. And then freed from the strings that come with state money, Seattle could choose a surface-plus-transit alternative that costs much less money than a Viaduct rebuild.
Think about it. The state share of the cost of the two projects remains the same, but the combined cost is substantially slashed. This saves local taxpayers money.
As far as I’m concerned, this might be the perfect political compromise. The state refuses to pay for any Viaduct replacement that reduces capacity. Fine. Don’t. We’ll use our own money to tear it down and do what we want with it. It is our city afterall. But as long as the state keeps the money in the region, local taxpayers don’t actually lose a dime. Indeed, by choosing a less expensive surface alternative, we actually save money.
Sounds to me like a win-win situation.
Hold on a moment…. Remember, that IS a state highway. Not a city or county road. While you idea may be a good one, one fly in your ointment may be that only the state can work on, or replace, the viaduct.
Let’s have the vote, already.
The only reason not to is that it is clear what the replacement would win.
That’s why Greggy is pushing the 4 lane tunnel, but I guess he couldn’t get by the council to compromise on that.
Four lanes to replace six won’t work, and the surface street nonsense is no solution at all.
“If the governor forces through a rebuild, not only would Seattle get a double-decker freeway it doesn’t want,”
Up yours, Goldy. That’s a lie. If the Council had the spine to put it to a vote, the rebuild would win. So stop perpetuating the lie that the anti-rebuild fringe represents some majority position.
I’ll spell it out for you because you’re too dumb to get it. There is this vehicular capacity. People use it. People rely on it for their livelihoods. It is a state highway and the state controls it. The state mandates, as it should, that the capacity must remain the same.
With me so far? Sorry for the condescending tone. No, actually, I’m NOT sorry. If the Viaduct disappears and traffic is snarled forever, hey, those people’s livelihoods are not the concern of the elitist, classist “new urbanist” esthetes represented by Goldy and several other misguided fools in the so-called “progressive” blogosphere (as if accepting gridlock [for others, of course] for the “greater good” represented progress).
After all, only the little people use Viaducts. Hell, only the little people use cars. The elite are “evolved,” don’t you know?
Enough of this damn “process,” and let’s get on with the rebuild.
The Governor must think it is good politics for her statewide to beat up on Seattle.
Goldy’s idea is a good one. The city and the state built the Viaduct together pre-Interstate 5. It can come down and a surface alternative can be designed that can move most all the capacity that moves along today’s Viaduct.
The way things stand now Gregoire and Chopp are trying to force a bigger six lane freeway on Seattle that would rip an even bigger noisier gash through the city than the current ugly noisy monster.
The Mayor offered the state a reasonable compromise tunnel with plenty of capacity at far less cost than the state highway department dream.
The state flat out rejected it – favoring an elevated Frank Chopp designed monstrosity that the vast majority of the people of the city will reject.
Lisa Brown’s assertion that the state can call the Viaduct a significant state highway and rip a huge gash through the city is ludicrous. Beating up on Seattle must play well in Spokane too.
“Sounds to me like a win-win situation.”
Another spin: Use the state money to replace the 520 bridge. Then spend the next five years continuing to argue about what to do with the Viaduct (the state won’t replace it without some funding from Seattle, so Seattle could just say no, like the state just did with the tunnel).
Then when the Viaduct collapses in the next earthquake, have the state pay off the lawsuits from the families of the hundred or so killed during the collapse, and then the state would have to pay to re-build the shattered viaduct anyway.
In the interim, have everyone throw their recyclable bottles into the bay to help shore up the seawall.
(Note to wingbats: sarcasim was intended.)
You must remember that time is the enemy of cost and thus, if the state lets collected gas tax money gain interest while costs go up at a much faster rate, we all will get less for our money. And, in the end, when the viaduct project does move forward years from now, it will cost the city tax payers much much more due to inflation in construction costs.
We could just leave the Viaduct in place. This keeps capacity the same as it is now. No traffic snarls for several years while it is replaced. And no tax money needed.
RHP6033 @ 6
They say an earthquake strong enough to collapse the Viaduct would occur once every 300 years. If a collapse kills 100 people, that is an expected mortality rate of 1/3 of a person per year.
We probably have around 200 people per year killed in traffic accidents in King County every year. So a 0.3 person per year mortality risk from Viaduct earthquake collapse is not that significant.
If we want to invest money to improve traffic safety and save lives, they are probably a lot more cost effective methods than to spend $3 billion or more to save 0.3 lives per year.
thor said:
“The state flat out rejected it – favoring an elevated Frank Chopp designed monstrosity that the vast majority of the people of the city will reject.”
That lie keeps getting told over, and over. Let’s have the vote and put your assertion to the test
I think one of the major issues with the viaduct is reduced capacity of I-5 through Seattle. I-5 bottlenecks include:
1) Southbound left lane exit to 520, incombination with right lane on-ramps from 45th & 50th causing many lane changes.
2) Northbound left lane on-ramp from Mercer combined with a right lane exit to 520.
3) Southbound reduction to 2 non-carpool lanes through downtown.
4) The convention center (or any visual distraction such as bridge abutements) cause drivers to slow for psychological reasons. Who’s decision was it to build or allow the building of the convention center over I-5? If some terrorist would take out that out, we could stack some more lanes.
5) etc.
I-5 and 99 are the only North-South routes through Seattle. In case of an accident, or any other event, closing one of them; the other should have the capacity to take the overflow. The surface option would not be able to take the overflow.
Personally, I suspect the money’s going to go to 520, because there IS fairly widespread agreement on what to do there, it needs to be replaced just as badly as the Alaskan Way Viaduct, and players like Ed Murray seem receptive to that, but won’t be allowing a replacement viaduct get shoved down Seattle’s throat.
I think it would be POSSIBLE to design a surface option… but this being Seattle, home of Perpetual Dithering, Handwringing and Process over Progress (see: Monorail, multiple votes on transit dating back to the 1960’s, and the entire Viaduct fiasco), I expect this to happen sometime around 2050.
thor said:
Actually, beating up on Seattle plays pretty well everywhere in the state except Seattle. Heck, there are parts of Seattle that like to beat up on Seattle. (Down here in Pierce County, it’s considered a sport.)
Most of the argument against a tunnel is simply the cost. It has been suggested several times that the people in Seattle make the decision. The state will pony up what it would cost to rebuild the viaduct, which is (regardless of what some seem to claim) a major transportation corridor.
If Seattle would prefer (for whatever reason) a tunnel, fine. The rest of the state will chip in what a re-built viaduct would cost us, you folks pay the balance. How you do that is your business. If you don’t want to pass an additional tax on yourselves, you might want to consider holding a really big bake sale. If someone brings some really good pumpkin bread, I might even buy some.
You could even try to get us to chip in more, provided that you can show how that added expense would benefit the whole state, as opposed to simply benefitting the land owners near the waterfront.
Why is this so hard to understand?
More likely than the Viaduct collapsing in an earthquake would be to get to the point where the engineers who keep monitoring the rate at which it’s slowly falling apart condemn it for further use and order it demolished.
those people’s livelihoods are not the concern of the elitist, classist “new urbanist”
IVAN, I USUALLY AGREE WITH YOU BUT YOU’RE BEING A LITTLE TOO “TOUGH-MINDED” HERE.
IT’S YOU WHO’S BEING ELITIST. YOU DON’T THINK THE “LITTLE PEOPLE” CAN ADJUST BUT IN FACT THEY’RE GOING TO HAVE TO ADJUST FOR SEVEN YEARS NO MATTER WHAT. YOUR “AESTHETIC” IS BEING THE “TOUGH GUY”. GET A GRIP, FELLA.
PEOPLE ACTUALLY LIVE IN SEATTLE, NOT JUST DRIVE THROUGH IT AND IT WOULD BE A G’DAMNED SHAME IF WE PASSED UP THE OPPORTUNITY TO RECLAIM OUR WATERFRONT.
The people of Seattle didn’t give a shit about rural landowners when the CAO went through and I feel just about the same when it comes to the Seattle waterfront.
The needs of the many……….
Rebuild the viaduct.
It’s not, John. I’m fine with it. The problem is that Mayor Nickels is justifably freaked out about proposing a couple billion in taxes to a public vote, given the history around things like the Monorail, the overruns on Sound Transit, and the fact that at some point, Seattle’s going to go “enough with this crap”- and there are additional RTID votes and Son of Sound Transit coming up as well.
We’re talking a LOT of taxes here- in a city that becomes less and less affordable for the middle class to buy housing every day. Case in point: I’m a single parent making comfortably over median family income of 45K for King County- but not dramatically so. I have NO shot buying a home in the city I was born in, because median house prices are around 400K, which requires something around 100K annual income to meet income qualifications.
Tax increases become a harder and harder slog this way- and Mayor Nickels surely knows it, which is why he wanted the tunnel nowhere near the ballot.
Pope at 9: With all due respect to whatever experts you are referencing, I don’t believe that we will have to wait for 300 years before an earthquake demolishes the viaduct. As ArtFart pointed out (rightly), the engineers will condemn the structure within a year or two anyway, as movement increases the seperation between the sections.
And after seeing the collapse of the two-story freeways in the 1989 Oakland earthquake, and again about five years or so later in Japan, I’m not a big believer in two-story freeways, especially those built earlier than the last couple of decades. Not only do we have the lives at risk from those who are travelling on the freeways or nearby, but a collapse of that sort completely disrupts the response of emergency vehicles into the area, at exactly at the time you need them most. (I have the same concerns about a tunnel, of course).
Maybe we should just recognize that given the hourglass shape of Seattle, a second freeway (the Viaduct) through downtown is not feasible. Perhaps we should build an elevated structure connecting 99 to I-5, both north and south of town (going OVER the Mercer Mess in the north, and in the South connecting to 99 in the industrial district, with a quick access onto 509, which is the current “Freeway to Nowhere”.
Of course, this means adding about four lanes in each direction to I-5, which could only be done by a tunnel or elevated structure, so perhaps we are back to square one (again).
Or maybe we should just build a monorail. ;-)
Is it time to discuss the retrofit idea for the viaduct, an 800 million dollar solution that Nichols will not even discuss?
A surface alternative is not feasible, I5 cannot pick up the additional burden with major changes, so somethign ahs to be done.
Monorails don’t do much for industrial districts and moving freight. Which we do do some of, last I checked.
EP at 20: yes, you are correct that a monorail will not move freight. But if you can remove a good portion of the single drivers in cars from the freeways, it frees up quite a bit of capacity for freight.
But my monorail comment was thrown out in humor. After the last failed attempt, no monorail proposal will have any traction in Seattle for at least the next couple of decades.
eponymous coward said:
I tend to agree here, but that brings up a different point. Seattle would like a tunnel, and failing that, would like the viaduct to just go away.
And there is a certain logic for Seattle in the latter solution. The viaduct benefits the rest of the state far more than it does the property owners along the waterfront. For the most part, folks use the viaduct to drive past that whole area, so it brings very little benefit to Seattle waterfront businesses. “Go drive somewhere else” is an answer that works for them.
But not for the state as a whole, and we currently have State Highway that we insist on keeping operational.
I strongly suspect that the tunnel option is really not viable due to cost, and the folks in the Mayor’s office know that unless the whole state is willing to pitch in, it isn’t going to happen. While in the past, the city has had the clout to make demands on the state which the state was unable to deny, Seattle is no longer quite so dominant.
Seattle has been perceived for many years to be the “tail” that wags the state “dog”. At one time, Seattle could yell “jump” and the rest of the state asked “how high?” on the way up. Now, however, Seattle is much less dominant in the overall state population figures.
I strongly suspect that the city government believes that if it stonewalls the rebuild long enough, the state will offer to pony up more of the costs for a tunnel. If true, this would be proof that the folks in Seattle city government need to get out more often.
But if you can remove a good portion of the single drivers in cars from the freeways, it frees up quite a bit of capacity for freight.
I don’t think transit does that. What transit does is make it possible to get around in cities when you have screwed-up freeways. Traffic congestion is a fact of life in a thriving metropolis.
I don’t think the idea that we can IMPROVE flow on local freeways by eliminating a bunch of capacity and adding, well, whatever we do in transit (more light rail? busses that have to use city streets?) holds water. The best we’re going to be able to do is hold serve, I think. Part of the problem is that I-5 was designed to bring people INTO Seattle, not through it (thus the reduction in lanes down from 4 to 3 each way through downtown- with some of that capacity used through the I-90 collector/distributor)- and the land needed to expand I-5 is horrendously expensive (downtown, the priciest land in the city).
To reduce congestion and encourage folks to live near where they work, maybe we should tax each employer (or employee) in the urban/suburban core based on the distance between residential address and work-place address for each employee. An additional tax could be added for any crossing of a floating bridge.
Maybe eastside cities should be required to make their areas “cooler” places to live. So many Seattle professionals (yuppies) work for eastside companies, but refuse to live in the “burbs”. Somehow the “burbs” need to become a little more hip. There should be a pub within stumbling distance from every house.
How about some “bicyclist only” shuttle buses for crossing 520 and I-90? That would have to be a hell of a lot cheaper than the construction and maintenance of a bike lane on a floating bridge. Heck, Metro could shuttle bicyclists from hot spot to hot spot all over the place. Then cyclists could continue on their way in more friendly areas.
Tunnel V. Rebuild? It is a battle of neighborhoods V. downtown. The downtown will benefit with a tunnel, so the downtown should pay for all additional costs of a tunnel. Our current mayor represents the interests of downtown. The neighborhood residents should take back some control at the next mayoral election.
Okay, Goldy. We all knew this day would come. It was just a matter of time; a question of when, how, and why. Now it’s here — your turn to get gnawed on by The Rabbit!
First of all, “repurpose”? Repurpose?!!! Is that a word? What freaking dictionary did you get THAT “word” out of? God I hate newspeak!!! Whatsamatter with the King’s English, huh? Are you trying to drive me into the English-speakers-only camp? Looks like it.
Next, what’s wrong with tolls? The original 520 bridge was paid for with tolls. Worked then, will work now. City and port taxes for 520, are you kidding? Seattleites don’t need the 520 bridge, so why should they pay for it? It doesn’t even go anywhere; 520 dead-ends. The only people who use it are people who live or work in Bellevue. Let Bellevue pay for it! If they don’t want to, they can buy a fleet of canoes as a less expensive alternative. Why the hell should we let go of our hard-won viaduct rebuild money to subsidize people in Bellevue, where incomes are higher and homes cost more? They’re living the good life, and we’re supposed to give up our most important arterial so they can get a freebie? I don’t freaking think so! Not on THIS rabbit’s dime! SCREW THAT!!!
Goldy, Goldy, Goldy. Surface alternative? Mass transit? You’ve been here, how long, 12 years? Your head is still stuck in Philadelphia. Pull it out, man. Seattle isn’t Philadelphia. Seattle is a strip city running north-south (in case you haven’t noticed), and has only two north-south commuter and truck corridors (in case you haven’t noticed), which are already jammed with traffic (in case you haven’t noticed). To reiterate my previous comments on this crazy idea of dumping SR-99’s 110,000 vehicles per day onto downtown surface streets, those streets can’t even handle to downtown traffic now, let alone an additional 110,000 vehicles. And if you think downtown crosswalks are hazardous to pedestrians now, wait until you’ve stuffed 110,000 more rats into the already overcrowded cage of downtown surface streets. What the hell are you smoking.
Mass transit? Gimme a hopping break! Let’s reiterate geography: Seattle is a strip city. All mass transit goes to the downtown hub — and nowhere else. Given the expense of driving and the scarcity of downtown parking, everyone who can ride a bus is already riding a bus. Look at a park-and-ride lot sometime; you can’t even find parking in some park-and-ride lots (e.g., Northgate). People who drive instead of riding a bus put up with the expense of driving and the traffic hassles for a very good reason: Because they can’t get where they need to go by transit. For example, if you need to go from Ballard to Lake City, fuggedaboudit!!! It would take several transfers and half a day to get there, if it were possible at all. Mass transit in this city works for only one thing: Commuting from bedroom suburbs to downtown. And lots of people use it for that. But it doesn’t work at all for people whose jobs require them to move about in the city environs. and throwing more money at transit won’t solve that problem. People who use cars because they have to, will continue to have to, and will continue to use cars. And you think you can do AWV on the cheap by dumping them onto surface streets or trying to coerce them onto buses. Goldy, Goldy, Goldy! I like your Iraq occupation plan better. (Yes, I know you don’t have one, which is the point — in this case, no plan is preferable to YOUR plan.)
SR-99 is an essential arterial, and AWV needs to be replaced. We’ve got $2.8 billion in hand to rebuild it. We fought off a wingnut anti-tax initiative to hang onto that money. One of the arguments thrown in our faces was, “Why should taxpayers in eastern Washington subsidize a Seattle bridge?” Have you already forgotten how much time and effort we spent refuting that bullshit? Do you want to go through that again? That’s exactly what will happen if you let go of this money, and then have to go back to the Legislature with tin cup in hand after your pie-in-the-sky surface route scheme proves unworkable. Except next time the anti-roads crowd will say, “You’re not serious; we gave you the money and you spent it on something else.” And next time, it’ll stick, because this time their accusations will be true.
Quit screwing around and build the damn thing. Now.
520 should be the priority, if it closed traffic would be a nightmare on 405, 90, 5 and that little surface highway that goes around the top of Lake Washington.
A 4 lane tunnel makes sense since it will feed into a 4 lane tunnel at Battery St. The other lanes are just ramp extensions. What really needs to be done is treat the downtown system as a whole, and see what route is best for Port trucks, downtown bypass, and highway 99 commuters.
“Quit screwing around and build the damn thing!” is a common law trademark of Roger Rabbit Royalty Enterprises, Inc., and may not be copied, reproduced, republished, reused, or expropriated without the written permission of the CEO of RRRE, unless you want a rabbit foot in the breadbasket. Pay me money! I can always use more money!
@27 And you’re going to get money for a tunnel where? It would be easy if we had an answer to that, wouldn’t it? There wouldn’t even be a debate, they would already be digging! You must live in Bellevue.
TheMediaisLazy at 24 said: “To reduce congestion and encourage folks to live near where they work, maybe we should tax each employer (or employee) in the urban/suburban core based on the distance between residential address and work-place address for each employee.”
Unfortunately, I’ve found that selecting your residence based upon where you work is not viable, in the long term, unless you want to sell your house and relocate frequently (as if you were in the military). Most households have two workers these days (both spouses), and one or the other of them is going to be changing job locations every few years.
As for myself, I work in Everett and commute to Bellevue. But my wife works much closer to home. If I were to move to Bellevue, assuming I could find a way to afford it, my wife would just have to make the reverse commute, with no net savings.
I remember an acquantance of mine had a job at Boeing/Auburn, so he bought a home in Auburn. Then he was transferred to the Everett plant, and spent quite a long time (and money) commuting each day, until he sold his Auburn house and moved to Everett. He lost money on the sale – mortgage pre-payment penalties, real estate agent’s commissions, no appreciation, etc. But two months after moving to Everett, he got transferred again – to Boeing/Seattle. This time it took him two years before he sold his home in Everett, and purchased another one in West Seattle. A year later he was laid off from Boeing.
So that’s why I don’t think “living close to where you work” is a viable alternative in today’s economy. And requiring the employee or your employer to pay a tax based upon the length of your commute, would introduce an unwelcome prospect into the hiring decision process.
Rabbit sinks teeth into Goldy’s ass. Mark the day. At the risk of traidmark issues I agree with Roger, the city needs to cave. They ran out their own clock screwing around in a game of chicken but no one blinked.In fact it might be said that they screwed that chicken.
John @13.
The gameplan is for Seattle to pay the extra costs that come with building a tunnel – and the hybrid tunnel the governor rejected yesterday would cost $1.2 billion less than the gold platted model the state highway department tried to shove down Seattle’s throat.
Hybrid Tunnel: $3.4 billion Chopp Monstrosity (which will never be built): $2.8 billion.
Additional costs of tunnel for anyone living outside Seattle: Zero.
Of course no one who doesn’t live in Seattle ever goes there and just drives through anyway, right? And the only people who benefit from removing the blight of the current Viaduct are nearby developers? Good grief, there are still more jobs in downtown Seattle than anywhere else in the state and a whole lot of people will benefit when the Viaducts comes down.
The policy ought to be: build it right.
Next, what’s wrong with tolls? The original 520 bridge was paid for with tolls. Worked then, will work now. City and port taxes for 520, are you kidding? Seattleites don’t need the 520 bridge, so why should they pay for it? It doesn’t even go anywhere; 520 dead-ends. The only people who use it are people who live or work in Bellevue. Let Bellevue pay for it! If they don’t want to, they can buy a fleet of canoes as a less expensive alternative. Why the hell should we let go of our hard-won viaduct rebuild money to subsidize people in Bellevue, where incomes are higher and homes cost more? They’re living the good life, and we’re supposed to give up our most important arterial so they can get a freebie? I don’t freaking think so! Not on THIS rabbit’s dime! SCREW THAT!!!
Um, you’re wrong on several major precepts.
Go look up average house prices in Seattle and Bellevue. I’ll wait.
Hey, what do you know! They are very close to each other!
The idea that Seattle has affordable housing and Bellevue is yuppie heaven is just plain wrong. In fact (slipping into “the plural of anecdote is not data” mode, but that’s fun), while I couldn’t find affordable housing for purchase in Seattle, I DID find it… in… Bellevue. So did another family member of mine. Surprisingly, they have more affordable condo stock than Seattle does. (This is because Seattle has had a “OMGWTFBBQ MULTIFAMILY HOUSING AND DENSITY!!!! NOT IN MY BACKYARD, BUDDY!” mentality until fairly recently.)
You might also want to look at Bellevue’s demographics while you’re at it. I think you’ll find they have significant low-income and non-white populations.
Now, let’s also point out that a bunch of Seattle residents work in Bellevue/Redmond. There’s this small software company you might have heard of that makes operating systems and productivity software. So why do they get screwed? There’s no way you’re going to pay 3-4 billion for 520 strictly through tolling. Ain’t gonna happen. And like it or not, the reverse commute (work on Eastside, live on Westside) is a fact of life (in fact, it is WORSE than the live in Bellevue, work in Seattle commute, in my experience, as I’ve done both in my years living here).
Mass transit in this city works for only one thing: Commuting from bedroom suburbs to downtown. And lots of people use it for that. But it doesn’t work at all for people whose jobs require them to move about in the city environs.
Then we need to fix that. Again: mass transit makes crowded cities and urban spaces livable without using a car every day. See: New York, Philly, Chicago. If our transit system is broken for that, then FIX it. Road capacity does not fix that automatically.
FWIW, it’s quite possible to live on Capitol Hill or some other areas in Seattle and take transit to Microsoft.
Quit screwing around and build the damn thing. Now.
Now, after getting through arguing with you… I agree, somewhat. A gold-plated tunnel ain’t the answer (note that the Big Dig and Sound Transit have both had cost problems with their tunnels, and so did Metro’s bus tunnel, IIRC), and while I’m OPEN to the idea that you could maybe make a high-speed surface-street arterial ala 15th from Ballard to Magnolia to replace the Viaduct…I need to see some data that this would actually work before we throw away a bunch of capacity in a city that’s badly bottlenecked north-south. Roger’s right on that point. I think the viaduct AND 520 should be priorities, and the fact we’re in Sophie’s Choice mode is thanks to Tim Eyman and the usual Seattle dithering and obsession with process and consensus, where EVERYONE gets a veto and the buck stops nowhere.
The gameplan is for Seattle to pay the extra costs that come with building a tunnel – and the hybrid tunnel the governor rejected yesterday would cost $1.2 billion less than the gold platted model the state highway department tried to shove down Seattle’s throat.
The problem is that after the Sound Transit and Monorail fiascoes (both of which Mayor Nickels was involved in, I’ll add), having him show up at the last minute with a NEW plan that’s not been vetted by the State DOT and with ink still drying on the plan, once it’s been made clear that the previous tunnel plan was largely pie-in-the-sky… well, I understand where Governor Gregoire and the Legislature are coming from. They aren’t interested in sinking a few billion into ANOTHER Seattle project that goes sideways.
If Mayor Nickels and the Council had come up with this a year ago, and vetted it with DOT and Olympia since THEN, my guess is this would have worked. But I’d be pretty exasperated too if the answer I get out of Seattle to “What are you going to do with this 2.4 billion?” changed every week.
Et tu Rabbit? ( @26 )
1) SR99 is not a freeway. Only a small chunk of it going through Seattle is. Most of 99 runs at grade, traffic lights and all.
2) Much of the traffic on the AWV is generated by city drivers using it because it is there, not drivers heading N/S through the city. (The Battery St Tunnel is only 4 lanes. If the bulk of the traffic is N/S thru traffic, exactly why is a six-lane AWV so essential?)
3) If the AWV didn’t already exist, nobody in their right mind would suggest building it today.
4) Seattle cannot build itself out of its traffic problem. No city can.
5) If we build a surface street solution, and it really doesn’t work, we can always build a tunnel or viaduct later. In the meanwhile, we’ll have much of the surface improvements in place to handle traffic during the rebuild.
my God, I agree with the rabbit… I must be his GOOD twin adopted at birth:
“God I hate newspeak”: ME TOO… especially by smug metronaturals!
‘tolls’: YES
‘chaos on SanFranSeattle streets from 100,000 extra vehicles’: AGREED
Furthermore, what the hell will you do with the majority of those 100,000 that are freight? How much more will SanFranSeattle pay for goods and food to make up for the time drivers and crew spend fighting a city ALREADY overburdened with traffic?
mass transit: HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
Excellent idea, Goldy!
If Gregoire wants a quick victory, I’d say move that funding from 99 to 520 and break ground.
If the Viaduct is in such bad shape, let’s tear it down FIRST and see if we can live without it.
Let’s save our money for the rail tunnel we’ll be asked to build when our transportation experts finally realize that we can’t expand rail service as promised through the existing 102 year old tunnel that runs under the city.
In response to rhp6033 @30:
You live in Everett and work in Bellevue, which does NOT require a commute on 520 or the viaduct. My 520 target is the north and central Seattlites that work for the eastside software companies, but are too cool to live in Bellevue/Redmond/Kirkland. I just think folks ought to pick a side of the lake, or get taxed (toll or employer) to high heaven for cross-lake commutes. Maybe if more of these folks would move to the eastside, those burbs would become a little more hip. Another issue: Wouldn’t it be cheaper to shut down Key Arena than build the capacity to take the extra traffic? Maybe the Sonics want out of the Key before the viaduct and/or the 520 bridge gets torn down. We should tax the sh_t out of gas to pay for all of this. For the viaduct, it would be kinda odd to be tolled to drive from one neighborhood in a city to another neighborhood in the same city. Philosophically, that just seems kind of weird, especially since there is no crossing of water.
This is so fun to watch I can hardly keep from laughing myself silly!
Fat Bastard won’t budge on his Tunnel, but it is dead at any size because it always has been the wrong answer to the problem. He was just to damn dumb to realize it.
Gregorie won’t get a replacement viaduct because the city will mire that in permit hell.
So Seattle will see the viaduct torn down, and get it’s park
And everyone will live happily ever after without a Viaduct or Tunnel.
If you used the Viaduct. Ride a damn bike, or take transit.
In fact with the tax money you just saved hire a limo to take you! If you get stuck in traffic so what, party all night in the limo (still cheaper then a Tunnel Tax)
But didn’t we just get hit with a massive gas tax for the viaduct? Oh Yes, it was quite an emergency!
Bet we’ll get that refund in the mail soon…..Righttttttt
@35 “Goldy says: Et tu Rabbit? ( @26 )”
It’s important to my public credibility to not look like a rubberstamp, so I have to bite you once a year. You’re now safe until January 2008.
“1) SR99 is not a freeway.”
But the bottleneck section is, and it’s essential to traffice flow that section remain a freeway.
“2) Much of the traffic on the AWV is generated by city drivers using it because it is there”
Huh? Are you equating commuting with climbing Mount Everest? Of course they use it because it’s there … but that begs the question of what they would use if it wasn’t there. I would guess: Half on I-5, other half on surface streets, both of which would instantly become parking lots.
“(The Battery St Tunnel is only 4 lanes. If the bulk of the traffic is N/S thru traffic, exactly why is a six-lane AWV so essential?)”
Southbound, there’s a heavily-used exit just before the tunnel for traffic heading for Seattle Center or the north end of downtown. Northbound, there’re two exits, one in Pioneer Square, and another at Western Avenue for traffic heading for Seattle Center or the north end of downtown. All of these exits are heavily used, so there’s a significant amount of downtown-bound traffic using SR-99 from both directions. However, I would venture that 2/3rd to 3/4ths of the viaduct traffic is through. This traffic compresses at the tunnel, because it has to. There usually are slowdowns there. The fact traffic would flow better if Battery Street Tunnel had another lane in each direction is not a rationale for making the rest of SR-99 through downtown 4 lanes, too. Then, instead of 3,140 feet of traffic constriction, you’d have several miles of traffic constriction.
“3) If the AWV didn’t already exist, nobody in their right mind would suggest building it today.”
Nonsense! It was built because (a) it was needed even for 1950s traffic volumes (and sure as hell is still needed today), and (b) the elevated structure was most affordable and what the state/city could afford at the time (and alternatives to an elevated structure have not gotten more affordable since then).
“4) Seattle cannot build itself out of its traffic problem. No city can.”
But it can reverse-build itself into worse traffic problems.
“5) If we build a surface street solution, and it really doesn’t work, we can always build a tunnel or viaduct later. In the meanwhile, we’ll have much of the surface improvements in place to handle traffic during the rebuild.”
This option merely adds another 15 – 20 years of lead time to what you’re going to build anyway, plus an extra layer of expense, plus another 15 – 20 years of construction inflation. So why not just build the fucker now?
@36 There’s no chance in hell you’re anybody’s GOOD twin.
@39 Are you new here? This blog isn’t moderated or censored, and it’s unnecessary (and pretentious) to use * or _ when you want to say “shit.” A tough liberal crowd hangs out on HA, and given the recent revelation that local hayseeds fuck farm animals (http://tinyurl.com/b3cek), we’re not coy about calling them “pigfuckers.” We tell it like it is!
If your plan is to tax-the-shit-out-of-gas all over the state to pay for 520, I disagree. We made a deal with the pigfuckers that if they kicked in a nickel a gallon more to help pay for Seattle-area megaprojects, then (a) they’d get a share of 3,000 other transportation projects, (b) they would keep getting $125,000,000 a year of road subsidies from gas taxes paid by King County drivers. I don’t think we should renege that deal, because then we’d be welshers like Mark the Redneck.
On the other hand, if your plan is a tax-the-shit-out-of-gas local option gas tax, I like it! (A local sales tax on gas would do the same thing.) Through travelers and temporary visitors can avoid the tax by gassing up before coming into King County. It’ll be easy on retirees (who don’t drive much) and mass transit users. It’ll primarily hit vehicle commuters, who are precisely the people using the bridge, and generally speaking the most able to pay.
Or a combination of local gas tax and tolls. There’s nothing wrong with tolls! The existing bridge had toll booths until it was paid off in the ’70s. We’ve had free use of the paid-off bridge for 30 years, and back when it was paid off and the toll booths were torn down, nobody had a right to expect the bridge would last that long. There were never tolls on the I-90 bridge because it’s an interstate and was built largely with federal money. (It was hugely expensive, too; on a per-mile basis, one of the most expensive stretches of highway in the galaxy.) The Seattle-Bellevue commuter crowd has gotten spoiled by 30 years of free bridges. Nothing that good lasts forever.
Roger Rabbit @43:
I prefer to use a “*” or “_”, regardless of lack of moderation or censorship. I hope this doesn’t offend you.
Damn, you’re smart Roger.