Finally, some practical thinking

Forget tunnel, rebuild the viaduct

It's time to put aside dreams of replacing the Alaskan Way Viaduct with a tunnel and an open waterfront, a Seattle City councilman (David Della) says. City leaders need to face fiscal reality and rebuild the earthquake-damaged viaduct as it stands...

First-term councilmember challenges reputedly strong-arm Mayor's pet project to replace viaduct with tunnel. This is a very big local story. It's odd that our other local daily hasn't even mentioned it.

Comments

[Matt]

Nick Licata has been saying this for about 2 or 3 years, actually.

This is a big story, though - will Seattle resist Mayor Nickels' attempt to downplay the cost of a tunnel so he can break ground on our own version of Boston's Big Dig? Or the notion that 100,000+ cars per day will magically disappear on downtown's packed streets and a gridlocked I-5 if the Viaduct is torn down and not replaced?

Given a choice between screwing tens of thousands of Ballardites and West Seattle residents and "opening up the waterfront" for the cruise ship and condo crowd, I know which one I'd pick.

[Brian Miller]

I am not a Seattlite, but I would say living in the Bay Area it is mighty, mighty nice that the Embarcadero Freeway and the Central Freeway have come down. Even if a few trinket and tourist shops in Chinatown claim to have suffered.

[Steve]

I agree that replacing the Viaduct with a tunnel is silly. But I'm still trying to make up my mind whether rebuilding it is a good idea. I understand how not having a quick link to downtown screws West Seattlites. But I'm curious, Matt: how does tearing down the Viaduct screw Ballardites? Nobody's talking about tearing down Aurora from the Battery Street Tunnel northwards (that I've heard of, anyway).

[Matt]

Steve,

Because the Viaduct is by far the best way folks from the west side of the city (including Ballard, Interbay, Magnolia, Broadview, and a bunch of points north from Sunset Hills to Shoreline) to get anywhere south of downtown (and the reverse is equally true of West Seattle and numerous points south for northbound trips past downtown).

While a lot of Ballard traffic actually comes into downtown on 15th Ave West/Elliott Ave (which feeds directly onto the southbound Viaduct by Art Institute), with regard to Aurora Avenue - Mayor Nickels has been pushing a $200 million plan to lower Aurora Avenue north of the Battery Street Tunnel. The latest attempt to downplay the cost of the AWV Tunnel now proposes to defer this part of the project, but it's still included in all of the alternatives in the AWV EIS and the Mayor is still saying they'll move forward with it eventually.

The Aurora revisions are also inextricably intertwined with Paul Allen's $100 million scheme to reconfigure Mercer into a two-way boulevard (which includes closing Broad Street, and will make travel times longer according to the City's own analysis).

There's more to this boondoggle than meets the eye (and count on the lowball $4 billion estimate to increase by god only knows what order of magnitude if it's allowed to proceed)

[Greg Bartell]

I agree that the tunnel idea seems like a boondoggle that makes the monorail look like a bargain. I have come to trust Mayor Nickles as a someone who has his eye on the big picture, and is not afraid to be pragmatic or throw his weight around. I am thinking that the big picture is crowding out the pragmatic part on this one.
I read of an idea somewhere in the local media a while ago of a relatively inexpensive idea that gets rid of the viaduct and ties the city to the waterfront, yet moves traffic. The idea was a cable-stayed suspension bridge (a much longer verson of the 509 bridge in Tacoma, or the pedestrian overpass on Westlake ave). It would be maybe twice as high as the present viaduct, enabling the flow of traffic and views, high enough so noise would not be a big problem, and danged attractive in my view.
http://www.makingthemodernworld.org.uk/learning_modules/maths/02.TU.03/img/IM.1496_zl.jpg

I believe the DOT was quoted as saying (summarizing here) that it's too late for new ideas, we are just going to hash around the limited ones we have. Maybe we could get Paul Schell back for a good brainstorm session?