Everyone in Seattle should read this article.

A simple and cheap viaduct fix.

Read it carefully. The authors, Victor O. Gray and Neil H. Twelker, are extremely experienced engineers who believe that the existing viaduct can be retrofitted to make it safe.

Comments

[Matt]

This is the best option by far - shore the Viaduct up to survive the 30 year 6.5-7.0 earthquake we know will occur (instead of using fear of a 500 year event that may or may not), use the remaining funds to repair the seawall, and hopefully come up with some viable alternatives to driving in the meantime.

Unfortunately, the downtown development cabal and effete design snob community will probably never go for it.

Oh, and I'll bet the car haters who post here a nickel that people will still be driving personal automobiles in 50 years (but, hopefully, electric or hybrid ones that eliminate greenhouse gases and eliminate our dependence on oil).

[Randy Byers]

So is there some way to force the city to include this option in their/our considerations? I'd like to see this one and the tear down without replacement option added to the list of serious possibilities, along with the tunnel and the tear down and rebuild options.

How is the decision going to be made?

[David Sucher]

Randy,
I have no idea how the process works.

What I do know is that I attended a meeting some 18 months ago and Commissioner Davis of the Port said that the Port would NOT support studying the tear-down-without-replacement in the EIS process, which I thought was an odd stance, even though I believe that the results of such a study would NOT be favorable i.e.as I have written here, I am dubious that that option is practical but I think it ought to be studied, if only for the sake of completeness.

[Matt]

Not to be cynical, but I think the process works something like this. Money is running out for your multimillion dollar project EIS, so the City and Paul Allen pony up to keep studying the tunnel, and suddenly every option contains $200+ million in money to lower Aurora north of the Battery Street Tunnel because Paul Allen wants it, and the state DOT figures that they're gonna need his money to run election campaigns to fund the tunnel option.

OK, maybe I am cynical (I would add that Parsons/Brinkerhoff flat refused to even consider a retrofit in place, probably because it doesn't represent the 7-10 year gravy train that the tunnel or a new structure do).

[Sirkulat]

The People's Waterfront Coalition have the only real solution. Replacing the viaduct with either an elevated structure or a tunnel, to maintain current level of traffic, guarantees growth of traffic that will surely overrun all freeways and surface streets. Seattle should reduce its road capacity in conjunction with infill reconstruction of neighborhoods throughout the region. These then become places where needs can be met without always driving. Walking and bicycling become viable options as daily travel distances reduce. Mass transit can be more practically structured for local and regional needs.

Fat chance. Seattlers can't see beyond the video game windshield. Here's a better idea: require cars to be totally computer-controlled, with windows that display video screen images of passing scenic vistas while stuck in traffic or while in 'find parking place' mode. Require air purifiers that make interior air cleaner than outside air and spike the Starbucks with stultifying chemicals. Then, everyone will choose to live in their cars, always driving through a video-inhanced world. Now there's a future that WIRED and the Wall Street Journal can support!

[Gomez]

Oh, the myopic PWC plan that won't work without comprehensive mass transit.... been over that at The Stranger Forums. It's ahead of its time... because it's 20 years too soon to implement it. Implementing the no-highway option right now would cause an economic collapse in Seattle, as it would cripple downtown's economy due to the traffic; the clogged traffic would slow import and export trucks, and dissuade visitors from visiting the city. West Seattle would be completely fucked.

The plan assumes people will magically ditch their cars and embrace a new, beautiful waterfront... and ignores just about every real concrete factor out there in doing so. Plus, the 'it won't increase capacity' argument against replacing the viaduct is bunk: the idea is not to create extra capacity, but to replace a crumbling road that is one earthquake from fatal collapse. You're just maintaining the capacity so the city can continue to function at its current level. The city COULD survive a few years without it; having to survive into perpetuity without it would lead to an unseen economic collapse of Detroitian proportions.

David, the plan you mentioned, if it's viable, is, for the present time, probably the best and most cost effective of the bunch. Let's rebuild or retrofit the viaduct if we can, whatever we need to do, and then focus on building infrastructure to make it obsolete, before declaring it obsolete. Right now, people DO need the viaduct, yet there are people out there who stubbornly insist that we don't.

Yes, the monorail got shot down, but Link is going up, and if the progressives can focus on the big picture and focus on progress, perhaps we can help lay more groundwork on the table to develop more transit and get closer to a day where we won't need the viaduct anymore. That day, however, isn't here yet.