How do they pave that road to hell?

What attracts many in Seattle to support the "Viaduct tear-down" approach is that they feel we should Stop catering to cars. Of course that's the way anti-car people would put since it sounds a whole lot better than "stop catering to drivers."  But spin aside, here's the way The Stranger characterizes the tear-down approach:

...the current third option—which intends to move 30,000 of the 110,000 vehicles that currently use the Viaduct to transit options...(italics added)

It's that word intends which bothers me. There are no transit options now. The Mayor and City Council killed the monorail (for which the voters had actually had authorized real, hard $$$$) and so now there are no options for moving people through the viaduct corridor. Hand-waving will not move people.

I'd take the tear-down approach more seriously if it was associated with some basic facts about the nature of the trips on the Viaduct. Who is driving on it? Where are they coming from? and going to? How many Single Occupant Vehicles? All the standard origin-destination study items which traffic engineers already know. The tear-it-down folks would strengthen their case if they had facts and not just intentions.

While I'm dubious about the tear-down, I am even more dubious about the wisdom of the tunnel. I think others are as well. And because the Mayor is pushing forward a plan which promises only (no pun intended, through it's apt) a bottomless pit, it's inevitable that the political dialectic will propel, one way or another, the tear-down approach onto the fall ballot. I hope that the proponents are ready with more than hopes and dreams and good intentions. But they don't seem so ready right now. Unless they come up with something of a real plan, with specifics, they'd be better positioned if they were not on the ballot, (which is meaningless anyway,) so that they can maintain their dark-horse status.

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Welcome...to visitors from Sound Politics.

I've been posting quite a bit on the Viaduct. It's got all the makings of first class civic catastrophe; that is one thing on which probably everyone agrees. I have blogged on it here several dozen times at least. Use the Google search function (right hand column) to find more posts if you, too, find the Viaduct a compelling issue..

Comments

[Richard Layman]

I don't know Seattle at all, although I hope to visit for the 2007 Main Street national conference. Perhaps like the "Silver Line" in Boston (which has its problems and hasn't been laid out in a manner to fully realize its benefits) a truly useful bus rapid transit system could be developed in parallel with tearing down this freeway. (I'm big on reducing the number of freeways in cities.)

However, I'm not sure that Boston is a good example. Maybe Ontario's new York Rapid Transit system is a better mile, with "local" bus routes feeding into limited stop regional bus "rapid" transit lines.

However/2, I don't know anything about origin and destination data for the people traveling through this corridor, so it is possible that cost-effective transit options can't be developed.

Note that my strong strong preference is for rail-streetcars, but they are damn expensive, and BRT can work in North America, and it's a way to push the transit agenda forward and reduce our over-reliance on cars.

My two cents anyway.

[gene]

I love the sound of not catering to drivers. I don't think it sounds any worse than not catering to cars, so I have to disagree with your point.
My only possible problem with the tear-down approach is that I think it is unfair to make it a lot harder for people to drive without providing an alternative. And we really haven't done that in Seattle. But if the tear-down people can show that traffic could be reasonably accomodated through other means, then by all means we should tear the viaduct down. I think it is fine if makes traffic *a little* worse, because I do not think we should spend billions catering to drivers/cars. But if the tear-down makes things *much* worse, then I don't think it is a viable option.

[Matt]

OK, so when I go to work in an hour or so, my drive across the 1st Ave S bridge (or W. Marginal) to where the Viaduct starts at Spokane Street takes about 5 minutes (a few more if I miss the lights). Then it takes about 5-7 minutes from Spokane Street to where the Viaduct portals north of the Battery Street Tunnel. Another 5 minutes sees me across the Aurora Bridge, and it's about another 6 minutes or so to take the exit at 39th and get into the U-District. Total commute - 20 to 25 minutes if traffic is normal (during peak hours add 15 minutes).

Now, instead, let's say I take I-5. I drive across the 1st Ave S. bridge - still 5 minutes - but then it takes at least 5 minutes most days just to get from E. Marginal to the Corson/Michigan ramps for I-5. I then get on I-5, which takes at least 15 minutes to get from Corson to just north of the Convention Center - no matter what time of day it is, and at least 25 or more minutes during peak hours. It's then at least 10-15 minutes from there to the exit at 45th - and another 5-10 minutes just to get down 45th to Roosevelt, and another 2-5 minutes from that intersection to the Ave. Total time - about 40 minutes if I'm reasonably lucky, and a whole lot longer if I'm not. If the Express Lanes are open, subtract about 5 minutes because they let me off at 42nd (but a lot of the time gained is lost in the queue to actually get on them by Seneca).

Net difference - 20-30 minutes each way, every day. Multiply that by 5 and then by 52 and you're talking about real time, and anyone who wants to consign me and 100,000 other people like me to that so they can feel morally superior can pretty much FOAD.

Now, tear down the Viaduct and add a sizeable chunk of those 110,000 trips per day to an already congested I-5 and downtown streets. If you look at the various chunks of the route - you'll find the biggest time savings the Viaduct offers is in the stretch between about Spokane and Denny Avenues (and to the north, too - since the AWV flows a lot faster between the Battery Street Tunnel and about 65th than I-5 does).

You might be able to push some traffic onto streets like Airport Way and 4th Ave South between Spokane and Atlantic Streets, but it's just a clusterfuck from there to past downtown in the best of circumstances - and the People's Waterfront Coalition (well-intended though they are) cannot wish that inconvenient
fact away.

You know who drives (and/or rides) in cars? People - real people who don't necessarily have the option of pulling up stakes and moving into expensive housing closer to their (all-to-frequently rapidly changing) jobs.

As a daily AWV commuter, I'll happily take my chances on the existing structure, thank you very much.

[Mr. X]

BTW, while I haven't tried the entire route via Metro yet, I do know that the bus that runs by my house takes about 20 minutes to get downtown, as does the bus from downtown to the U-District. Even without any time to connect between the two, my commute time effectively doubles using public transportation (and, even with current gas prices, costs the same or a bit more than driving - not counting the comfort factor of having my own vehicle).

[Holly B]

Every commuter express bus between West Seattle and downtown Seattle takes the viaduct. I would ask people who want to tear down the structure and replace it with (to judge from their renderings) maybe half a dozen well-spaced cars and one slow-moving streetcar line for waterfront activities, where is all the mass transit capacity supposed to go? Keep in mind that West Seattle is never going to get a monorail line and it isn't anywhere near a station or transfer connection to Sound Transit's "regional" light rail line.

I attended a recent West Seattle neighborhood transportation forum sponsored by Mayor Greg Nickels and City Councilwoman Jan Drago, neither of whom attended. As expected, a twentysomething student from a teardown advocacy group proposed that West Seattle stop relying on automobiles to get downtown. Of course, a few minutes into his spiel, he accidentally confided that he himself wouldn't even think of owning a car except that he needs one to attend school.

[Jesse McCann]

Matt-- What are you going to do when the viaduct is closed for 3 or 4 years for reconstruction/tunneling? Will you live with that complicated commute for four years (or more) until the new viaduct or tunnel is completed?

Just wondering.

[Christopher Michael]

The problem is that the Mayor has lumped into either you can have the tunnel or you can have the bridge re-built. The studies on all this information should be done by them. Instead the mayor is trying to push a tunnel that will costs much more money in the end that the monorail that he helped kill.

Everyone who uses the viaduct now will have to find somewhere else to go for the 5 years it takes to rebuild/tunnel a new one. The idea for the tear it down crowd is that the billions could be better spent elsewhere. No matter how you look at it somebody needs to find a way to get those driver across and they need to figure it out before they close the Viaduct for 5 years.

[Matt]

Jesse,

Good question. Assuming one goes over the 1st Ave S Bridge, the options are 1st Ave S (presumably to I-5 via Atlantic, or through downtown to SR 99 off Battery Street, but that'll be incredibly congested). You can do similar things off 4th Ave S. and/or Airport Way, but those still put you on I-5 Northbound via Atlantic, 4th Ave, Dearborn, James, or University, which all involve downtown traffic to some degree.

One can also take East Marginal and stay on the lower Alaskan Way Roadway, and then get on I-5 via Atlantic/Royal Brougham, or continue up the waterfront to Broad, and then get to 99N from there. One could also cut over to Western from Alaskan Way and then go up through the Market, but that's probably even worse, especially if the AWV entrance is closed at the Battery Street Tunnel during that part of construction (Ballard and Magnolia traffic will be using the latter routes more than someone like me who will eventually be crossing to the east side of I-5, though).

A lot of the route I would ultimately choose would come out of trial and error observations of the routes other people are choosing - and then avoiding them.

I have some other ideas about a few other possible short cuts that may or not work better than the routes above, but I'm keeping those for myself in case this all really proves to be the nightmare I'm envisioning....

[Jesse McCann]

It would have been a tremendous help to have an elevated mass transit line running on the same route as the viaduct. That way the trips could be accomodated during the period of reconstruction when the viaduct was closed. It's too bad that no one thought of this.

It seems insane to me to cancel a mass transit project on such a troublesome corridor. The finance plan for the monorail was an exercise in conservative accounting when compared to the finance plan for the tunnel!

[Marc]

The monorail wasn't the answer, and removing the viaduct isn't a real option, either. Everyone worries about the commuters, but commuters only are on the viaduct about four hours a day and the rest of the time it's taken up with commercial traffic that can't get on a bus or the monorail. Estimates I've seen show that 70% of the traffic on the viaduct go straight through downtown, so the idea that these are central district commuters who would be equally served by mass transit misses one of the key benefits of the viaduct (without even dealing with the issue of how people would ever be able to get to Ballard or Magnolia without some sort of thoroughfare).

The biggest issue really isn't the viaduct itself, though, but that other than 99 and I-5 there are literally no viable alternatives for North-South traffic. "Tear it down!" arguments based on Portland and San Francisco neglect to mention that in both cities numerous alternatives exist. Portland has a downtown loop freeway, so moving the waterfront freeway a few blocks to the west and leaving the one on the Esplanade isn't remotely comparable, and in San Francisco the through traffic was never like it is on the viaduct.

If folks hadn't built the convention center over the top of I-5 so that it could be easily expanded, eliminating the viaduct would be a definite possibility. The idea that a city where virtually all of the commercial traffic starts south of downtown and half of it has to go north of downtown will see traffic "evaporate" if we just get rid of the freeway is wishful thinking.

[Peter]

What I "like" is the line that a tunnel will handle all the traffic the viaduct does. With a small, minor, trival exception: the commercial traffic handling cargoes prohibited from using such a tunnel. One estimate I heard was that 25% of the current cargo is of that nature. Where is that going to go?

The other issue remains the problem of service trucks and cars. Most of thsoe vehciel are single occupancy for the simple because it doesn't pay to send two people out to do one person's job. And I doubt that city transit is really going to work hauling a plumber's stock in trade to and from the worksite.

Seattle lives in a long vanished era, when traffic was light, the city was small, and limiting the interstate to two lanes through downtown seemed like a reasonable idea.