Seattle's Big Dig Dream Dies
robert cruickshank
crumbling Alaskan Way Viaduct - WA-99 - has been going on for about 6
years now (google some of my m.t.r. posts about it if you wish to see
the sordid details).
One of the options for the corridor, instead of a replacement viaduct
that the state already has fully funded, was a tunnel. Seattle's mayor,
Greg Nickels, was adamantly in favor of a six-lane tunnel to run from
roughly SoDo (near the Starbucks HQ, just south of the stadia) to the
extant 4-lane tunnel under Belltown. But the cost estimates on this
kept rising, with recent estimates at $6 billion.
Lately Nickels has pushed a "hybrid" option, which is basically a
4-lane tunnel. Governor Christine Gregoire told Seattle they could vote
on a tunnel or a viaduct, but that they'd have to fund a tunnel
themselves (and city has NO money to do this). Nickels felt he could
convince Sen. Patty Murray to kick in money, even though she repeatedly
told him this was a non-starter, that Congress was highly unlikely to
fund any Big Dig style project again.
Finally, today, a summit meeting was held in Olympia. Gov. Gregoire,
Mayor Nickels, and Legislative leaders such as Speaker Frank Chopp -
all liberal Democrats - tried to hash out a plan. The result:
http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/seattlepolitics/archives/110579.asp
Article:
After a two-and-half hour meeting with Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels and
legislative leaders, Gov. Chris Gregoire released the following
statement Wednesday:
"We all understand that we need to move forward. No action is not an
option. Mayor Nickels and the Seattle City Council Transportation Chair
Jan Drago believe the city could place a ballot before voters April 24
on a new hybrid tunnel design and hybrid finance plan.
"Legislative leaders, transportation chairs and the governor rejected
that timeline because it is beyond the scheduled legislative
adjournment. They are also concerned about the assumptions that have
not yet been validated by the Washington State Department of
Transportation.
"This leaves us with a very difficult decision, there are two remaining
options. Move forward with an elevated viaduct replacement or reprogram
funding to the 520 replacement project. We thank all parties for a very
candid discussion."
(end of quoted section)
So there you have it. The tunnel is dead.
But what will happen now? Ah, that remains to be seen. The last
paragraph suggests two options - either the viaduct rebuild will
happen, or it won't and the $2 billion set aside will go to replacing
the 520 bridge.
In several posts over the last 2 years on this issue I predicted that
in the end nothing would be rebuilt - the viaduct would be torn down
and the money redirected to projects that serve more regional
interests, whereas the viaduct - rightly or wrongly - is often seen as
a Seattle-only matter.
I am now more certain than ever that is going to be the outcome. Many
Seattleites, including the mayor and his developer friends, are
adamantly opposed to a new viaduct. They want the structure gone, the
waterfront views opened up. Downtown interests have threatened numerous
lawsuits if a viaduct rebuild goes ahead. This would make Gov. Gregoire
look bad ahead of a 2008 reelection campaign, hence her desire to
settle this matter and settle it in this legislative session.
At the same time more and more people are pointing out that if the
viaduct is rebuilt, the old one will have to be torn down and traffic
will have to be rerouted anyway - so why not make that rerouting
permanent?
No, I think the political constellation is pointing in one direction -
that $2 billion will go to the 520 bridge, and there will be a symbolic
groundbreaking on that project in September 2008.
The Stranger's blog has some good posts by Josh Feit and Erica C.
Barnett on this:
http://www.thestranger.com/blog/
Where Erica notes the four-lane tunnel is on life support. I'm fairly
certain it is deceased. The city council won't hold a vote, there's no
money. And since Nickels doesn't want to see massive lawsuits, he'll
have no choice but to go along. Gregoire and the Olympia Democrats are
playing hardball, and they will win.
My thoughts: this is a very good development. I believe the viaduct is
a hazard and should be torn down. It should not be rebuilt and instead
an Embarcadero-style boulevard should replace it. Instead Seattle has
to get even more serious about building alternative transportation
options.
But, there you have it. Seattle's Big Dig is dead.
-Robert
Tom Stoeckle
surface level boulevard that runs between Alaskan way and Western?
"robert cruickshank" <shan...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1169098311.0...@a75g2000cwd.googlegroups.com...
Jonathan
robert cruickshank wrote:
>
> My thoughts: this is a very good development. I believe the viaduct is
> a hazard and should be torn down.
The post-earthquake viaduct is officially the most frightening road
I've ever driven on, narrowly edging out I-710 in Long Beach.
> It should not be rebuilt and instead
> an Embarcadero-style boulevard should replace it.
Pardon my lanugage being strong here (not profane, mind you, and this
is not a flame, but I have some pretty strong opinions on the topic)--I
find this idea to be completely insane. And this is coming from
someone on the Eastside who uses the Viaduct infrequently enough that I
can count the number of times I use it per year on one hand.
Dumping another 80,000-100,000 cars per day onto the West Seattle
Freeway and I-5 downtown will make I-5 gridlock a day-long, not daily
occurrence, a problem we already can't do anything about thanks to
Seattle's Politburo deciding the best place for the Convention Center
was over the freeway itself. Given the usage of AWV as a through route
and as a freight corridor, there's no way transit will take away all
these trips. Not to mention the tunnel chews up billions of dollars
that could otherwise be used to replace the rest of the seawall (every
tunnel options I saw only replaced about half of it). The rest of it's
not aging well itself.
The ironic thing is if Seattle had been pushing an eight-lane tunnel
I'd have been willing to pay out the nose for it. But the various six
lane options thrown out for discussion convinced me that the tunnel was
more about the vanity of Greg Nickels and the Seattle City Council than
insightful, or even half-assed planning. Their sudden insistence that
a four-lane tunnel could fill all our needs instead just convinces me
that their planning ideals stem from ideology, not reality. How about a
four-lane viaduct? That'd fit in the existing footprint and be even
cheaper than a four-lane tunnel, but not a peep of something like that
from Nickels et al...
The Alaskan Way Viaduct is not the Embarcadero Freeway, and Seattle is
shooting itself in the foot for decades if they decided to equate the
two, just like they're shooting themselves in the foot with the
preferred 520 plan.
-Jonathan
rte6...@gmail.com
> robert cruickshank wrote:
> >
> > My thoughts: this is a very good development. I believe the viaduct is
> > a hazard and should be torn down.
>
Jonathan wrote:
> The Alaskan Way Viaduct is not the Embarcadero Freeway, and Seattle is
> shooting itself in the foot for decades if they decided to equate the
> two, just like they're shooting themselves in the foot with the
> preferred 520 plan.
Why not look at an open trench freeway like OKC is building to replace
the I40 Crosstown viaduct? Sure, there are more aesthetic choices and
everyone here (seems to) prefer a tunnel.
rte66man
robert cruickshank
Jonathan wrote:
> robert cruickshank wrote:
> >
> > My thoughts: this is a very good development. I believe the viaduct is
> > a hazard and should be torn down.
>
> The post-earthquake viaduct is officially the most frightening road
> I've ever driven on, narrowly edging out I-710 in Long Beach.
>
> > It should not be rebuilt and instead
> > an Embarcadero-style boulevard should replace it.
>
> Pardon my lanugage being strong here (not profane, mind you, and this
> is not a flame, but I have some pretty strong opinions on the topic)--I
> find this idea to be completely insane. And this is coming from
> someone on the Eastside who uses the Viaduct infrequently enough that I
> can count the number of times I use it per year on one hand.
I use it more often than that, and I'm fairly certain it can work.
> Dumping another 80,000-100,000 cars per day onto the West Seattle
> Freeway and I-5 downtown will make I-5 gridlock a day-long, not daily
> occurrence, a problem we already can't do anything about thanks to
> Seattle's Politburo deciding the best place for the Convention Center
> was over the freeway itself.
There are expert opinions that claim WSDOT's traffic counts for the
viaduct are flawed and inflated:
http://www.thestranger.com/blog/2006/11/viaduct_numbers_infl
> Given the usage of AWV as a through route
> and as a freight corridor, there's no way transit will take away all
> these trips. Not to mention the tunnel chews up billions of dollars
> that could otherwise be used to replace the rest of the seawall (every
> tunnel options I saw only replaced about half of it). The rest of it's
> not aging well itself.
The problem is that people are going to have to use I-5 and other
options to commute north-south through the downtown core already, and
possibly for several years, if a replacement viaduct is built. So that
traffic onslaught WILL happen one way or the other. It's unavoidable.
But there are possibilities of mitigating it, plans that do exist.
I happen to believe that an boulevard parallel to the extant Alaskan
Way would be best. It would have only a few intersections - note that
already only a few streets go through from downtown to the waterfront -
and could likely use pedestrian overpasses or underpasses to keep
people off the boulevard. If you had a small number of stoplights, the
road would behave much like Aurora Ave north of Green Lake, and people
still use that as a major commuting corridor.
I recognize that the through route aspect of the Viaduct corridor does
make it somewhat different from SF's Embarcadero, but I am not
convinced the difference is all that stark.
> The ironic thing is if Seattle had been pushing an eight-lane tunnel
> I'd have been willing to pay out the nose for it.
And I was willing to pay out the nose for the Monorail, but I was
overruled by the rest of the city, just as you would have been.
> But the various six
> lane options thrown out for discussion convinced me that the tunnel was
> more about the vanity of Greg Nickels and the Seattle City Council than
> insightful, or even half-assed planning. Their sudden insistence that
> a four-lane tunnel could fill all our needs instead just convinces me
> that their planning ideals stem from ideology, not reality.
Greg Nickels is a distinctly unideological person. It's not about
vanity, it's about downtown developers telling the Mayor and the
Council they will not stand for another viaduct.
> How about a
> four-lane viaduct? That'd fit in the existing footprint and be even
> cheaper than a four-lane tunnel, but not a peep of something like that
> from Nickels et al...
I believe that's what Speaker Frank Chopp, also from Seattle, wants. It
may well happen, but my sense is he'll see the benefit to letting
Seattle get a boulevard and he and the other Olympia Dems getting
plaudits from Puget Sound voters for redirecting the money to the
widely popular 520 replacement.
> The Alaskan Way Viaduct is not the Embarcadero Freeway, and Seattle is
> shooting itself in the foot for decades if they decided to equate the
> two, just like they're shooting themselves in the foot with the
> preferred 520 plan.
I don't see how they're shooting themselves in the foot with the 520
plan. The truly important cross-lake project will be light rail down
I-90 to Bellevue and Redmond. A new 520 bridge will have a carpool lane
- so some added capacity - and it will prove popular on both sides of
Lake Washington. The only hitches are planning the joint construction
of the Pacific Interchange with light rail to Husky Stadium (they'd
both be building on the same spot at nearly the same time) and the
whiny homeowners in Montlake. But a few spoiled brats in Montlake won't
be able to stop the 520 project.
Seattle will look back 20 years from now and be happy they tore down
the Viaduct, just as San Franciscans look back from 15 years' distance
and are happy the Embarcadero came down. Though I again recognize the
two are not exact parallels, their similarities are strong enough that
I think a surface boulevard is both the right option and the only one
that has a political future.
-Robert
Sherman L. Cahal
> Jonathan wrote:
> The problem is that people are going to have to use I-5 and other
> options to commute north-south through the downtown core already, and
> possibly for several years, if a replacement viaduct is built. So that
> traffic onslaught WILL happen one way or the other. It's unavoidable.
> But there are possibilities of mitigating it, plans that do exist.
Increasing mass-transit usage will greatly mitigate the effect of a
closed north-south artery. The era of building new highways through
urbanised areas is pretty much dead.
> I happen to believe that an boulevard parallel to the extant Alaskan
> Way would be best. It would have only a few intersections - note that
> already only a few streets go through from downtown to the waterfront -
> and could likely use pedestrian overpasses or underpasses to keep
> people off the boulevard. If you had a small number of stoplights, the
> road would behave much like Aurora Ave north of Green Lake, and people
> still use that as a major commuting corridor.
One constructed similar to the West Side Highway in New York City would
be quite nice. Three to four-lanes of through traffic, with turning
bays would adequately handle traffic except, perhaps, at the core rush
hour times (two or three hours per day). Wide multi-use sidewalks and
paths for bicyclists and pedestrians on both sides, separated by
decorated, raised planters would create a nice visual divide between
automobiles and the pedestrians. A raised planter for the median strip
would be nice as well. This would also have the effect of keeping
pedestrians from jay-walking, and crossing only at designated
crosswalks.
> > The ironic thing is if Seattle had been pushing an eight-lane tunnel
> > I'd have been willing to pay out the nose for it.
>
> And I was willing to pay out the nose for the Monorail, but I was
> overruled by the rest of the city, just as you would have been.
As studied in my economic theory course, automobile traffic in
urbanised areas is the least efficent method for moving large amounts
of people. Light-rail/monorail are quite efficent, on the other hand.
> > How about a
> > four-lane viaduct? That'd fit in the existing footprint and be even
> > cheaper than a four-lane tunnel, but not a peep of something like that
> > from Nickels et al...
>
> I believe that's what Speaker Frank Chopp, also from Seattle, wants. It
> may well happen, but my sense is he'll see the benefit to letting
> Seattle get a boulevard and he and the other Olympia Dems getting
> plaudits from Puget Sound voters for redirecting the money to the
> widely popular 520 replacement.
Wait, Jonathan is advocating for a four-lane (two-lanes in each
direction, I assume is what you mean) viaduct versus a six or
eight-lane boulevard? A six/eight-lane boulevard would handle more
traffic, and access points could still be controlled.
> Seattle will look back 20 years from now and be happy they tore down
> the Viaduct, just as San Franciscans look back from 15 years' distance
> and are happy the Embarcadero came down. Though I again recognize the
> two are not exact parallels, their similarities are strong enough that
> I think a surface boulevard is both the right option and the only one
> that has a political future.
Besides the transportation bonuses I listed above, it would open up
views for new high-rise developments. The demolition of San Francisco's
viaduct along the waterfront opened up prime real-estate, much like
what the demolition of the West Side Highway viaduct did for the
ghetto-warehouse district on the west side. Louisville's 8664 plan is
also very similar.
Chris Bessert
>
> Wait, Jonathan is advocating for a four-lane (two-lanes in each
> direction, I assume is what you mean) viaduct versus a six or
> eight-lane boulevard? A six/eight-lane boulevard would handle more
> traffic, and access points could still be controlled.
Can a six-lane boulevard -- with traffic signals and a matching
speed limit to boot -- move more traffic more efficiently than a
four-lane freeway in a tunnel? I dunno -- I'm asking.
I'm not saying let's build freeways everywhere, but the problem is you
may have less throughput with a surface boulevard than with a freeway
(elevated, in a tunnel or wherever) and those cars will have to go
somewhere. I wholeheartedly wish that all those extra motorists would
simply abandon their vehicles and hop on the nearest bus or other mode
of mass transit that may be available, but that would be deluding
yourself.
And then you have all the commercial/freight traffic that cannot use
the "mass transit" solution -- where do they go? I work alongside
realistic transportation planners and have had many discussions with
them on these and related topics. They, unfortunately, have to plan
for reality and with the money that is budgeted and cannot "hope"
that a major portion of existing commuters and other motorists will
simply hang up their car keys and hop the bus. They know full well
that if you take fifty percent of the capacity out of a corridor, there
is no chance in hell there will be a corresponding fifty percent drop
in the number of vehicle trips in that same corridor.
Again, I'd LOVE to see all the hulking, decaying and "view-blocking"
urban elevated freeways torn down. SF's Embarcadero is a great place
in and of itself, but all the cities across the country are not San
Francisco and all the hulking urban freeways are NOT the Embarcadero.
Other than, say, Milwaukee's Park East Freeway and a few other odd
examples, many of these roadways are part of a major network of through
highways that carry more than just traffic trying to access downtown.
Tear down the Embarcaderos and the Park Easts, but not every ugly urban
freeway from the 50s and 60s *IS* an Embarcadero or a Park East. Just
like buses, roads and streets are part of an integrated network that
needs to be balanced for things to work out. When you throw off that
balance by removing a linchpin in that system, you'd better cross your
fingers and hope it all works out in the end. Unfortunately, transpor-
tation planners and their kind can't just cross their fingers -- they
have to figure out where all those vehicles are going to go, even
after estimating/guessing that some of them will remain parked at
home and their drivers will board a bus instead...
Later,
Chris
--
Chris Bessert
Bess...@aol.com
http://www.michiganhighways.org
http://www.wisconsinhighways.org
http://www.ontariohighways.org
Scott M. Kozel
>
> Can a six-lane boulevard -- with traffic signals and a matching
> speed limit to boot -- move more traffic more efficiently than a
> four-lane freeway in a tunnel? I dunno -- I'm asking.
Negative. It would take 10 lanes of nonlimited-access roadway to equal
4 lanes of freeway, in terms of capacity.
--
Scott M. Kozel Highway and Transportation History Websites
Virginia/Maryland/Washington, D.C. http://www.roadstothefuture.com
Philadelphia and Delaware Valley http://www.pennways.com
Sherman L. Cahal
> Chris Bessert wrote:
> >
> > Can a six-lane boulevard -- with traffic signals and a matching
> > speed limit to boot -- move more traffic more efficiently than a
> > four-lane freeway in a tunnel? I dunno -- I'm asking.
>
> Negative. It would take 10 lanes of nonlimited-access roadway to equal
> 4 lanes of freeway, in terms of capacity.
Well, you are not going to achieve LOS A-B on an urban boulebard, no
matter how hard you try. Nor are you going to achieve that with a
freeway. With freeways, you have jams at interchanges and free-flowing
speeds on a four-lane tunnel/viaduct can be slowed. (Unsure on how long
the tunnel would extend, so I am assuming interchanges at both ends.)
As demonstrated by NYC's and SF's example, it can be done as drivers
will simply adjust to the changes. They must - the viaduct will be torn
down and replaced with _something_, forcing everyone to use alternate
routes or alternate modes of travel.
Whichever option works best, I'm sure it will be better than that hated
viaduct.
Jonathan
Sherman L. Cahal wrote:
> robert cruickshank wrote:
> > Jonathan wrote:
> > > How about a
> > > four-lane viaduct? That'd fit in the existing footprint and be even
> > > cheaper than a four-lane tunnel, but not a peep of something like that
> > > from Nickels et al...
> >
> > I believe that's what Speaker Frank Chopp, also from Seattle, wants. It
> > may well happen, but my sense is he'll see the benefit to letting
> > Seattle get a boulevard and he and the other Olympia Dems getting
> > plaudits from Puget Sound voters for redirecting the money to the
> > widely popular 520 replacement.
>
> Wait, Jonathan is advocating for a four-lane (two-lanes in each
> direction, I assume is what you mean) viaduct versus a six or
> eight-lane boulevard? A six/eight-lane boulevard would handle more
> traffic, and access points could still be controlled.
No, I am advocating the 6-lane viaduct rebuild. My comment about "why
is there no 4-lane vidauct option if the 4-lane hybird is such a
winner" was a snotty remark about the Mayor and City Council's
selective vision when "discussing" alternatives. Any 4-lane option
wouldn't work at all IMO.
The tunnel was a great idea when funding it was practical, but the
ever-famous Seattle process has delayed this project to a point where
even estimated costs for any option are spiraling out of control. At
that point fiscal concerns start to come into play, particularly when
you consider the other projects on the table--520, light rail projects
competing for similar dollars, and looking to the future, replacements
for the Spokane St. Viaduct and 15th Ave. bridges.
> Besides the transportation bonuses I listed above, it would open up
> views for new high-rise developments. The demolition of San Francisco's
> viaduct along the waterfront opened up prime real-estate, much like
> what the demolition of the West Side Highway viaduct did for the
> ghetto-warehouse district on the west side. Louisville's 8664 plan is
> also very similar.
The ROW for the viaduct, topographically speaking, is not exactly prime
real estate for building (as someone else mentions in this thread).
Neither does it wall off your views of the waterfront, due to the steep
grade of downtown, unless you happen to be standing two feet to the
east of one of the support columns.
-Jonathan
Jonathan
robert cruickshank wrote:
>
> > Dumping another 80,000-100,000 cars per day onto the West Seattle
> > Freeway and I-5 downtown will make I-5 gridlock a day-long, not daily
> > occurrence, a problem we already can't do anything about thanks to
> > Seattle's Politburo deciding the best place for the Convention Center
> > was over the freeway itself.
>
> There are expert opinions that claim WSDOT's traffic counts for the
> viaduct are flawed and inflated:
>
> http://www.thestranger.com/blog/2006/11/viaduct_numbers_infl
Yes, I read that article when it came out in the print version of The
Stranger, which is why I said 80,000-100,000 cars per day, depending on
how inaccurate the sensors are. I did remember the low estimate of
74,700 incorrectly, so thanks for posting the link.
>
> > Given the usage of AWV as a through route
> > and as a freight corridor, there's no way transit will take away all
> > these trips. Not to mention the tunnel chews up billions of dollars
> > that could otherwise be used to replace the rest of the seawall (every
> > tunnel options I saw only replaced about half of it). The rest of it's
> > not aging well itself.
>
> The problem is that people are going to have to use I-5 and other
> options to commute north-south through the downtown core already, and
> possibly for several years, if a replacement viaduct is built. So that
> traffic onslaught WILL happen one way or the other. It's unavoidable.
> But there are possibilities of mitigating it, plans that do exist.
I was at the last walking tour WSDOT gave during the semi-annual
Viaduct inspection weekend (because it's fun to walk on the freeway if
and only if there are no cars heading your way at 55+ MPH. ;) One of
the things they discussed was scheduling options for construction and
it's possible to minimize the period where the viaduct is totally
closed to six months (their worst case presented was 3+ years). Even
so, there's a major difference between 3 years of pain and a permanent
relocation of traffic to other roads.
Or, by the same logic: Seattle's bus transit is managing to run without
the use of the bus tunnel, therefore we don't need to bother putting
buses back in the tunnel when the light rail modifications are done. (I
personally wouldn't say that.)
> I recognize that the through route aspect of the Viaduct corridor does
> make it somewhat different from SF's Embarcadero, but I am not
> convinced the difference is all that stark.
The Embarcadero was a glorified offramp. And it *still* dumped all its
traffic on city streets when it closed. It was also monumentally ugly,
much more so than AWV (itself a great example of the Early Municipal
Parking Garage school of architecture). AWV actually goes somewhere,
which is why I do use it on occasion.
>
> > The ironic thing is if Seattle had been pushing an eight-lane tunnel
> > I'd have been willing to pay out the nose for it.
>
> And I was willing to pay out the nose for the Monorail, but I was
> overruled by the rest of the city, just as you would have been.
I'm not saying what the collective people would have decided here, I'm
saying what would have gotten me on board for a tunnel, even after the
spike in construction costs.
What's really sad is tunnel could have been a done deal and under
construction now.
> > But the various six
> > lane options thrown out for discussion convinced me that the tunnel was
> > more about the vanity of Greg Nickels and the Seattle City Council than
> > insightful, or even half-assed planning. Their sudden insistence that
> > a four-lane tunnel could fill all our needs instead just convinces me
> > that their planning ideals stem from ideology, not reality.
>
> Greg Nickels is a distinctly unideological person. It's not about
> vanity, it's about downtown developers telling the Mayor and the
> Council they will not stand for another viaduct.
Every other word out of Nickels' mouth is about how Seattle needs to
make it harder for people to drive a car--that's not ideology? But
either way, downtown developers shouldn't be the ones calling the shots
on road planning, especially for highways of state importance and
*especially* if they're also balking at the prospect of paying a little
more to get their way. The Mayor hasn't ever really had stakeholders
on board for local taxes to make up the funding shortfall, just a few
lofty words.
And it's ironic, considering the local government very deliberately
decided that Seattle residents shouldn't get to decide for themselves.
Any chance that's due to the fact that their coveted tunnel isn't
polling ahead anymore?
> > How about a
> > four-lane viaduct? That'd fit in the existing footprint and be even
> > cheaper than a four-lane tunnel, but not a peep of something like that
> > from Nickels et al...
>
> I believe that's what Speaker Frank Chopp, also from Seattle, wants. It
> may well happen, but my sense is he'll see the benefit to letting
> Seattle get a boulevard and he and the other Olympia Dems getting
> plaudits from Puget Sound voters for redirecting the money to the
> widely popular 520 replacement.
Well, the four-lane viaduct was me being sarcastic, I didn't know
someone had actually suggested it (I guess it's inevitable as the
tunnel options become less likely).
>
> > The Alaskan Way Viaduct is not the Embarcadero Freeway, and Seattle is
> > shooting itself in the foot for decades if they decided to equate the
> > two, just like they're shooting themselves in the foot with the
> > preferred 520 plan.
>
> I don't see how they're shooting themselves in the foot with the 520
> plan.
We are getting an unexpandable bridge (save for striping the shoulders
away and making it as dangerous to drivers as the current bridge is)
with a 50-year lifespan using 20-year projections that are likely to be
too low.
> The truly important cross-lake project will be light rail down
> I-90 to Bellevue and Redmond. A new 520 bridge will have a carpool lane
> - so some added capacity - and it will prove popular on both sides of
> Lake Washington.
While extending the HOV lane is a good thing, it does absolutely
nothing to relieve general-purpose capacity problems and if you don't
think that's becoming a problem already, just wait until 2030.
*first part of sentence snipped*
> and the
> whiny homeowners in Montlake.
We definitely agree on at least one point here. :) There's also a
number of whiny people in Hunt's Point and Medina who knew when they
bought their houses that there was a freeway there and that it might
just need expansion one day.
> Seattle will look back 20 years from now and be happy they tore down
> the Viaduct, just as San Franciscans look back from 15 years' distance
> and are happy the Embarcadero came down. Though I again recognize the
> two are not exact parallels, their similarities are strong enough that
> I think a surface boulevard is both the right option and the only one
> that has a political future.
But I think we're always going to disagree on this. ;)
-Jonathan
Clark F Morris
wrote:
All travel choices are a matter of trade-offs. If the LRT / express
bus / Sounder train turns out on net to be better than driving, then
people will take it. Removing the Seattle viaduct will change the
trade off for at least some commuters provided they were using the
viaduct to reach a destination that is also reachable by public
transit. Improvements planned for the BNSF lines may take some truck
traffic off the roads (this is a long shot). Since the viaduct would
be out of commission for x number of years under any replacement plan
except the tunnel, I suspect the Seattle citizens and through
travelers will find out. It also would be interesting to see what
effect widening any routes that bypass Seattle would have on the
situation.
>
>Later,
>Chris
Chris Bessert
>
> All travel choices are a matter of trade-offs. If the LRT / express
> bus / Sounder train turns out on net to be better than driving, then
> people will take it.
Well, only that segment of people who live near where the LRT/ express
but / Sounder train goes, though. One of the reasons why personal
vehicles are the popular mode of transportation in our society is
that our society has spread out so much away from traditional "corri-
dors" that would make light rail or other fixed-route mass transit
options so desirable. The "downtown-suburb" commute is *much* more
diluted today than it was 40 or 50 years ago. There are suburb-to-
suburb commutes, commutes *through* downtown from a suburb, say,
south of downtown to one north of it, and any other type of commute
imaginable.
North Americans have relied on the personal vehicle for commuting and
general transportation so much that our whole society has changed to
match our vehicle usage. That is one of the major problems the trans-
portation planners in my metropolitan area are facing: should we
implement light rail and, if so, where the heck to we even put it so
that it serves the largest amount of people and makes the most sig-
nificant impact. Knowing how dispersed our travel patterns are --
along with that how dispersed our employment, shopping and residen-
tial sites are -- such fixed mass-transit options are VERY difficult
to implement in many cities and their impact on congestion is also
diluted.
> Removing the Seattle viaduct will change the
> trade off for at least some commuters provided they were using the
> viaduct to reach a destination that is also reachable by public
> transit.
Indeed, but one of my points is what about everyone else? All those
non suburb/neighborhood-to-downtown commuters for whom such fixed or
relatively-fixed route mass transit wouldn't work? Why take three
hours on six bus routes and still have to take a cab the rest of the
way to your destination when you can drive there in 25 minutes, in-
cluding the congestion?
The part of your sentence, "to reach a destination that is also
reachable by public transit" is key. It would be a very interesting
exercise to map out all such destinations in a metropolitan area,
such as shopping, recreation, places which employ more than 20
people, etc., etc., and then overlay mass transit routes and stops,
then see which of those destinations are within walking distance
of those mass transit options. Once you do that, you'll see why our
culture is so enamored with the private vehicle in many of our major
metropolitan areas... and why removing various lynchpins in the
transportation system (Seattle's Alaskan Way viaduct, Louisville's
I-64, etc.) without replacing them with suitable alternatives --
whatever those alternatives may be -- isn't a good idea.
> Improvements planned for the BNSF lines may take some truck
> traffic off the roads (this is a long shot).
I would say that hoping that the railroad companies can take enough
freight off this one corridor is, indeed, a very long shot. Freight
by rail in the U.S. is more of a long-haul option, not one to just
get the stuff from south of downtown to north of downtown...
> Since the viaduct would
> be out of commission for x number of years under any replacement plan
> except the tunnel, I suspect the Seattle citizens and through
> travelers will find out.
I agree. I would worry what detrimental side-effects such a project or
removal would bring as well. Too often, people tend to concentrate on
certain positive side effects, ignoring the negative ones. A balanced
look at ALL effects is necessary, but all-too-often not honestly done.
> It also would be interesting to see what
> effect widening any routes that bypass Seattle would have on the
> situation.
While that may bring certain positives (see my previous note above),
those who would lament the continued sprawl that widened highways would
"bring" to the suburbs would point out the negative side effects this
would have on the central city. Removing the viaduct and widening the
bypass route would bring better views of the waterfront to downtown,
but make it more difficult to move into/through downtown, while a
widened bypass would make travel to and through those areas much more
pleasant and efficient.
Later,
Chris
--
Christopher Bessert
REGIS GIS Support Specialist
40 Pearl St NW, Suite 410
Grand Rapids, Michigan 49503
(616) 776-7616
(616) 774-9292 FAX
bess...@gvmc.org
http://www.gvmc-regis.org
Sherman L. Cahal
> Clark F Morris wrote:
> North Americans have relied on the personal vehicle for commuting and
> general transportation so much that our whole society has changed to
> match our vehicle usage. That is one of the major problems the trans-
> portation planners in my metropolitan area are facing: should we
> implement light rail and, if so, where the heck to we even put it so
> that it serves the largest amount of people and makes the most sig-
> nificant impact. Knowing how dispersed our travel patterns are --
> along with that how dispersed our employment, shopping and residen-
> tial sites are -- such fixed mass-transit options are VERY difficult
> to implement in many cities and their impact on congestion is also
> diluted.
That is true, sadly. Bus transportation routes are often hard to
implement and harder to gain high ridership for this very reason: there
is no one central destination anymore. Although the vast majority work
in the downtowns in major cities, a considerable amount work near
highway interchanges where the zoning is often much denser.
> > Improvements planned for the BNSF lines may take some truck
> > traffic off the roads (this is a long shot).
>
> I would say that hoping that the railroad companies can take enough
> freight off this one corridor is, indeed, a very long shot. Freight
> by rail in the U.S. is more of a long-haul option, not one to just
> get the stuff from south of downtown to north of downtown...
Well, Washington DOT is also in the job of improving and building new
rail corridors, something many other state DOT's cannot manage because
of antiquated state laws (like Ohio DOT). Perhaps the BNSF lines could
be upgraded. At any rate, with a rebuild, wouldn't major shifts be
required?
> > It also would be interesting to see what
> > effect widening any routes that bypass Seattle would have on the
> > situation.
>
> While that may bring certain positives (see my previous note above),
> those who would lament the continued sprawl that widened highways would
> "bring" to the suburbs would point out the negative side effects this
> would have on the central city. Removing the viaduct and widening the
> bypass route would bring better views of the waterfront to downtown,
> but make it more difficult to move into/through downtown, while a
> widened bypass would make travel to and through those areas much more
> pleasant and efficient.
Well, there should be seven to nine years for commuters to adjust
(IIRC). During that time, new transit options could be unveiled, and
commuters may start choosing other, less convenient/speedy routes to
work. It'll take time and no one is throughly prepared to say just how
much it will be affected since it is so long-term.
HoustonFreeways
recently died after 10+ years of study and actually going out to bid. Cost
issues were the killer even though the cost, around $1.5 billion, was much
less than the $6 billion mentioned for the Alaska viaduct.
I think the bottom line is that tunnels are not a growth industry in the
United States, and it will be a near-miracle to get any major tunnel built,
anywhere in the U.S.
Scott M. Kozel
>
> Jonathan wrote:
>
> > Dumping another 80,000-100,000 cars per day onto the West Seattle
> > Freeway and I-5 downtown will make I-5 gridlock a day-long, not daily
> > occurrence, a problem we already can't do anything about thanks to
> > Seattle's Politburo deciding the best place for the Convention Center
> > was over the freeway itself.
>
> There are expert opinions that claim WSDOT's traffic counts for the
> viaduct are flawed and inflated:
>
> http://www.thestranger.com/blog/2006/11/viaduct_numbers_infl
What "expert opinions" are those? I see bloggers making that claim.
This from one post --
The City of Seattle's annual traffic count maps for 1996-2005 are at:
http://www.seattle.gov/transportation/tfdmaps.htm .
On the waterfront portion of the Alaskan Way Viaduct, they show a daily
average ranging from 102,500 in 1996 to 105,800 in 2005 (see Grid 5 of
the yearly maps), some years a little above that.
On the south part of the viaduct (non-waterfront, south of Royal
Brougham), the numbers are around 84,000. The map lists 60,000 or so in
the area of SR 99 just south of the West Seattle Bridge at Spokane St
(see Grid 8).
SMK: That is definite 6-lane freeway territory. It would take at least
10 lanes of nonlimited-access highway to handle that.
robert cruickshank
Chris Bessert wrote:
> Sherman L. Cahal wrote:
> >
> > Wait, Jonathan is advocating for a four-lane (two-lanes in each
> > direction, I assume is what you mean) viaduct versus a six or
> > eight-lane boulevard? A six/eight-lane boulevard would handle more
> > traffic, and access points could still be controlled.
>
> Can a six-lane boulevard -- with traffic signals and a matching
> speed limit to boot -- move more traffic more efficiently than a
> four-lane freeway in a tunnel? I dunno -- I'm asking.
No, it wouldn't be able to move traffic more efficiently than a four
lane tunnel. But it *would* move traffic more efficiently than throwing
everyone onto the downtown street grid and I-5. In other words, not
optimum efficiency, but something better than you'd have without any
corridor at all.
> I'm not saying let's build freeways everywhere, but the problem is you
> may have less throughput with a surface boulevard than with a freeway
> (elevated, in a tunnel or wherever) and those cars will have to go
> somewhere. I wholeheartedly wish that all those extra motorists would
> simply abandon their vehicles and hop on the nearest bus or other mode
> of mass transit that may be available, but that would be deluding
> yourself.
What is badly needed is a study of the trips that include the Viaduct.
Who's using it? Where do their trips begin and where do they end? Is it
just people going from Greenwood to Sea-Tac? Is it people going from
Lynnwood to downtown? West Seattle to Fremont? I am strongly doubting
people use the Viaduct as a regional through-route because it's such a
pain in the ass to return to I-5 once you are on Aurora Ave. So if the
trips are shorter distance and within the city, then it becomes easier
to program bus service to serve some of that need.
Seattle has a high level of public transit use. It's one of the few
cities I've ever been to where taking the bus is considered socially
acceptable for the middle class. That being said, of course you must
actually provide the physical service and have it be reliable for it to
be a useful alternative.
The monorail debacle looms large. It's worth noting that the Green Line
would have followed the WA-99 corridor for much of its route, albeit
somewhat to the west at its northern end. Combined with the Center Link
light rail line that will open in 2009 the monorail would have helped
give serious alternatives to many of those who use the Viaduct.
The problem with the monorail was actually relatively minor - they
underestimated the tax they needed, and then compounded that with
idiotic financing gimmicks. The project should be revived by someone
fiscally responsible.
> And then you have all the commercial/freight traffic that cannot use
> the "mass transit" solution -- where do they go?
I am truly interested as to how many trucks actually use the Viaduct
corridor. I rarely see trucks on the Viaduct itself or on Aurora Ave
(the expressway that begins directly to the north of the Viaduct's
end). Again, a study of who actually uses the Viaduct would be useful
here.
> I work alongside
> realistic transportation planners and have had many discussions with
> them on these and related topics. They, unfortunately, have to plan
> for reality and with the money that is budgeted and cannot "hope"
> that a major portion of existing commuters and other motorists will
> simply hang up their car keys and hop the bus. They know full well
> that if you take fifty percent of the capacity out of a corridor, there
> is no chance in hell there will be a corresponding fifty percent drop
> in the number of vehicle trips in that same corridor.
I agree, there would not be a corresponding 50% drop in the number of
vehicle trips. But if you can manage maybe 75% of the traffic currently
on the Viaduct with a surface boulevard and get the other 25% into some
other alternative then I'd consider it a success.
> Again, I'd LOVE to see all the hulking, decaying and "view-blocking"
> urban elevated freeways torn down. SF's Embarcadero is a great place
> in and of itself, but all the cities across the country are not San
> Francisco and all the hulking urban freeways are NOT the Embarcadero.
> Other than, say, Milwaukee's Park East Freeway and a few other odd
> examples, many of these roadways are part of a major network of through
> highways that carry more than just traffic trying to access downtown.
The Alaskan Way Viaduct isn't the old Embarcadero Freeway but neither
is it the Park East. It lies somewhere in between, and may not be
necessary to moving traffic through the downtown core.
> Tear down the Embarcaderos and the Park Easts, but not every ugly urban
> freeway from the 50s and 60s *IS* an Embarcadero or a Park East. Just
> like buses, roads and streets are part of an integrated network that
> needs to be balanced for things to work out. When you throw off that
> balance by removing a linchpin in that system, you'd better cross your
> fingers and hope it all works out in the end. Unfortunately, transpor-
> tation planners and their kind can't just cross their fingers -- they
> have to figure out where all those vehicles are going to go, even
> after estimating/guessing that some of them will remain parked at
> home and their drivers will board a bus instead...
This is where some sort of regional planning effort becomes important.
Figure out what the Viaduct is actually used for and determine if
transportation alternatives can pick up some of the slack while
creating a surface version of Aurora Ave next to Alaskan Way.
-Robert
robert cruickshank
Sherman L. Cahal wrote:
> robert cruickshank wrote:
> > Jonathan wrote:
>
> > The problem is that people are going to have to use I-5 and other
> > options to commute north-south through the downtown core already, and
> > possibly for several years, if a replacement viaduct is built. So that
> > traffic onslaught WILL happen one way or the other. It's unavoidable.
> > But there are possibilities of mitigating it, plans that do exist.
>
> Increasing mass-transit usage will greatly mitigate the effect of a
> closed north-south artery. The era of building new highways through
> urbanised areas is pretty much dead.
Agreed. The problem was that Seattle's political leadership chose to
kill the monorail project rather than step in and save it from itself.
But there will be something built along that central/western corridor
of north-south transportation in Seattle sooner or later.
Seattle's first light rail line will open in just over 2 years, from
downtown to Sea-Tac airport. One common use of the Viaduct is as a
quicker route to Sea-Tac from Seattle that avoids I-5. So right there
you have a mass transit solution that might be able to pick up some of
the trips that currently use the Viaduct.
> > I happen to believe that an boulevard parallel to the extant Alaskan
> > Way would be best. It would have only a few intersections - note that
> > already only a few streets go through from downtown to the waterfront -
> > and could likely use pedestrian overpasses or underpasses to keep
> > people off the boulevard. If you had a small number of stoplights, the
> > road would behave much like Aurora Ave north of Green Lake, and people
> > still use that as a major commuting corridor.
>
> One constructed similar to the West Side Highway in New York City would
> be quite nice. Three to four-lanes of through traffic, with turning
> bays would adequately handle traffic except, perhaps, at the core rush
> hour times (two or three hours per day). Wide multi-use sidewalks and
> paths for bicyclists and pedestrians on both sides, separated by
> decorated, raised planters would create a nice visual divide between
> automobiles and the pedestrians. A raised planter for the median strip
> would be nice as well. This would also have the effect of keeping
> pedestrians from jay-walking, and crossing only at designated
> crosswalks.
Exactly. Given the space constraints there you might only be able to
have two lanes in each direction, but that is the case for the tunnel
WA-99 uses under Belltown. There are urban designers currently kicking
around various options.
> > > The ironic thing is if Seattle had been pushing an eight-lane tunnel
> > > I'd have been willing to pay out the nose for it.
> >
> > And I was willing to pay out the nose for the Monorail, but I was
> > overruled by the rest of the city, just as you would have been.
>
> As studied in my economic theory course, automobile traffic in
> urbanised areas is the least efficent method for moving large amounts
> of people. Light-rail/monorail are quite efficent, on the other hand.
Right, and Seattle is slowly coming to realize this. Portland has had a
20-year head start and is making Seattle look stupid with their much
more efficient system.
> > > How about a
> > > four-lane viaduct? That'd fit in the existing footprint and be even
> > > cheaper than a four-lane tunnel, but not a peep of something like that
> > > from Nickels et al...
> >
> > I believe that's what Speaker Frank Chopp, also from Seattle, wants. It
> > may well happen, but my sense is he'll see the benefit to letting
> > Seattle get a boulevard and he and the other Olympia Dems getting
> > plaudits from Puget Sound voters for redirecting the money to the
> > widely popular 520 replacement.
>
> Wait, Jonathan is advocating for a four-lane (two-lanes in each
> direction, I assume is what you mean) viaduct versus a six or
> eight-lane boulevard? A six/eight-lane boulevard would handle more
> traffic, and access points could still be controlled.
There's no way an 8-lane boulevard will fit. A 6-lane, maybe. Depends
on how it's integrated with the existing Alaskan Way.
> > Seattle will look back 20 years from now and be happy they tore down
> > the Viaduct, just as San Franciscans look back from 15 years' distance
> > and are happy the Embarcadero came down. Though I again recognize the
> > two are not exact parallels, their similarities are strong enough that
> > I think a surface boulevard is both the right option and the only one
> > that has a political future.
>
> Besides the transportation bonuses I listed above, it would open up
> views for new high-rise developments. The demolition of San Francisco's
> viaduct along the waterfront opened up prime real-estate, much like
> what the demolition of the West Side Highway viaduct did for the
> ghetto-warehouse district on the west side. Louisville's 8664 plan is
> also very similar.
Development pressures are one of the core political reasons why Seattle
city leaders do not want a replacement Viaduct. While I'm not of the
opinion that should drive our decisions on this, it's a huge political
factor that will shape the outcome of the debate here.
-Robert
robert cruickshank
Precisely. And even Greg Nickels' "tunnel lite" would really only run
for maybe a mile, from around Pioneer Square to near Pike Place Market,
less than the distance of the extant Viaduct.
Drivers will adjust. It'll take maybe 5 more minutes to drive through
what used to be the Viaduct area, which would still be a savings
compared to I-5 at rush hour, and those who don't like it would have
other options than to drive.
It would be one thing if the plan was to tear down the viaduct and
replace it with a park - i.e. NO roadway at all. The question here is
how much reduced capacity will there be?
-Robert
robert cruickshank
True, though 3 years is enough time to get the public used to life
without a viaduct, to create alternative habits. But that is
interesting that they think they can have it closed as few as 6 months.
> Or, by the same logic: Seattle's bus transit is managing to run without
> the use of the bus tunnel, therefore we don't need to bother putting
> buses back in the tunnel when the light rail modifications are done. (I
> personally wouldn't say that.)
Or perhaps the point is that traffic patterns through the downtown core
are more flexible than is often assumed.
> > I recognize that the through route aspect of the Viaduct corridor does
> > make it somewhat different from SF's Embarcadero, but I am not
> > convinced the difference is all that stark.
>
> The Embarcadero was a glorified offramp. And it *still* dumped all its
> traffic on city streets when it closed. It was also monumentally ugly,
> much more so than AWV (itself a great example of the Early Municipal
> Parking Garage school of architecture). AWV actually goes somewhere,
> which is why I do use it on occasion.
Right, but the question is where do you use the AWV to go? For me it's
usually been a convenient alternative to getting to and from Sea-Tac,
but once the light rail line opens that'll be how I get there. In
another post I suggested what we need is a study of who uses the
viaduct, where the trips start and end. That might be revealing of just
what its place in the overall system really is.
> >
> > > The ironic thing is if Seattle had been pushing an eight-lane tunnel
> > > I'd have been willing to pay out the nose for it.
> >
> > And I was willing to pay out the nose for the Monorail, but I was
> > overruled by the rest of the city, just as you would have been.
>
> I'm not saying what the collective people would have decided here, I'm
> saying what would have gotten me on board for a tunnel, even after the
> spike in construction costs.
Right, and I was still willing to pay an MVET for a monorail even if it
cost the idiotic $11 billion after the financing was said and done. But
I think you and I would be outliers from the rest of the city, which
tends to find any reason at all to stop a project dead in its tracks.
> What's really sad is tunnel could have been a done deal and under
> construction now.
I doubt that - where would the money have come from? Seattle alone
doesn't have the ability to spend the $5-6 billion it would have cost.
The feds weren't going to contribute anything.
> > > But the various six
> > > lane options thrown out for discussion convinced me that the tunnel was
> > > more about the vanity of Greg Nickels and the Seattle City Council than
> > > insightful, or even half-assed planning. Their sudden insistence that
> > > a four-lane tunnel could fill all our needs instead just convinces me
> > > that their planning ideals stem from ideology, not reality.
> >
> > Greg Nickels is a distinctly unideological person. It's not about
> > vanity, it's about downtown developers telling the Mayor and the
> > Council they will not stand for another viaduct.
>
> Every other word out of Nickels' mouth is about how Seattle needs to
> make it harder for people to drive a car--that's not ideology? But
> either way, downtown developers shouldn't be the ones calling the shots
> on road planning, especially for highways of state importance and
> *especially* if they're also balking at the prospect of paying a little
> more to get their way. The Mayor hasn't ever really had stakeholders
> on board for local taxes to make up the funding shortfall, just a few
> lofty words.
If he were an ideologue we'd have seen much more strident action to
build alternatives to cars, or he'd have tried to save the monorail.
No, Nickels is simply playing to Seattle voters with his comments,
trying to pass himself off as environmentally friendly so that voters
don't get mad at his pro-developer positions. Besides, if Nickels were
an anti-car ideologue, wouldn't he be first in line to *oppose* a
tunnel instead of promoting it? Spending billions on an auto tunnel is
as car friendly as it gets!
> And it's ironic, considering the local government very deliberately
> decided that Seattle residents shouldn't get to decide for themselves.
> Any chance that's due to the fact that their coveted tunnel isn't
> polling ahead anymore?
Of course that's why. The City Council knows a tunnel would lose if it
went to voters. There's hardly any momentum or groundswell for it among
the public.
> > > How about a
> > > four-lane viaduct? That'd fit in the existing footprint and be even
> > > cheaper than a four-lane tunnel, but not a peep of something like that
> > > from Nickels et al...
> >
> > I believe that's what Speaker Frank Chopp, also from Seattle, wants. It
> > may well happen, but my sense is he'll see the benefit to letting
> > Seattle get a boulevard and he and the other Olympia Dems getting
> > plaudits from Puget Sound voters for redirecting the money to the
> > widely popular 520 replacement.
>
> Well, the four-lane viaduct was me being sarcastic, I didn't know
> someone had actually suggested it (I guess it's inevitable as the
> tunnel options become less likely).
It's either that or a surface boulevard. And already Seattle Dems in
Olympia, folks like Ed Murray, are saying they'd be fine with turning
the $2 billion over to the 520 bridge project. It suits them just fine
because then they can have an easier time making deals with Eastside
representatives on transportation projects.
> >
> > > The Alaskan Way Viaduct is not the Embarcadero Freeway, and Seattle is
> > > shooting itself in the foot for decades if they decided to equate the
> > > two, just like they're shooting themselves in the foot with the
> > > preferred 520 plan.
> >
> > I don't see how they're shooting themselves in the foot with the 520
> > plan.
>
> We are getting an unexpandable bridge (save for striping the shoulders
> away and making it as dangerous to drivers as the current bridge is)
> with a 50-year lifespan using 20-year projections that are likely to be
> too low.
There's no reason the bridge should be expandable, except for a light
rail line from the U District to Kirkland, and if they build one across
I-90 it would obviate the need for one down 520. No, the future for the
520 corridor is transportation alternatives, along with a badly needed
new bridge.
> > The truly important cross-lake project will be light rail down
> > I-90 to Bellevue and Redmond. A new 520 bridge will have a carpool lane
> > - so some added capacity - and it will prove popular on both sides of
> > Lake Washington.
>
> While extending the HOV lane is a good thing, it does absolutely
> nothing to relieve general-purpose capacity problems and if you don't
> think that's becoming a problem already, just wait until 2030.
But again the question is whether we assume auto traffic will continue
to rise, or whether by 2030 there will be significant alternatives in
place.
> *first part of sentence snipped*
> > and the
> > whiny homeowners in Montlake.
>
> We definitely agree on at least one point here. :) There's also a
> number of whiny people in Hunt's Point and Medina who knew when they
> bought their houses that there was a freeway there and that it might
> just need expansion one day.
Right. Screw them.
> > Seattle will look back 20 years from now and be happy they tore down
> > the Viaduct, just as San Franciscans look back from 15 years' distance
> > and are happy the Embarcadero came down. Though I again recognize the
> > two are not exact parallels, their similarities are strong enough that
> > I think a surface boulevard is both the right option and the only one
> > that has a political future.
>
> But I think we're always going to disagree on this. ;)
Probably.
-Robert
Mike McManus
> Jonathan wrote:
>> traffic on city streets when it closed. It was also monumentally ugly,
>> much more so than AWV (itself a great example of the Early Municipal
>> Parking Garage school of architecture). AWV actually goes somewhere,
>> which is why I do use it on occasion.
>
> Right, but the question is where do you use the AWV to go? For me it's
> usually been a convenient alternative to getting to and from Sea-Tac,
> but once the light rail line opens that'll be how I get there. In
> another post I suggested what we need is a study of who uses the
> viaduct, where the trips start and end. That might be revealing of just
> what its place in the overall system really is.
I have on a handful of occasions used the Viaduct as an escape route
from the Seattle Center area to Renton via Burien, and as an alternative
to both I-5 and I-405 during evening rush hour. However, the latter
usage has proved ineffective.
My daily commute is Renton to Bothell, and I have discovered that it is
simply impossible during evening rush hour to cross the great divide
which extends from the mouth of the Ship Canal eastward to the east end
of WA 520 and from there south to I-90, without a massive delay at one
or more points within that area.
On the west side you are faced with the bottleneck of the Ship Canal
bridges plus traversing downtown Seattle. On the east side the
bottleneck is downtown Bellevue. None of the arterial streets provide a
reasonable alternative to the Interstates which are jammed and crammed,
although Aurora Avenue comes reasonably close on the west, as does 116th
Ave/Lake Hills/Richards Rd/Factoria Blvd on the east.
Frankly, my solution to the problem is to flex my work hours late in the
day and avoid being on the roads at rush hour if I can possibly help it.
I don't see any possibility we can ever build our way out of this
congestion.
robert cruickshank
dead.
On Friday the Seattle City Council, which has been rendered less and
less politically relevant during the Nickels administration, voted to
place before city voters in March a ballot with two questions: Do you
support a tunnel (a four-lane version) (yes or no) and Do you support a
viaduct rebuild (yes or no)?
It is conceivable both will pass, or that one or the other will pass,
or that voters will reject them both (and that is how I plan to vote,
since I support neither a new viaduct nor a tunnel and am seriously
considering organizing a grassroots campaign to that end).
These votes are advisory and not binding. Olympia (the state capitol)
is not bound to respect this. In fact, they are free to begin building
a replacement viaduct at any time, since it is already funded and, I
believed, permitted. Gov. Gregoire and legislators have indicated a
desire to either move ahead with a new viaduct or to scrap it
altogether and redirect the $2 billion already budgeted for it to other
regional projects.
Speaking of funds, the city of Seattle has no clue where it will get
the money for a tunnel project, and this advisory vote does not address
the funding issue at all. In any case, this is an effort by some
Seattle city politicians to stall for time, and will merely complicate
matters further.
For more, see Erica C. Barnett's overview at Slog:
http://www.thestranger.com/blog/2007/01/post_108
-Robert
robert cruickshank
I can't imagine having to deal with that Eastside traffic on a daily
basis. I don't venture over to that side of the lake often, but on a
few occasions that I have I've become stuck in horrifically long
backups, especially on 520 between Redmond and the bridge.
For me the Viaduct has primarily been a way to get to the airport and
back more quickly and easily, but that works only because I live
between I-5 and Aurora Ave in the Greenlake area. And those trips would
likely be greatly reduced by the light rail line once it opens,
although I will likely be permanently back in California by that time.
-Robert
Clark F Morris
wrote:
>Clark F Morris wrote:
>>
>> All travel choices are a matter of trade-offs. If the LRT / express
>> bus / Sounder train turns out on net to be better than driving, then
>> people will take it.
>
>Well, only that segment of people who live near where the LRT/ express
>but / Sounder train goes, though. One of the reasons why personal
>vehicles are the popular mode of transportation in our society is
>that our society has spread out so much away from traditional "corri-
>dors" that would make light rail or other fixed-route mass transit
>options so desirable. The "downtown-suburb" commute is *much* more
>diluted today than it was 40 or 50 years ago. There are suburb-to-
>suburb commutes, commutes *through* downtown from a suburb, say,
>south of downtown to one north of it, and any other type of commute
>imaginable.
While diluted, downtown still is a major destination in many areas,
including Seattle. From what I have seen in Michigan, the Ann Arbor
downtown seems alive and well and Grand Rapids has potential. I can't
comment even with that minimal degree of accuracy on the other cities
that I have been in. If Detroit is to revive, transit that is used
must be added to make downtown type concentration viable. In the case
of Sounder, if they operated it all day between Everett and Tacoma on
an hourly basis with added service in the rush hour, it could handle
at least some suburb to suburb travel. Getting the right to do so
might be problematic given the results of the BNSF negotiation so far
and the environmental issues associated with upgrading the line at
least north of Seattle. The light rail also has the potential of
handling at least some non-downtown oriented trips, especially after
the phase 2 expansion to the north. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania was
probably better oriented to handling non-downtown trips in the 1940's
and 1950's than most transit operations are today. Many of the major
employment centers were factories that employed thousands of people.
Most of that is gone. The growth of mega shopping and office malls
like Willowbrook in New Jersey, South Hills in Pittsburgh and
Woodfield in Illinois may bring this back.
>
>North Americans have relied on the personal vehicle for commuting and
>general transportation so much that our whole society has changed to
>match our vehicle usage. That is one of the major problems the trans-
>portation planners in my metropolitan area are facing: should we
>implement light rail and, if so, where the heck to we even put it so
>that it serves the largest amount of people and makes the most sig-
>nificant impact. Knowing how dispersed our travel patterns are --
>along with that how dispersed our employment, shopping and residen-
>tial sites are -- such fixed mass-transit options are VERY difficult
>to implement in many cities and their impact on congestion is also
>diluted.
>
>> Removing the Seattle viaduct will change the
>> trade off for at least some commuters provided they were using the
>> viaduct to reach a destination that is also reachable by public
>> transit.
>
>Indeed, but one of my points is what about everyone else? All those
>non suburb/neighborhood-to-downtown commuters for whom such fixed or
>relatively-fixed route mass transit wouldn't work? Why take three
>hours on six bus routes and still have to take a cab the rest of the
>way to your destination when you can drive there in 25 minutes, in-
>cluding the congestion?
One of the interesting things they found when they reoriented the bus
routes to connect with the light rail in Sacremento, they enabled
connections between the routes as well. While bus ridership to
downtown was moved in those cases to the light rail from the transfer
point, there was new ridership taking advantage of facility that
wasn't there before.
>
>The part of your sentence, "to reach a destination that is also
>reachable by public transit" is key. It would be a very interesting
>exercise to map out all such destinations in a metropolitan area,
>such as shopping, recreation, places which employ more than 20
>people, etc., etc., and then overlay mass transit routes and stops,
>then see which of those destinations are within walking distance
>of those mass transit options. Once you do that, you'll see why our
>culture is so enamored with the private vehicle in many of our major
>metropolitan areas... and why removing various lynchpins in the
>transportation system (Seattle's Alaskan Way viaduct, Louisville's
>I-64, etc.) without replacing them with suitable alternatives --
>whatever those alternatives may be -- isn't a good idea.
The Halifax Regional Municipality in Nova Scotia, Canada is working at
better serving these needs but they have a long way to go.
>
>> Improvements planned for the BNSF lines may take some truck
>> traffic off the roads (this is a long shot).
>
>I would say that hoping that the railroad companies can take enough
>freight off this one corridor is, indeed, a very long shot. Freight
>by rail in the U.S. is more of a long-haul option, not one to just
>get the stuff from south of downtown to north of downtown...
Given the rationalization (removal of track) of rail lines, I would
not give great hope for the ability to run a short line type operation
in most cities.