September 07, 2006
And the cost is still the benefit
Bruce Ramsey puts the Viaduct safety risk in perspective.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at September 07, 2006
10:29 AM | Email This
1. WOW!!! Common sense from the MSM? It must be April 1 again.
I agree with the retrofit option. Those old engineers know what they are doing.
2. What happened to the best solution, the suspension bridge across Elliott Bay? The cost of the bridge is a fraction of that to replace the viaduct or build the tunnel. Moreover, the demolition of the viaduct can occur AFTER the bridge is in use. Years of traffic nightmares will be avoided.
3. Why waste the energy fighting it....it will just line lawyers' pockets and it will happen anyway.
4. Hey #2, how about a clone of the
Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge in Charleston, SC?
What a beauty: http://www.cooperriverbridge.org
8 lanes, 3.6 mile total length (cable stay span is 1050 ft, longest in N. America)
The project cost was $632 million. Completed 1 YEAR ahead of schedule! (Humm, looks like we should clone the SCDOT too!)
5. Right on Sparkey!
6. David KLOWNstein was the "Chicken Little" about how unsafe the AWV was. That we were all certain to die soon....and it would be the fault of the anti-tax "neo-cons". Amazing it is still standing after listening to the KLOWNstein diatribes.
The fact is if KLOWNstein and his merry band of unwashed hippies would merely use their vast amount of spare time to hold up the existing structure...everything would be fine.
7. Hey tim, why bother breathing - you'd only wind up wasting it anyway....
Get real...
8. Excellent, reasoned, readable article by Ramsey. This is the kind of sensible analysis we read every day here at SP, but that is far less common in the mainstream media.
The silly videos produced by leftists groups and those affilaited with the Mayor's office last year were shameful propaganda pieces designed to sell Nickel's forgone conclusion of the tunnel.
And the safety screeching from Goldstein back when the Viaduct and defeat of I-912 was the leftist issue du jour should now be recognized as a pattern. Whenever a politician on the left wants to evoke maximum emotional response, but does not want to get their hands dirty, they simply dial 1-800-HRSS-ASS
Keep up the good work SPers. If we ask for a rational approach to problems often enough, it starts to become something of a standard even in Blue, Irrational Seattle.
9. Good article - good science and common sense yield to safety first.
Seattle's elite will have to bite the bullet if this City is going to prevent becoming more decadent...