Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels is dead-set against rebuilding the Viaduct, even though it is (a) by far the most popular solution, and (b) then only solution for which the funding exists.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at October 16, 2006 10:23 AM | Email ThisI have to admit, Hiz Honor has always reminded me of a spoiled, impetuous little kid: Unreasonable and tough to deal with. This tunnel thing kind of brings that out in him.
Nickels and Sims are just goofballs
Posted by: Green Lake Mark on October 16, 2006 10:52 AMBrad
Posted by: Brad on October 16, 2006 11:21 AMPolitical party has nothing to do with this. Hundreds of thousands of Democrats want the Viaduct replaced with a better viaduct, including me.
Posted by: ivan on October 16, 2006 11:24 AMMust be so annoying when the ones expected to fork over the cash want to have a say about what it is spent on. The nerve!
Posted by: Burdabee on October 16, 2006 11:46 AMGreg Nickels TunnelPosted by: JCM on October 16, 2006 12:23 PM
The financially viable option, particularly in light of all the other transportation debacles we've been saddled with in the last decade and the ones we will shortly be stuck with, is REPAIRING the viaduct so it will last another 5 decades.
Posted by: H Moul on October 16, 2006 12:24 PMThere! Fixed that for ya!
Posted by: CrazyFool in Lynnwood on October 16, 2006 12:43 PMThe Edifice Complex is well described in a new book reviewed in the October 2006 issue of Civil Engineering (The Edifice Complex: How the Rich and Powerful Shape the World, by Deyan Sudjic). It gives as one example of sufferers from this dementia one Saddam Hussein, who had the Mother Of All Battles Mosque erected in his own honor after 'winning' the 1991 Gulf War.
Go for it Greg, the world's watching!
Posted by: Hank Bradley on October 16, 2006 01:44 PMI'm pretty sure that Seattle is past the Stone Age, but by no means certain.
Posted by: scott158 on October 16, 2006 02:53 PMI favor the boulevard/transit option, which will cost far less and will be much better for downtown neighborhoods.
Posted by: Viadumb on October 16, 2006 04:03 PMDo we want to pay 10x to 20x that much so Greg can have his name in gold!
Knock down the Viaduct, let the people have their park, get the people in a bus or trolly or in their new Choo Choo trains.
Where's the Green Mr Billions?
Posted by: GS on October 16, 2006 04:14 PMBeing a Seattle native and visiting this past weekend after being gone 27 yrs, I was struck by the utter disrepair of Seattle streets and arterials, the insanity of a Light Rail from SeaTac to downtown (who lives downtown other than defacating bums and those who think 350 sq ft cells aare livable?), I5 and the Convention Center (what knothead did that collosally idoitic move?), bike lanes everywhere that trash arterial traffic flow, and those bike lanes are utterly empty.
What kind of morons are in City Govt in Seattle?
Ahh, perinally re-elected liberal morons......
Stew in your own juices........FOOLS
Posted by: Hank on October 16, 2006 06:27 PMThe was our Queen Christine screaming we needed the GAS TAX.
Damn Viaduct, still standing.
Voters still waiting
Posted by: Chris on October 16, 2006 06:56 PMI favor the boulevard/transit option, which will cost far less and will be much better for downtown neighborhoods.
For those like yourself who live in caves, ride muskox, and use beaver pelts as currency should love the idea as much as you. The rest of us that live in the 21st century require actual roads to get around.
He is Mr Green! No polution! Al Gore's Brother!
So tell me why does he want to dig a 10 Billion dollar tunnel for cars in Seattle?
Ding Ding Ding Ding
Even Ivan is against it...
Go figure!
But..Noooooo..
She is currently off on yet another of her almost monthly tax payer paid junket, now to of all places South Korea. What is she going to trade there? Patriot missiles? Hardly, she will probably take a side trip to North Korea and give Kim Jong Il another basketball or maybe another nucleur reactor.
Another unreal waste of taxpayer money!
You've heard of Where is Waldo!
We have a new Say Wa Game.........
Where is Christine?
She might have the time to really evaluate a viaduct option. She stated she was saddened that a vote of the people wasn't available before the Big DIG 10 Billion dollar hole was decided. Well if she weren't off on yet another (seems to be a weekly deal) taxpayer worldwide junket, she would find that the people had spoken. And they said Hell NO to Big Dig Billions.
It's laughable the Seattle city council is quoting city ordinances as the reason a bridge could not be built. I agree the tunnel would be the most ascetically pleasing option, but I'm pretty sure they could change any ordinance if they needed to.
There should be an ordinance against spending many billions of dollars on transportation projects unless they significantly ad to capacity. I've been told the tunnel would decrease capacity. I've not verified this, does anyone know if this is true?
If Nickels and the city council want people out of their cars why are there no sidewalks in several city neighborhoods? If you cant walk safely to where you need to go, what do you do? You drive!
Lastly I've been wondering why we seem to have the billions of dollars for the tunnel but don't have the money to keep Seattle public schools open. On this though I would like to see the public school system implode, the sooner the better.
Posted by: Chris on October 17, 2006 08:47 AMIt's laughable the Seattle city council is quoting city ordinances as the reason a bridge could not be built. I agree the tunnel would be the most ascetically pleasing option, but I'm pretty sure they could change any ordinance if they needed to.
There should be an ordinance against spending many billions of dollars on transportation projects unless they significantly ad to capacity. I've been told the tunnel would decrease capacity. I've not verified this, does anyone know if this is true?
If Nickels and the city council want people out of their cars why are there no sidewalks in several city neighborhoods? If you cant walk safely to where you need to go, what do you do? You drive!
Lastly I've been wondering why we seem to have the billions of dollars for the tunnel but don't have the money to keep Seattle public schools open. On this though I would like to see the public school system implode, the sooner the better.
Posted by: Chris on October 17, 2006 08:48 AMsay--why arent the Tribes coughing up $$? they are very quiet about "re-investing in our neighborhoods" on this topic. wont that help traffic to their operations too? arent they "good citizens/neighbors?" then prove it with your $$$. we can name the tunnel after a prominent Native & have murals throughout.
Posted by: jimmie-howya-doin on October 17, 2006 10:21 AM
This one will cost ya plenty!
Posted by: gs on October 17, 2006 11:59 AMI say if Nipples wants his tunnel, allow slots and gaming in all bars and nontribal casinos. Use the revenue produced from the slots, etc. for his hole in the ground. It would provide competition to the GD Tribes and create revenue for Nipples waterfront grotto.
Tunnel is a horrible idea, promenade is almost as bad, replacing the viaduct with anything but a suspension structure would be daft but the best fix is fixing what's already there. It's what we can afford, it's the responsible solution.
Posted by: Jeffro on October 17, 2006 04:12 PMThe first topic was the makeup of the waterfront. According to the engineer the seawall will be replaced whether a tunnel is built or a replacement. The seawall is actually made of wood and marine worms have eaten it away. The soil under the viaduct and the waterfront is actually 60 feet of soft fill held up by the seawall. However when they built the waterfront they drove wooden pilings through the fill to the bottom, then built a platform on the pilings on which is 10 feet of soil and the roadbeds. The Viaduct is also built on pilings driven through the fill to the bottom. Because the fill liquified in the Nisqually quake there is a 3 foot gap between the fill and the platform. The layer of fill is much deeper down by Pioneer square, more like 120 feet. Remember that, I'll get back to it.
The next station was replacement options. Usual "We studied hundreds of options and these are the best two..." Here's the fun part. The tunnel option will be built right next to the seawall and the seawall will be the west wall of the tunnel. Of course it will be made of "impenetrable concrete" (made me feel all warm and fuzzy) and it will actually be a double-decker tunnel. Tunnel construction would involve a MASSIVE excavation of the fill material which is saturated with petroleum and coal pollution. The engineer said it would have to be properly disposed of, most likely in Eastern Washington. No wonder Eastern Washington wants to become its own state. Not only do we tax them to build our roads but we turn around and dump our polluted soil in their backyards.
Someone asked why a tunnel would be safer in an earthquake and the reply was that the tunnel will be built on the hard bottom and it moves with the earth so it will be safer. Except that the tunnel WON'T be on hard earth when it reaches Pioneer Square and it ascends to the surface, remember the 120 feet of fill there? We were assured the tunnel would be safe though.
The computer concept images we were shown displayed a big happy grassy park where the viaduct had been and they told us that since they didn't know what the waterfront would look like that this was what they were using. The concept for the viaduct replacement was of course, just a big gray concrete blob, identical to what we have now. I suppose a coat of paint is out of the question? The engineer said, what the viaduct will look like isn't that important right now. Sure, because you've already decided on a tunnel.
The viaduct replacement would still need a new seawall in order to be safe but that would just involve a lot of high pressure concrete injections to form stabalizing pilings in the fill. And interlocking metal plates and concrete will form the actual seawall.
Both structures are designed to last 75 years or to withstand a Nisqually type earthquake with little or no damage and a 2000 year quake with severe damage but without loss of life. So basically in 75 years or after the "big one" either option will need replacement. So someone in the tour group pointed out we can spend 5 billion today for a tunnel and count on another 5 + inflation in 70 years or 2.5 for 2.5 in 70 years. And of course the reply was, "They'll probably last longer than that."
The last station was duration of construction and local impact. There are three timetables ranging from 7-12 years. They of course pointed out that the longer we discuss, the more it will cost due to inflation. Basically the best case scenerio is the waterfront is completely disrupted for 7 years. If the tunnel option is selected, they're going to dig a 60 foot trench where Western Ave is now and then build a tunnel in it before they cover it up. Can you possibly imagine trying to continue tourism with a mini-canyon down there? The reason they are showing a green park in the tunnel pictures is that none of those businesses could possibly survive the disruption. Guess who will be more than happy to take over the vacant waterfront? I've got my money on Mayor Gridlock buying himself a retirement condo where Ye Old Curiosity Shop used to be, one with a view of his "legacy".
What they neglected to mention on our tour was how we could voice our opinion. Oh wait, our opinions don't mean anything. Silly me.
Posted by: Nathan on October 18, 2006 11:39 AMThey also make no mention that flammable materials will be prohibited, forcing trucks to already congested throughways.
All you folks that have condos and offices with viaduct obstructed views - stop fooling yourselves, there are no view protection laws in Seattle and that green park will be covered up with highrise hotels, condos and office towers. Everyone loses except the liberal ruling elite.
Posted by: Jeffro on October 18, 2006 12:26 PM