In the city of Seattle, we are having a discussion of sorts. To help you visualize this discussion, I need you to supersize this picture
If you look at the right hand margin of the photo, just below the halfway point, you will see what is known locally as the Alaskan Way Viaduct or, The Viaduct.
The Viaduct runs north/south and is how Hwy 99 makes it’s way through downtown Seattle. 99 comes off the ground in the industrial south end of town and becomes the Viaduct. At the north end of the Viaduct, it splits and goes underground for 1/4 to a 1/3 of a mile and then pops out and runs along the east side of Queen Anne Hill, becoming Aurora Ave.
On February 28th, 2001, the earth did quaketh in Seattle, as it is wont to do in a city sitting atop as many fault lines as we do. The quake damaged a number of structures in the city, the Viaduct being one of them.
After numerous ‘studies’, it was determined that the Viaduct was damaged beyond reasonable repair and would have to come down, which brings to the dilemma Seattlites are discussing:
What to replace it with?
The Viaduct was one of the major talking points during the election last fall with the state passing a rather large gas tax increase and the citizens pushing through an initiative to quash it. The pro-gas tax folks were using the Viaduct as sort of a boogeyman as to why repealing the tax was a bad idea. Mostly the ads went something like “If we don’t keep the gas tax, the Viaduct will fall down the next time a rat farts and kill everyone within a five mile radius! Ahhhh!”
The initiative failed and the gas tax stayed, unfortunately.
Not many folks liked the Viaduct anyway, myself one of them. It may have been an engineering marvel in it’s time, but now it is whale-poop gray, except for where it is covered in graffiti, blocks light from the scenic waterfront, gives rain free refuge to the multitudes of vagrants that inhabit that part of town and is basically a scar across the lower face of Seattle’s skyline.
Add to that that it was a saftey hazard even before the earthquake. It was bumpy, uneven, had too few lanes for traffic and the guardrails on either side don’t even come up to the roofline of a V8 Lotus Esprit, even if your passenger is 5’10”, has her shock blue hair in a faux-hawk and is naked except for her floor length fur coat. Don’t ask me how I know this.
Anyway, some folks want to replace it with another viaduct, others want a tunnel. Both have their pluses and minuses. Both will cost an entire buttload of taxpayer dollars. The tunnel plan, of course, costing more.
Myself, I’m wanting a tunnel. This is the 21st Century and if you can travel underground without all that mucking about in the problems an above ground structure allows (rain being one of them), the that is just the better.
Levelling the Viaduct and digging it’s replacement leaves acres of newly found commercial property that the city can sell/lease to pay for part of the tunnel. The land is directly across from one of Seattle’s main tourist attractions, the Seattle Waterfront. It would also give the Pike Place Market (another tourist trap, oops, I mean ‘attraction’) more space for either expansion or more parking. There is also a major ferry terminal that could expand it’s holding area for another dock and/or more runs.
And those are just a few of the things that could happen with the tunnel.
The only point I shy away from with the tunnel is that there was this thing in Boston called “The Big Dig”, maybe you’ve heard of it? It was waaay over budget, years behind schedule and is already in need of repair. Seattle, like Boston, is run by liberals for liberals. The unions would more than likely have their grubby little fingers in the pie, if they don’t already, and what is looking like a BIG pricetag could possibly turn into a HUGE pricetag.
However, a replacement Viaduct would have exactly the same problems, only on about a 2/3 cost scale, so either way, Washingtonoans are going to get the shaft, if you’ll excuse the pun.
Which brings me to the link; one of the so-called “pluses” to just knocking down the Viaduct and putting up a new one was that the views people are used to seeing while driving over the current Viaduct could still be seen.
Unfortunately for that pitiful plot-point, that will no longer be the case.
Any new structure built to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct would not only be 50 percent wider but would obstruct the panoramic views for many drivers, the Seattle City Council was told Monday.
“Views would be gone for cars,” said Deputy Mayor Tim Ceis. “People counting on views would be out of luck.”
Many people who support rebuilding the viaduct cite the sweeping views along the waterfront as their main reason for preferring that to a tunnel.
Ceis said drivers of taller vehicles, like SUVs and trucks, probably would still see the waterfront. But the view from most passenger cars would be a blank wall. He said the Federal Highway Administration said lane barriers on a new viaduct would have to be solid, unlike those on the viaduct today.
The little leftists in their hybrids and unltra-compact death mobiles with their love of the views would be screwed.
Score another one for the SUV!
If the Seattle idiots voters vote for a tunnel, or whatever, the Legislature needs to vote immediately after to place a hard limit on what the state will pay for.
Actually, they should have done that this session, because if Seattle votes for a $5 billion tunnel, and the Legislature actually grows a brain (unlikely), locks the Seattle delegation in the bathroom (more unlikely) and votes a hard limit (say, the cost of a new viaduct), the Seattloids will probably have to have another election (at least one) now that they have to figure out how to raise $2.5 billion, without the finance costs taking that to $10 billion. See The Monorail. Then, after a couple of years of wasting money, they’ll realize it wont work and vote to cancel the plan.
By this time, the cost of the replacement Viaduct will have gone up another billion or two (look at what happened to the cost of replacing the eastern span of the SF Bay Bridge when the mayors of SF and Oakland dickered about building a ‘signature’ span, instead of a boring but functional one.)
Only this time, instead of just Seattloids hosing themselves, they’ll be hosing the whole state.