July 26, 2006
A Bridge Too Far (No More)?
Not exactly a slow news day, but even so the Viaduct issue looms. Be sure to check out this op/ed piece from retired UW prof Earl Bell in today's Seattle Times. The option of replacing the viaduct with a bridge just won't go away (despite being ignored by virtually everyone involved). Bell makes the case that costs (public spending and construction impacts) should put this idea back on the front burner.
Last Fall, Susan Gilmore wrote about this idea in the Times and I examined the idea (okay, promoted it would be more accurate). So what it gets down to is, if it will cost half as much, can be built while the Viaduct is still standing (to avoid the years of traffic snarls of both tunnel and fix proposals), and reclaims the waterfront - will you get behind it?
State Rep. Helen Sommers (D) from the trendy, toney 36th District of northwest Seattle is the key player in all of this. She writes the state budget, after all (and in her fulltime job for King County, writes that budget too). It is almost a question of what Helen says, goes. It is widely reported that she likes the Viaduct replacement option because of the "views" of the waterfront while driving it (please Helen, tell us you're the passenger when doing this). If view is going to be the factor which "drives" this decision, the suspension bridge idea is a winner, for sure. But let's straw poll it with SP'ers. Vote yes or no in the comments, and keep the verbiage to a minimum. And feel free to drum up votes from friends and colleagues that support your viewpoint. I want to be guided by your collective wisdom.
Posted by P. Scott Cummins at July 26, 2006
09:05 AM | Email This
1. bridge is the best option by far
2. Wow - perhaps the best idea I've seen put forward yet. I'd like to see a lot more details on bridge terminus locations, capacity, and design - but pursuing this idea further seems like a no-brainer. I'm in.
(but, can it accommodate light rail... ;^)
3. Don't forget the retrofit option.
And who cares if the waterfront owners want to make more money. Make them pay for the sexier alternatives, not me.
4. I have wanted to see more study on a bridge.
The Millau Viaduct in France was done in 36 months and for 350 million dollars.
An elegant waterfront span could enhance Seattle if done right. Which means nobody talking about Alaska Way or in Office right now has a clue about how to do it.
5. I liked the line in Prof. Bell's article suggesting the tunnell option would morph into another WPPSS. Heck - we've already got a huge transportation infrastructure construction meltdown going on around here. Maybe we sould be referring to UNsound transit as "STOOPS."
6. I saw a model of a proposed bridge at one of the public meetings pushing the tunnel alternative. (The model was confined to the lobby) There are some details to be worked out, such as agreement on the start and end points, but the fact it can be built while the viaduct is standing is a HUGE factor in its favor. It would also cost a lot less than the tunnel. The model showed two main support towers to minimize the impact on shipping. And the engineer said there are materials that can be used to make the towers blend in with the scenery. After it is completed, then the old viaduct could be torn down and replaced with a scenic boulevard.
I think it is worth a serious look. Too bad Mayor Nickelbag won't even consider it. He is hell bent on the most stupid, expensive idea of a tunnel. What a moron!
7. Let's build that bridge and invite all those tunnel proponents to be among the first to take a flying leap off the completed span.
8. I say go for the bridge, not only is it less expensive, but it cant flood like a tunnel.
9. In a region where political leaders expound on the northwest ability to "think out side the box" in solving issues, I have been struck by their egoistical desire to put the viaduct "in a box.....under ground". I happened upon the idea of using a cable-stayed bridge about a year ago and tried in vain to get some response to the idea from the WADOT and the city. I figured it had to be cheaper and impose much less footprint impact during construction than any other idea floated. I believe that the tunnel is pushed so hard by the leaders due to the real core desire on their part to maximize the property tax revenue the resulting useable area would generate. It has to be one of the last city water-front areas in the US that presents this opportunity for development control by a political body.
10. Bridge -- Yes!
Tunnel -- Sure.
Viaduct -- Uh, no.
11. Bridge, yes.
Retrofit, yes
Replacement, yes.
Cut & Cover, no.
Full tunnel, bite me.
12. BRIDGE OVER ELLIOTT BAY!!! One of the two seattle papers had a guest column/article about this a while back by some old guy that showed beautiful renderings of what it could look like.
13. Yes! Avoid the horror of a dead Seattle downtown
14. The bridge is such a sensible solution that the city council is bound to pursue anything and everything else first. My vote is for the bridge.
15. The bridge is the way to go.
Professor Bell's comments about the esthetics are right on, as is his statement that the selection process should consist of identifying the alternative that satisfies ALL of the criteria for the lowest cost.
Beyond that, the tunnel is a bad idea because the ground around Puget Sound is poorly suited to tunneling. The Mount Baker tunnels for I-90 had problems during construction, and those were true tunnels, where a hole was bored, and well above sea level.
A waterfront tunnel would be a "trench and cover", like the Big Dig in Boston. Structurally, this is more of a challenge than boring a hole, and the excavation would be below sea level (not to mention just yards away from it). WPPSS/STOOPS, indeed.
Upgrading the viaduct in place is also problematic. The full extent of the shortcomings of the existing structure wouldn't be known until after construction began, and any changes required at that point would be hideously expensive (never mind that the estimated costs are already twice that of the bridge).
And the viaduct is butt-ugly, and would remain so even with "fresh paint". If the viaduct upgrade was half the cost of the bridge, I'd be willing to put up with its appearance in order to save $1 billion.
However, since the bridge costs far less, its esthetics are just the icing on the cake.
16. I've been spouting off in favor of a bridge for months - it makes so much more sense.
17. #12 "BRIDGE OVER ELLIOTT BAY!!! One of the two seattle papers had a guest column/article about this a while back by some old guy that showed beautiful renderings of what it could look like."
No, its bridge over the LAND. No reason why a bridge has to be over WATER. In fact, the cast should be less over land as you have much better access to the building than one does over water. Also, I think the same article you are thinking of was in the PI and by the same professor. Article in the Seattle Times today is an updated one.
18. A new bridge! Absolutely! I am involved in a business that requires our service employees to move north and south on the viaduct several times a day. Closing the viaduct would have a terrible impact on our business.
19. OK, anyone have a link to any sort of drawing or map or some such of this proposed bridge?
I'm a graduate of public schools. I need pictures.
20. Finally, a really new idea! At least it has the potential to work.
21. I must say that I really like the option of a bridge. But I did live in the Bay Area for a while and watched as SF retrofitted a double decker elevated viaduct near the terminus of I-280. I believe retrofitting the existing structure in place would be the least cost and least impact. If that's not the case, then let's build a beautiful bridge.
22. So how does a bridge get someone from Tukwila to Ballard (or vice versa)?
Repair it or build the 40+ year dead R. H. Thomson as Seattle should have done in the first place! Then you can close the 'duct' and fix it.
23. Gonna have to agree with Gary. Either fix the darned thing or finish the R. H. Thomson expressway, then do something about 99.
24. I heard someone speak about a bridge with a pedestrian walkway... Wouldn't that be a great place to walk... for exercise and for the views? A great Greenlake alternative for downtown! Yes, the bridge!
25. Well,well, the ghost of the RH Thomson Expressway rises like a phoenix from the ash heap of incompetent transportation planning in WA. Forty years ago our beloved and brilliant local politicians short sightedly cancelled RH Thomson over a few misguided, looney and loud neighborhood activists. Do the words incompetent re-run mean anything to Greg Nickels? Go ahead, Mr Mayor, make another idiot decision that will haunt Seattle for 40 yrs-a tunnel.....which appears to be a cleverly devised subsidy for local life jacket manufacturers, portable oxygen mask suppliers, waterfront property owners, all wrapped into a WPPSS financial black hole....while at the same time will torture local drivers and local business to within inches of financial ruin.
26. You all don't get it. What Nickels wants is to shut down MLK, the downtown bus tunnel, and I-90 for light rail. Then he'll shut down SR 520 (new bridge to be built over an upcoming decade) and the SR 99 viaduct (tunnel construction for a decade). The point of this is to justify his otherwise-useless mass transit porkdoggles.
27. A bridge sounds like a great idea. (I only wish that the mayor & other KC leaders had the sense to condsider something so...sensible!)
28. Hmmm...if Mayor Nickels really wants to cause massive disruption to the Seattle transportation infrastruction, plus shutdown a major ingress/egress route for a decade, maybe he's secretly in the pay of Bellevue real estate developers who want Seattle based businesses to move across the lake.
29. In its much-wiser-than-everyone-else superiority, WSDOT already dismissed the idea (WSDOT website):
One of the project's original 76 replacement concepts, the suspension bridge idea was also recently proposed by a local citizen, receiving much publicity. The project team ruled it out three years ago due to profound engineering and environmental implications. The file below is a diagram of WSDOT's initial design.
Elliott Bay Bridge (pdf 386 kb)
http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/NR/rdonlyres/377FB4D4-42B6-4D5C-8170-293800E37B74/0/ElliottBayBridge2.pdf