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Monday, February 27, 2006

What Nickels’s Viaduct Tunnel Will Look Like

Posted by on February 27 at 18:14 PM

At Victor Steinbrueck Park, at the north end of Pike Place Market:

viaduct tunnel.jpg

(Courtesy of the People’s Waterfront Coalition.)


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eesh -- that's nasty.

and thanks for this, eb.

xoxo,
Dog poop

ps: too bad the source of this artist's rendering comes from your "no build" comrades in arms, the People's Republic of Waterfront Coalition...

xoxo,
Dog E. Style


check out the near-propaganda at the bottom of the City's website of pictures. i LOVE the photos of what may befall us if the Viaduct isn't fixed.
http://www.cityofseattle.net/mayor/issues/viaduct/#renderings

Based on the utopian rendering from Waterfront Coalition, the multi-billion dollar revamp will replace the current viaduct traffic volumes with a whopping half dozen cars per quarter mile and a handful of isolated loiterers on the tunnel lid.

Very convincing. Not.

What horror is this supposed to depict. Looks OK to me ------ of course hill billies who have never seen cars much might be overwhelmed.

The fold who think we need not replace traffic lanes when we ter the thing dow need to move to much smaller cities - ie. towns. Their comfort in real Urban Scapes is limited. Of couse most of them came from the woood of Bellevue. Preppies, with a lot of spare time to fill.

I like the Tunnel.

Hey y'all,
In case it's not clear, I forwarded that image to Erica, but it came straight from WSDOT.

Oh and Erica, keep those pictures coming. Soon we can defeat this tunnel and have our own I-5 right on the waterfront AND massive gridlock across the city!!!! I love being unaccountable AND against something! It makes my life seem *almost* relevant.

Can someone explain?... It looks like there's a four-lane surface thoroughfare running over the tunnel's path. What's with that?

So, I lived in Pittsburgh for a while and that place is just full of tunnels. To get into the city from the east, west and south you generally have to go through a tunnel, cross a bridge or in most cases both. I don't know what it is about tunnels that plays with a driver's head but they often create major traffic hassles.

The I-90 tunnels might be the exception but there are a bazillion lanes in each direction. In this rendering of 99, I only count four. (aside: Are all those cars in that pic straight out of 1981?)

The tunnel might look nice here but there's going to be lots of other cars sitting there for no apparent reason if it's built. I don't necessarily disagree with the concept of a tunnel, I just think its going to be a very different traffic dynamic. Maybe they could replace it with a Magic Mountain type Log Flume instead?

All this being said, coming into Pittsburgh through the Ft. Pitt Tunnel onto the Ft. Pitt Bridge (day or night) is one of the most amazingly senic car rides ever. I highly recommend it.

Pappy.

the thing about that picture that's really interesting is this: Note where the tunnel stops- Steinbrueck park. Steinbrueck park is the small park by Pike Place Market, and that's where the tunnel stops and a viaduct-like bridge starts. Basically, we are building a tunnel to erase the viaduct, but the tunnel is so short that we get expensive tunnel AND ugly viaduct. Hooray!

So, what's the point of a tunnel anyway? If half the thing will be exposed, it's not a tunnel. It's half-a-tunnel.

Us Belltown folks were probably always going to get an elevated structure NO MATTER WHAT, which is why I am revisiting the whole no-build option.

Ok, I know that these renderings are limited, and don't depict actual detailed plans, but when I look at that one, all I can think is how many people would take a flying leap off the grass and onto the highway. Obviously (or maybe I should say hopefully) the thing would be built in such a way to avoid that, but with the grass leading up to the end of the tunnel lid, that's the first thing I see.

Why would you leap from that grass twenty or so feet to the ground below when you are guaranteed to splatter and die instantly by jumping off the aurora bridge? Even if walking while drunk, it's only a mile to the north.

Yeah, saw this last week at the Seattle Weekly website. Not exactly the Rio waterfront Big Greg has been peddling...

Can anyone explain the not-insignificant highway/boulevard that's running on the surface in this picture? It's like we're talking a highway on top of a highway.

Belltowner-

Actually, you know BHLUS has put forward a good plan to extend the tunnel all the way up to the Battery Street tunnel. This would be better in trems of traffic engineering in terms of the road grade. The cost for doing this is comparable to the new viaduct option.
If you take the PWC party line then Seattle's traffic would also be "better" without the expensive 520 bridge which carries an equal number of vehicles.

Cressona,
The EIS looked at a 4 lane and a 6 lane surface street on top of the tunnel. The 4 lane version, favored by most in Seattle I think, still includes parking on each side and a median strip. It may also include 2 separate streetcar lanes, and in some areas (as I understand it) another lane of pavement for local access.
If you hire WSDOT to design a city street, their design standards propose something closer to Lake City Way than 1st Ave. The City can push back on this, but they don't get total control of the design.

Cressona,
The EIS looked at a 4 lane and a 6 lane surface street on top of the tunnel. The 4 lane version, favored by most in Seattle I think, still includes parking on each side and a median strip. It may also include 2 separate streetcar lanes, and in some areas (as I understand it) another lane of pavement for local access.
If you hire WSDOT to design a city street, their design standards propose something closer to Lake City Way than 1st Ave. The City can push back on this, but they don't get total control of the design.

Sorry about that second send.
And Zander, that proposed design for a lowered segment from Pine to Battery sounds much better for Belltown. The only problem I've heard is it still likely won't be lidded in a way that allows access to Steinbrueck Park. The lid (if they find the additional money for it, and if the project manages to avoid cost overruns that typically cut non-essential elements like that from the final plan) will be much lower than Steinbrueck park, so there won't be a very generous connection. It was described to me as a narrow walkway.
And sorry, the little jab about 520 doesn't work. There is no transit and no grid with excess capacity to accommodate those trips. 520 replacement has to happen, as far as I understand.

The comment about people hopping off the grass into the expressway is hilarious! "La de da dee OOPS *SPLAT*" I'm quite sure there will be large metal fence to protect against people accidentally falling off, like at the park. Purposely however...

That said, as far as the proposed look, it looks about 100 times better than what we have now.

Also, if this is the most vulnerable part of the viaduct to protect against an earthquake, then this section is going to get the revamp.. duh.

Here's a question, is the Sodo/West Seattle portion of the viaduct just as prone to earthquake collapse as the downtown section? Or can that be retrofitted without as much hassle?

Cary-

Oh, I just wanted to hear you say "520 replacement has to happen, as far as I understand."
With demise of the Monorail their is no transit plan for the 99 corridor. As far as "excess capacity" the PWC option will bring Mariners\Seahawks traffic to the streets of Downtown everyday.

I agree with Cary about 520 not being an apt comparison.

Obviously, this current plan doesn't do much to open up the waterfront, and it's a disaster for Pike Place Market, Belltown, Pioneer Square. This is a classic case of cost-cutting cutting something that can't be cut. Erica describes it pretty well in her story.

I'm wondering if the mayor really is serious about this -- if he's that desperate -- or if he's playing a kind of bait-and-switch. Like, "Once we get the okay to do this part of the tunnel, you'll have no choice but to go along with the rest." Actually, that's not so much bait-and-switch as brinksmanship.

Also, I don't understand how the extended tunnel plan Zander talks about doesn't cost more. I mean, more tunnel = more cost. No?

How bout we tear down the viaduct and build a monorail instead?

About the suicide jumper idea... people in Steinbrueck Park can already do that, IIRC, as the current viaduct comes out of the Battery tunnel right below the far western edge of the park.

I agree that the tunnel is a bad, bad idea for a variety of reasons. I hope the legislation on the table gets stonewalled, because this would be a collosal waste of money for what we'd get in return.

I still don't find the no-highway option practical, though. That plan has as many logisitcal holes as the tunnel proposal.

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