« Michael Knight is a Potty Mout... | It's Funny Because It's True »
Mayor Nickels is scheduled to hold a press conference (in about 15 minutes) to address the cost increase of $780 million estimated for his tunnel plan… from $3.6 billion to $4.38 billion.
He’s obviously going to announce that the 19.4 percent cost increase is unacceptable and he’s decided to be fiscally responsible and pull the plug on the project.
get used to cost over-runs. If we pick the tunnel or the aerial rebuild, the cost overruns are going to hurt. Heck - even if we go with the very clever and far-sighted Streets+Transit plan, there will be cost increases. Why? becuase it's the nature of these projects. The difference is that a 19% increase on $1.5B versus on $4.5B is a hell of a lot of money.
The tunnel is dead. The rebuild is ugly and illegal. The only sane choice is Streets+Transit.
I thought it was interesting that the same report said that a 520 replacement would cost exactly the same ammount, 4.38 billion.
viaduct or 520, flip a coin.
We're moving into target range. The final cost will be double the final estimate, so my prediction of $10 billion is getting closer all the time. That doesn't include the costs of all the lawsuits, either.
520 at least has the small virtue of being unlikely to be shut down upon discovery of Indian graves.
Nah, he'll just announce that we've really got the additional funds in hand, and he's personally swing the first pick axe to start digging this hole tomorrow.
Actually, an honest look at retrofit looks a lot more likely now - thank goodness.
The Key Assumptions listed in the WSDOT cost revisions report are:
• Funding is available when needed
• Timely decision on selecting project option
• No lengthy litigation or project delays
Even if a quick decision is made, the other two aren’t happening, which means the costs go up.
The Retrofit is the only politically-viable solution.
No, the viaduct rebuild is the only politically-viable solution, as it always was.
Even if the Surface Plus Transit option was proven viable according to the WSDOT study they won't release until AFTER the election in Nov.
I think they'll announce a plan to dig a tunnel to replace 520. That'll cost, oh, $200 billion...
In light of this recent news, I firmly believe that the only politically viable -- and truly affordable -- solution is the one I happen to support. And my merely stating so should obviously serve as an authoritative and irrefutable argument for that point.
(... Just tryin' to sing the same tune as the other geniuses here.)
Will,
Do you honestly believe that once the Viaduct is removed the politics of Seattle will permit an even larger structure to be replace it?
I have written about that "Westlake Park phenomenon"
here.
Anyway, we don't even have the money for the Rebuild.
Whatever, Cressona.
How's that prediction of $4/gallon gas by the end of summer coming along for ya, Nostradamus?
Cressona,
Read my analysis and pick holes in it, if you like.
Mr. X: How's that prediction of $4/gallon gas by the end of summer coming along for ya, Nostradamus?
It would be nice if I were the one making that prediction. Mr. X, it's also nice to know that your keep-the-city-crappy agenda makes you an advocate for artificially cheap gas too.
David Sucher: Read my analysis and pick holes in it, if you like.
Ah, retrofit. Sorry, I'm not a structural engineer. Are you?
But hey, if you want to be an advocate for urban blight preservation, however many millions of dollars in Band-Aids it may or may not take, be my guest.
1.) Tear that schitt down.
2.) Wait until after the elections before you crow about low gas prices.
3.) Just what is the "Westlake Park phenomenon"? You allude to it in your blog, but you don't explain it. Personally, I think the "new" Westlake is hideous. Give me Ben Paris' bar any day.
The only "politically viable" solution is to ignore all of your opinions, and build the goddamn tunnel. It's a technical and strategic decision -- not a popularity contest.
If you don't have a degree in engineering, and you don't work at WSDOT, no one gives a flying fuck about your opinion. Get used to it.
And for those who are enthused about the Surface Option, why not try a little experiment?
God, I don't remember ANY of that Westlake stuff. There were protests to try to stop that abortion? I must have been drunk.
I didn't know it was part of Forward Thrust. What were we thinking?
Ok, David, I'll try it. Not a bad idea.
The price sucks for any option, but we have to get moving here. Just because it's expensive doesn't mean we should just do the cheapest thing. And, we're not just doing it for ourselves, so let's do something we can be proud to have accomplished.
Something has to be done, yup. Let's get something out of the deal: No retrofit, no new viaduct. The waterfront should be reclaimed and should have a civic purpose -- big park. Downtown park.
So -- following my Opinion, here -- surface option or tunnel. Surface option throws a crap of a lot of traffic into this reclaimed area. And I see a horn of plenty of train tracks underneath the viaduct down to E Marginal and over into Sodo. Wait for any trains around there often? Tunnel? Will still connect Aurora to/wards 509. Keeps things moving, and doesn't put another million rats onto I-5.
Cressona at 15 -
Mr. X: How's that prediction of $4/gallon gas by the end of summer coming along for ya, Nostradamus?
It would be nice if I were the one making that prediction. Mr. X, it's also nice to know that your keep-the-city-crappy agenda makes you an advocate for artificially cheap gas too.
Posted by cressona - September 20, 2006 04:04 PM
Um, you actually did make that prediction -
"The average Angeleno spends over $10,000 a year to own a mid-size car. I imagine Seattle is not much different. But hey, we can afford that, right? When gas gets up to $4 a gallon, mass transit will be that much more unaffordable."
That looks like a "when" to me, dude, not an "if".
Of course, you evidently support keeping the price of mass transit artifically low, so I suppose I shouldn't be so mean to you.
I happen to love this "crappy" City - I just think it'd be even better without self-righteous pricks like you coming here and trying to remake it in your image.
"Big Park" = "Big Wasteland". It's the center of the commercial heart of the region, and you want to put a big PARK on it? So the drug dealers and addicts and boozehounds and mental patients can have a place to play? The park should be about a hundred feet on a side, no more, with a hot dog cart and moveable chairs, and the rest should be CITY.
A Nony Mouse @ 18
In order for something to be "politically viable", it really needs to be financially viable too.
Fnarf, then why not elevate the park? Where am I gonna unhook the training wheels for my kid?
Are you saying that no civic space can be created because we've surpassed a critical mass of undesirables? A park is like accidently spilling a canister of bread crumbs in front of a flock of starlings, a bag of peanuts in front of newly post-partum squirrel, a bucket of pellets into a pond full of carp?
Seriously, not even a pocket park? I already have a coffee place by my apt.
100 feet a side is a mock park. It could never sustain use but by the smallest fraction of the city's population. That's a "it's a PARK" park.
Have a look at the cool new park next at Denny and Westlake via Google Satellite. That's the park?
More Mr. X: "The average Angeleno spends over $10,000 a year to own a mid-size car. I imagine Seattle is not much different. But hey, we can afford that, right? When gas gets up to $4 a gallon, mass transit will be that much more unaffordable."
That looks like a "when" to me, dude, not an "if".
So Mr. X, you distorted that statement I made into a prediction that gas will be $4 by the end of this summer. I don't think there's a sane, impartial person around here who doubts that gas will be $4 a gallon soon enough. Last I checked, it doesn't grow on trees.
Some advice. If you are going to lie and mislead to further your own narrow agenda, perhaps you should at least lie and mislead about issues that are more central to the discussion.
The fact is that even if gas were $1.50-a-gallon, building an elevated highway along a scenic downtown waterfront is such a monumentally stupid idea that -- if we didn't already have one -- no one would even dream of broaching the idea in this day and age.
Cressona,
I owe you a (slight) apology - I had you confused with numerous other self-righteous autophobes who posted things like this
Gas is predicted to reach $4 a gallon by the end of summer.
FUCK YEAH! Feel it bitches.
Posted by: Pong Rodeo | July 28, 2006 03:30 PM
Given your cavalier attitude toward the real hardships real people experienced with the rising cost of gas, though, I think many people could understand my confusion.
SR99 is there, and the State has no intention of replacing it with nothing. I suspect you won't like 6 lanes of traffic at-grade any more than you like them on a Viaduct, so you might want to be careful what you wish for when pushing for a teardown of the AWV. The Viaduct is already there, and it is perfectly reasonable position to propose retrofitting it (and Victor Grey's opinion that it could be is extremely credible - he was the State of Washington's lead highway engineer for decades)
I happen to think that getting people from SW and NW Seattle et al is more important than tearing down a functional piece of our transportation infrastructure to make way for an expensive waterfront promenade (which, by the way, won't get you an inch closer to the water than the AWV does), and which will largely be used by cruise ship tourists and downtown condo dwellers. That doesn't make me a liar, or mean that I'm misleading anyone - you just don't like my opinion. Tough shit.
Just for grins - where are you on the proposed Pacific Street Interchange for SR 520? That'll do a real job on Marsh Island and Lake Washington, but lots of the same politicians (and SLOG posters) who weep for our poor poor downtown waterfront seem quite happy to trash the Arboretum and that part of the lake.
Sadly, gas is still cheap. People forget about inflation. It was far more expensive in the mid-seventies or early eighties, back when you could buy a new car for five grand and a house for fifty. Activist predictions based on the price of gas are sure losers. If gas went to four bucks tomorrow -- which it would if I was king, because I'd drop a dollar tax on it -- the political impetus for transit would be...unchanged, i.e., nil.
Listen to FNARF. As usual, he calls it correctly. (As does the notorious Mr. X.)
The only politicially viable solution is to let the next earthquake hit and kill everyone on and below the viaduct when it collapses :P Then our talk-lots-think-big-do-nothing politicians will get the political burial that they deserve.
I'll be on the AWV this morning (and evening), and I'll take my chances on that slim possibility for the next 30 years if they let me (keep in mind, the language WSDOT uses is that the AWV will be rendered "unusable" - ie - it will shift/settle too much to be used after the quake. The likelihood of collapse/failure is actually pretty slim - and would be even slimmer if WSDOT, Nickels and the Council would give up their tunnel fantasy and allow additional AWV retrofitting).
The only viable solution is a recall petition for the Mayor and the City Council if they shove a non-voted tunnel we can't afford down our throats.
That's what I'm saying.
Comments Closed
In order to combat spam, we are no longer accepting comments on this post (or any post more than 45 days old).
The increase is from a midpoint estimate of 3.3 billion to 4.38 billion, so it's over a billion increase.
The former range was 3.0 to 3.6 billion. The range is now 3.56 to 5.54 billion.