I don't get why The Stranger keeps saying that WSDOT prefers the viaduct - WSDOT or more importantly Parsons Brinckerhoff has done so much more for the tunnel than the viaduct in terms of design, engineering, and promotion. Look at the videos - not a second of the view from the viaduct and no indication of the 7% incline from north end of the tunnel. Has anyone seen a representation of the tunnel version where it shows clearly that this 13 block tunnel connects two viaducts?

The rebuild, as you all keep saying, is 50% wider - . - if WSDOT/PB wanted the viaduct why are they putting forward the worst possible design?

Repair_Prepare for a viaductless future - NO to the rebuild - but no way has WSDOT/PB been pro viaduct.

One thing is clear from this article: Nickels has politicized the Seattle Dept. of Transportation. It is unprecedented. Bureaucrats *never* say things like what Greg Hirakawa of the Seattle DOT said in that article. Never, unless they receive orders from above.

These are people whose professional credibility is being sacrificed at the altar of Rovian attack-dog politics. Nothing they say can now be trusted as neutral and impartial. Why was this done? Because it has greater credibility if it comes from supposed technical experts than if it came from Nickels or Ceis. How cowardly.

Josh, your Greg Nickels = Joel Horn analogy is perfect. Stick with a bad plan too long, panic when everyone sees it’s too expensive, produce a half-baked rush job, then blame everyone else for your own incompetence.

We’ve had, what, seven different concepts earnestly put forward in the past four months? We are in no position to make a final decision, and the numbers have not been crunched with respect to the current favorite options. This upcoming vote is going to be worse than useless. How about we get a little further in the planning process before being presented with something to vote on?

What the city and state failed and continue to fail to recognize is that the process failed long ago. The relationships were far too close from the start, and we are watching the walls crumble.

WSDOT,the Mayor's office and SDOT,for the last several years, have all been in bed together over the study, design and promotion of Tunnel One. Millions have been spent by all to finally confirm Tunnel One is fiscally irresponsible.

I continue to stress a cable stayed bay bridge, if feasible, is the best solution to the Alaska Way corridor problem. Unfortunately, it and other less expensive, thoughtful and beneficial proposals such as the surface-transit have been given short shrift by the Mayor, Seattle City
Council and WSDOT.

Sorry Josh, but it is exceedingly difficult to feel any sympathy towards anyone who now complains about process, especially those who,from the beginning, have been dictating the process to us all. You should realize this is their excuse for their failures.

---Jensen

Jensen there is a document prepared by PB for WSDOT called "Feasibility of long-span bridges in Elliott Bay" - surprise, surprise they say it would be very difficult - I can't find it on the net but I have a copy so I know it exists.

"At the time, she was dealing with the $4.6 to $5.5 billion tunnel option (“cost is a factor”). But Team Nickels has claimed to have cut $1.2 billion off that price tag. If Gregoire, candidly, preferred the tunnel, why not go ahead with the review of the cheaper tunnel plan"

Josh the last time "Team Nickels" priced a project pre vote it was the fire station excess levy vote - within a year it was reported that the costs were 40% greater - TN doesn't have the people to do a reasonable job of estimating tunnel-lite, period.

SHERWIN Wrote:
"surprise, surprise they say it would be very difficult..."

Nobody assumed any of this would be easy, Peter. If it was, we all would be in the bridge building business.

Peter can you kindly clarify to all of us who/what PB is and their relationship to WSDOT. Specifically, would you kindly outline their experience designing and building cable stayed bridges with examples of their
work? Thanks in advance for your
reply.

---Jensen

Sorry Jensen I was being sarcastic - they want to build a tunnel so of course they would say a bridge would be very difficult. PB is the consultant to WSDOT - they do the actual engineering and cost estimating etc. - unfortunately the media doesn't cover this area well so most people think WSDOT or Sound Transit are responsible for estimates but they sub the work out. PB was co manager of the Boston Big Dig, they gave the lowball numbers for light rail and commuter rail for ST, - I haven't been able to determine whether they did the highways for the state that recently jumped 30%.

PB plans to manage the construction of any AWV project - the bigger the project the bigger the fee they receive.

Don't know if they do cable stayed bridges, which appeared from reading the paper to be the best bet for Elliott Bay.

The only oversight body that had any chance of ensuring the public got unbiased information, the Expert Review Panel, has walked off the job.

That is the central story here.

It means that, after WSDOT kicked the City out of the process to revise cost estimates, they then began to corrupt the numbers in favor of the elevated. They're itching to get started on building something, and Doug MacDonald has said as much in public many times. Their pretensions of integrity are comical.

How stupid do they think we are?

Vote No and No!

Swell,
The ERP relied on the engineering work of PB - they didn't have the staff or budget to actually do anything - basically they did financial oversite which they did a poor job of - look them up - basically no finance experience certainly no local political knowledge yet they proclaimed that $800M from RTID was a reasonable finance assumption along with $200M from the Port.

This embarassing food fight between local and statewide Democrats will lead to bad ends.

Vote NO and NO

Swell, you're on Pluto. The City's numbers for the mini-tunnel came from little more than thin air. And it's the state that's corrupt? Comical.

Peter, I am sorry for the confusion, unfortunately I didn't tie PS to Parsons Brinckerhoff which you cited in No.1. Actually PS has credible experience overseeing the construction cable stayed bridges and other bridge construction, however I am not entirely sure about their relative design and engineering experience. I believe I may remember hearing a summary of the PS report which was presented last summer to the Seattle City Council, however the presentation by the WSDOT representative confused cable stayed and suspension bridge technology. Both are quite different, and I believe most participants left confused.

Regardless, I would like to see the technical remarks in the report specific to their analysis of seismic loading, tower heights, footing placements, etc. It should be interesting stuff, and I would like to compare it to some projects taking place in Vancouver B.C and elsewhere.

If you do find the report in the near future, please post it to the Slog. I believe David Sucher may be attempting to do the same.

Thanks again for your input and support.

---Jensen

Jensen - mail me at
repair.prepare@gmail.com
and I'll send you the report. David will put it up soon - not sure it's available online.

Blob,
The ERP walked off the job for a reason. The City is already gone from the process. Think for a moment why they might have left, and imagine for a moment that stuff might be happening that the newspapers haven't figured out yet.
Yes, the Mayor's office has been in advocacy mode for a long time now, and their *data* is fudged. But so is the new data about to come out of WSDOT this week.

Swell,
Go to the Times and read the ERP's letter - it doesn't seem that they have disolved only don't want to be whacked by some tomatoes and cream pies in this food fight.

The cost estimates are all made up - the ERP itself said mega projects usually run 25-40% over budget and they called for WSDOT to reprice the projects using higher inflation numbers than they had been. ERP didn't redo the numbers -WSDOT/PB did it and still used low inflation numbers. The main point is that everyone knows the numbers aren't right - but can you sell the project - and the city didn't sell the state or according to polling city residents. The city doesn't have the talent to argue costs of a tunnel - they paint lines on the street and build curbs. They probably hired consultants to oversee bridge upgrade work

It has been stated over and over again that the project has many costs that don't involve the 13 blocks of tunnel/viaduct/surface - including the seawall, 519 busway, etc. - saving 1/4 of the total cost by reducing the tunnel size by 25% doesn't seem right - I would guess that WSDOT will come with a higher number that still would be under the true cost.

Vote NO and NO -- though we still have to get the seawall fixed at some point...

Best thread on the AWV I've seen in a while - none of this is easy, and everyone who has posted is making a good faith effort to be a serious thinker on the topic.

For what it's worth, Josh's initial premise is wrong - WSDOT has been planning to replace the AWV with a tunnel since at least 1994 (there was a big initiative that year to do a bunch of public-private partnership toll roads that year, of which SR 16/Tacoma Narrows Bridge was the only one to survive the process).

WSDOT has only supported an elevated replacement for the last year or so, and only because it became apparent that there just isn't enough regional political support for the tunnel, and also because a tunnel will be an expensive money pit that will likely draw local, State, and Federal funds away from every other project now under consideration.

Personally, I say retrofit those parts of the AWV that are most seismically challenged (ie - the section by Washington Street), and start developing a phased stand-alone plan for fixing the seawall.

After that, we should figure out how to serve the west side of Seattle with transit (BTW - I was never one that said the proposed Monorail route went nowhere - W.Seattle and Ballard to Downtown doesn't seem like nowhere to me, and ST has no plans to serve any neighborhoods west of I-5, and it'll be 2016 before they get to the ones they will cover) BEFORE we tear down the AWV.

But hey, what do I know? I just live here.

We should do now what all parties agree needs to be done: fix the seawall, surface improvements, temporary fixes to the viaduct to keep it from falling down in an earthquake. There's no reason not to approve this today and start work tomorrow.

While this is going on, we need to come up with a long-term plan that moves both people and freight (and only cars so long as those vehicles move more people and freight) along the corridor. Part of the plan to move people has to be rail transit, and Sound Transit is the proper agency to consider it. Part of long-term planning has to be enabling Sound Transit to do more projects more quickly. It's ridiculous that ST has planned rail expansion through 2030 (!) and this corridor is nowhere in those plans.

No.13: Peter, I briefly reviewd the
PS feasibility review you e-mailed, and I was rather shocked to read on Page 1, Comment No.1 and particularly at Page 3,Comment No.24 and quoted as follows:

"This "white paper" is an EIS screening document with the intent of looking at Long Span Bridges in Elliott Bay and dismissing them from further consideration based on a very high level look and not an exhaustive or even detailed look at the concept..."

It was the INTENT of WSDOT to dismiss the feasibility of a Bay Bridge proposal as a prerequisite of undertaking the study. The peer review and comments enclosed with the study certainly express frustration at the study's shallowness and are in some cases completely dismissive of this report.

In my opinion, this report was completely contrived, and utterly fails to confirm that a cable stayed bridge is not a cheaper, safer, less envasive and better proposal than what has been
presented to us so far.

Sure makes you wonder who has our best interests in mind, and certainly would suggest that a cable-stayed Bay Bridge or other bridge proposals (there were a number of peer reviewers who express interest in other bridge technologies),
continue to remain as valid a proposal as surface transit or your refit and
prepare proposal.

--- Jensen

Can anyone direct me to a website or online article that explains the cable-stayed/suspension option that keeps being referred to on different posts? I can't picture how such a bridge could be situated in the bay. Thanks much.

here's a starter

www.wsdot.wa.gov/NR/rdonlyres/ 7B735255-8893-4E41-94F1-B0610BEC629F/0/Elliott_Bay_Bridge_Aug06.pdf

The line break in that URL makes it harder to copy and paste. Here's a link to make it easier.

I for one am looking forward to hearing all sides debate the issues on the Viaduct, Tunnel and other sides at this month's 43rd District Democrats meeting in the U District - at the U Baptist Church, N 47th and two blocks west of University Ave.

Be good to hear an actual debate not just from the pro-tunnel and pro-viaduct side, but including people who favor the No-No side including the Surface Plus Transit, Retrofit, and Tear Down options - and maybe even that darned cable bridge thing which just sounds silly (sorry, I just don't get how that could meet the actual needs that the Viaduct currently fills).

interesting how self called futurists say do nothing

god, god, god, what a powerful grip on the future

middle class poorly educated white kids, claiming their rightful place at the table since mommie told them they had a lot to offer

Will, the only thing silly about a Bay Bridge proposal is WSDOT's apparent manufactured resistance it it. That, in itself should be a wake up call to everyone. Lastly, any proposal being put forth at this time will not fill
now or ever fill what the current Viaduct does. The Bay Bridge just
fills it better than the other proposals.

The rebuild and the repair.prepare options both do what our current viaduct does.

When the issue first came up I thought of the idea that we could build a single level bridge over the current bridge and only shut down the viaduct when the new connections needed to be made. I still think a bridge built over land with one deck could be considered. The support columns would much farther apart than the viaduct's but could be much closer together than the cable stayed which would mean they wouldn't need to be nearly as tall.
The single deck would eliminate the reflective sound and would allow the view from both directions (I know, people's good driving experiences should be minimized) and a sound wall could be built on the city side.

Just another option we could explore if we repair the current structure and get ready for removal of the viaduct.

Thank you Peter and Cascadian. Won't comment on Princess Caroline's claims that WSDOTs resistance is manufactured but the plan just looks odd.

Granted a bridge can be beautiful but the placement of this one would be like a 'wall' in the middle of the bay. Unlike the viaduct where much of downtown either looks over it or people can walk under it and enjoy the waterfront with this proposal the entire bay would be bisected by a big bridge.

The size requirements to make it work dictate that such a bridge be HUGE. The SF/OAKLAND Bay Bridge is works, despite being the largest steel structure in the world (or its claimed to be) because the expanse of water, SF Bay, is also HUGE. Eliott Bay really is not that big.

I think the best option seems to be the repair/prepare. The city and state are just not ready yet to do without capacity the viaduct provides but perhaps in 50 years.... For gods sake just don't build a new one.

I agree with CameronRex--the bridge plan just looks bizarre. I even tried thinking of other placement options, including further west (say, Harbor Island or Harbor Ave. to Battery or even Interbay), but the geography just doesn't work. The real problem with the bridge is that Elliott Bay isn't very big.

We need to come up with a realistic long-term plan that moves people and freight, without relying upon pre-conceived notions and prejudices. I have a hard time imagining any plan that maintains vehicle capacity along the corridor, though.