Comments on "It is a Practice Likely to Cease."

Yeah, normal cities would avoid it. But this is Seattle. DOUBLE DECKERS FOREVER!!!! Screw the dangers....

Well, fuckin a!! STOP THE FUCKING PRESSES!!! guess its settled... what is everyone thinking about another viaduct? It was in the BBC 18 fuckin years ago. Those engineers that put the plans together for Seattle must be smoking crack, or are just super dumb, what with the BBC declaring viaducts dead from 1989 to infinity and shit.

Building a viaduct now would be like Seattle building livery stables and installing telegraph lines. THANK ECB, you are right, viaduct supporters should really feel like shit eating yokels, now that you dug that article. What a bunch of dumbshits, huh erica?

tear that schitt down

News flash: they rebuilt the Cypress Freeway. Don’t you know, they’re all so retrograde and un-progressive down in the Bay Area, right?

Doth protest too much, I think.

So we should ignore relavent history, ignore the fact that 63 people died (because hell, that was a long time ago, who cares?)and ignore the fact that only an idiot would build a double-decker freeway on a freakin' earthquake fault zone!

It's like those morons who are building skyrise hotels on Trinidad's coastline even though soil erosion has caused it to sink several feet in just the past twenty years.

People want to build a double-decker freeway because mega-projects are make-work for business, contractors, consultants, bureaucrats, labor, and anyone else who benefits from the $2.8M it costs to build the thing.

Erica, it's not like we're going to build medium to high-grade transit in that area, so we really don't have a choice.

Make that $2.8B. That's billion with a "B". (What's a few billion here and there between friends?)

#6: Why not?

The money quote from bbc news:

The Governor of California, George Deukmajian, said: "I had been under the impression that the highways had been constructed to deal with any severe earthquake and I am very surprised to see what has happened to some of those."

Politicians, always surprised by the obvious.

deukmajian was an idiot. anyone who is politically aware and over 35 remembers that. the current Kali-fornia gov. reminds me of him quite a bit.

Next thing you know, they'll be building multi-story buildings!! Oh, the hubris of humanity.

only idiots would LIVE on a fault zone, much less connect built structures to the ground. you live on the west coast? then welcome to The Idiots Club.

Har har #11

#4: It took nine years and $1.2 billion dollars to rebuild the Cypress Freeway. The new freeway is not a double-decker. (Note: 90% of it was paid for by federal emergency relief dollars. Would they have rebuilt it if it wasn't?)

I just don't think we should replace this double-decker just because it's the option that's paid for. That doesn't seem like a compelling reason. That's like buying an outfit that looks terrible on you because you got it on sale.

If the rebuild vote goes down it won't be because of the WMD campaign in the Stranger it will be because of the DT big buck campaign and the general disgust with this stupid election.

For all the S&T now fans I would suggest you all do a little research on your leaders' position on building a grade separated rail to WS and Ballard - Check out Sims, Allied Arts, Conlin, the Weekly etc. - Josh and Dan have the high ground on this - the rest were either anti-tools or were not to be found on the issue.

I think many leaders discounted rail to WS and Ballard because they either supported a tunnel that in their minds made it redundant, or they were counting on the SMP Green Line to deal with it so they didn't have to, or both.

The tunnel and Green Line are both dead, and if the rebuild goes down in the advisory election local leaders will have to consider rail to and from these neighborhoods. It's the only thing left at that point. Citizens should focus on getting them to take this issue seriously, so that something can be put together within a ten-year timeframe.

I'm agnostic on the technology, so long as it has passenger capacity. If monorail's the only thing that can get up the hill to WS, then use that. If we can make light rail work and integrate it with the rest of the system, use that. If commuter rail can solve a big chunk of the problem faster for less money, do that now and plan for something better.

Honest question.

What's the survivability of any variant of the tunnel to a significant earthquake?

it would have to be engineered to survive earthquakes. codes require life safety.

the larger concern with a tunnel for me is climate change - will it still work if the tides are 5' higher?

the tunnel is moot. stop the rebuild.

I think it depends upon the earthquake. There is no such thing as earthquake-proof. All structures fail. Much of the code deals with having structures fail in "good" ways that give time for evacuation.

A surface street is going to be inherently safer than a tunnel or elevated structure. Further, a double-decker highway is intrinsically more difficult to engineer for earthquakes than a highrise.

The Seattle Fault is probably the most dangerous for the city would produce a Kobe-like earthquake. It basically parallels I-90 and continues out across the Sound to the Olympic Pinninsula, crossing right where the tunnel/rebuild/surface street would be.

@6 - why not? beats me why not - especially since WA gov projections and City of Seattle projections have us almost doubling our population in Seattle by 2040. So you'd think medium to high capacity transit would be a focus, right?

But it isn't.

At least they already zoned those areas for much taller buildings, so we all know the Wall Of Condos is already going to happen - as it does for every waterfront city that grows. Too bad we won't get parks like the good ones.